by Amy Braun
As awful as the ship looked, it was the lacklustre gold script that made my eyes widened. There was no mistaking that name, no matter how dull the cursive text had become.
I was staring at the Dauntless Wanderer. The infamous marauder ship that had belonged to Robertson and Davin Kendric. Sawyer’s cold-hearted father and ruthless brother.
Sawyer, the only Kendric still alive, scurried over the ladder, which had been perched near the gaping hole in the hull. The ladder didn’t appear to be moving or swaying from his motions. He made it look perfectly safe.
But he wasn’t as big as me. He could move quicker. He wasn’t bleeding like a stuck pig.
As if sensing my thoughts, Sawyer made it to the end of the Dauntless, stood on the iron hull of the ship, and waved his hand at me. We didn’t know where the other Hellions were, but with their superior hearing, shouting across the alley would definitely attract unwanted attention.
I hesitated, glancing at the ladder and the distance to the Dauntless Wanderer. It didn’t seem that far. A couple dozen feet, maybe. When I peered over the edge of the shattered wall into the street below, I couldn’t see anything or anyone lurking around the corners waiting to pick me off. This was the safest I had felt since I began this ludicrous plan.
So why was I hesitating?
I glanced at Sawyer again. He was still waiting, but I couldn’t tell if the look on his face was one of impatience, or concern. For a second, I thought I saw the loneliness again.
Whatever I saw suddenly cast the dark thoughts from my head. Sawyer’s family name no longer mattered, any more than my past in the Crater did. It was time to move on.
Or in this case, move into what I hoped was safe cover.
I knelt down and crawled along the ladder. It groaned and dipped slightly under my weight, but didn’t break. My heart thundered in my chest as I dragged my body from rung to rung, listening to the squeaking metal and hoping that I would be supported the whole journey. The right half of my chest burned every time I moved. I was panting with effort, beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I kept telling myself that the end was in sight that I could rest once I was inside the battered ship.
I finally made it across, flopping uselessly on the cool iron of the Dauntless’s exterior. Sawyer stumbled around beside me, grabbing the cranks identical to the ones that had been used in the apartment. He rotated the gears to drag the ladder into the ship. I was beyond exhausted, but I got to my knees and helped him. Sawyer didn’t stop me, though the hard set of his jaw and the concern in his eyes told me he didn’t think I was in a state to move, let alone help.
After glancing around to make sure there weren’t any Hellions, raiding skiffs, or Stray Dogs converging below us, Sawyer and I hefted the shortened ladder and brought it back over to the gaping hole in the hull. We dropped it down, scraping it along the metal floor until it felt secure.
My chest and left shoulder flared with pain every time I strained the damaged skin. I hoped I wouldn’t lose function in my arm, but there was no question that the wound would scar terrifically when I got it closed. If I ever got the chance.
I jerked back from the ladder and almost fell from the slanted floor. Or rather, the wall, since that was what I was standing on instead. I held out my hands to steady myself. After my balance was restored, I traced my eyes over the grim interior of the Dauntless Wanderer.
I think I was standing in the engine room. It was difficult to tell, as everything I laid my eyes on was melted or corroded away. The Dauntless must have been hit with some kind of explosive or possibly acidic cannon shot. The edges of the cannons were fractured from what must have been intense heat. Blackened boxes were tossed against the wall. Some were even cracked open, their contents either missing or scorched to an unusable degree. Cauterized wires dangled like tentacles along the tilted floor, their ends brushing against the wall. The wires seemed to be stretching toward a large metal cylinder a few feet away from where I was standing. I squinted, trying to see through the darkness to understand what the dented, punctured metal was.
“It’s the engine,” Sawyer answered grimly.
I turned my attention to him. He glanced longingly at the engine, then detached the ladder from its gears.
“Your engineer can’t fix it?” I asked. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”
Sawyer put the ladder against the “wall” as best as he could, then faced me. The frustration in his eyes almost hid the pain I spotted.
“Did you forget who I am? How easily I can be recognized by anyone with experience on a ship before The Storm? That most of the people who could help me are probably dead?” He sighed. “I’m alone, Nash. This is my family’s ship. I’m the captain, the first mate, the bo’sun, the rigger.” He scoffed. “I’m even the swabbie.”
The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Sawyer would have been a boy when The Storm shattered his world. Even if he watched the crew run the Dauntless Wanderer, even if he learned how the ship operated and what was required of every man on board, he had never been a captain. Now that the Dauntless was torn from the sky and the Wanderers were dead, Sawyer struggled to maintain the ship. To do every job by himself, because no one could stand to be near him. Not when the memories were so fresh. Not when it was assumed that the Kendrics and their Wanderer Clan were partly responsible for bringing the Hellions into Aon and to begin their massacre of Westraven. Eight years had passed since that those terrible days began, but people rarely forgot. These days, they almost never forgave, either.
“Then why stay?” I whispered. Sawyer said nothing. I nodded to the broken engine. “It doesn’t look like that will ever be fixed. Even if it were, you can’t let it sail again. The Hellions would shoot it down in an instant, and this time there wouldn’t be any scraps left.”
Sawyer’s eyes flashed with anger. “I know. Just like I know I have to fight off scavengers and vandals at every turn. Nobody can resist taking a shot at the Dauntless.”
“So why are you still here? You’re a hell of a fighter, Sawyer. There must be a marauder Clan or a colony that could use you.”
He shook his head and turned away. His hand went to the wall like he needed to brace it.
No. Not to brace it. To remember it. To know it’s real.
After a long, quiet moment, Sawyer said, “I’m not proud of my family’s history. Never have been, never will be. The only thing I hate more than remembering the things my father and brother did is everyone assuming that we were all like that.”
He must have sensed my quizzical look, because he glanced at me and sighed heavily.
“I had another brother. A younger one. Micah. Thought he was invincible, that he would be the king of the skies one day. If he wasn’t getting into trouble, he was looking for it.”
Sawyer smiled to himself, recalling a memory that seemed to both warm and pain him at the same time.
“Father never spent much time with him, and Davin scared him, so he stayed close to me.” Sawyer stifled a laugh. “He was all but welded to my side. Followed me everywhere, saying I was a better pirate than Davin, boasting that he would be just like me.”
There were no smiles this time. No mask to cover up his heartache.
“After he died in The Storm, I wandered around the city. I tried to find a place to live, but no one wanted another mouth to feed. No one trusted me. Even if they didn’t realize who I was, they shunned me. I didn’t contribute as much as I wanted to. All I could think about was Micah and the promise I never got to fulfill for him.
“A few months later, I found the Dauntless. I don’t know how or why I didn’t walk away. Maybe I just missed the damn ship. I grew up on it. All I could think about was the wind in my hair, the smell of the sky, the sights you could see when you were in the clouds…” He gazed ahead, seeing something I couldn’t.
“There were some scavengers taking pieces of the Dauntless. Supplies. I don’t know if they were trying to survive or looking to sell the parts for loot. But I snap
ped. I attacked them. Barely let them live.”
Sawyer shoved a rough hand through his hair and gripped it tightly. “After that, I realized how much like my father and brother I was becoming. That I was dishonoring Micah’s memory. And I refused to do that.” He let go of his hair and glanced up at the charred roof of the Dauntless. “So I came back home. Decided that the least I could do was look after the ship.”
He fell silent for a long time, then suddenly recalled everything he told me, a stranger who fought him, helped him escape, and nearly died for him. He frowned, like he didn’t know what to do with me now. Glad I wasn’t the only one who seemed to be having that problem.
“You’ll be safe here,” Sawyer said after a long minute. “The good stuff has already been looted from the Dauntless, but I’ve been recollecting it. I’ll come back and look after your wound. The bullet probably went through, but we have to clean it and stitch it up before it gets infected.”
I nodded, pressing my back to the ruined wall as he shuffled past me. Sawyer reached the door at the end of the hall, leaning awkwardly to the side to pull it open from its new angle.
“Sawyer.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. I opened my mouth to speak, but words escaped me. What would I say? What could I say? Nothing I’d ever experienced was quite like his life. I wasn’t sure if I had it better or worse than he did. I’d lost my family too. A mother, a father, two siblings. I was taken and thrown into a life I didn’t want, one that nearly killed me.
But I was still alive. Despite it all, I continued to survive.
“Thank you,” was all I could manage.
Sawyer nodded, then turned and left the engine room. Gratitude seemed to be enough for him.
Chapter 10
It was a miracle that I didn’t die in the days that followed my escape. Medical equipment and kits were among the first things Sawyer had collected, as he informed me before he stitched my wound closed. He said that he used to do this for the other Wanderers more often than not, since it was the only thing they wanted him to do. They didn’t seem to notice or care that he spent the rest of his time training with swords, knives, and pistols.
Still, it was touch-and-go for a long time. I fought off fevers and felt every bruise on my skin as though the fists were colliding with it again. But Sawyer kept me company. He brought food, water, clean clothes, anything I needed. We shared stories and talked as though we were old friends. He was the first person since Sonya that I felt I could actually have a conversation without being immediately pummelled after.
I told him I had to find Sonya and make sure she was all right. I had to see if I could make it over the barricade.
A week after my recovery, Sawyer agreed it was time to return to Davy’s farm.
The walk was long and arduous, but it felt good to be out of the Dauntless’s charred interior. Though I had to admit that I glanced over my shoulder at the ship a couple times, wondering what it would look like if Sawyer did manage to restore it like he told me he would. It would be a long, strenuous job, but at least he would have something to do with his time.
Me… I was just going to do my best to survive in another part of the world.
By the time we made it to the outskirts of Westraven to Davy’s farm, the sun was starting to set. The sky was a much darker grey than before. It would be a treacherous walk through the night in unknown territory past the barricade, but I would just have to keep going until I found some kind of shelter to rest in.
We saw some Hellion skiffs rise back to the Behemoth on our journey, giving us no reason to be careless. Especially since I could have sworn there were some human corpses impaled on the spikes at the bow of the ships.
There was little the monsters couldn’t see, and they would need little motivation to return to the city for a late night hunt. Or if they decided to get some payback for the two Hellions that Sawyer had killed.
The young marauder captain glanced out from the shelter of the decomposing apartments. His head swivelled back and forth for a couple seconds before he bolted out of cover and sprinted for the farm. I followed close to his heels, grateful for the week of rest I’d gotten before we agreed it was time for me to move on. My left shoulder was stiff, but I was moving it every day determined to make it stronger than before.
Sawyer stopped at the fence’s gate. He glanced at the metal box beside the lock and gingerly plucked out two wires from the bottom. I tensed, hoping he knew what he was doing. Sawyer claimed to be many things, but he said nothing about being an engineer.
He finished tying the wires together and stepped back. He caught my wary eye and smirked.
“Davy showed me the trick. Hasn’t failed me yet.”
I was about to point out the “yet” in that sentence when Sawyer grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it open. He wasn’t electrocuted on the spot, so I hurried and followed him past the metal fence.
Sawyer crossed the distance of the property and bounded up the steps of Davy’s home. He closed his fist and beat on the door. I stayed close to his back, looking over my shoulder and scanning the growing darkness. The shadow of night cast a slate grey tone to the dust-white buildings. Silence drifted through the city. Not even the barest whisper could be heard. All of Westraven had become a smashed, haunted ruin.
My eyes trailed up to where the Behemoth lingered like a spider in its web. What I wouldn’t have given to watch it blasted from the clouds, like it had done to so many airships before it. But eight years of unpredictable slaughters had broken most of our defiant spirits. I didn’t think there was anyone alive who was capable of destroying the Behemoth. Sawyer was probably the only person in recent history that had managed to kill any Hellions, at least as far as I knew.
Sawyer pounded on the door again. It was pulled open before he reached his third knock. I turned around, and watched Sonya come into view.
I almost didn’t recognize her. Her blonde hair and pale skin were free of dirt, her shape plumper and healthier, her clothes big but comfortable on her body. Though the biggest change was her eyes. There was no longer pain in their dark brown depths. No more despair or fear. They were illuminated, lively. When she saw me and smiled, it was a real smile. The most beautiful I’d ever seen on her.
“Nash,” she breathed. Sonya hurried out of the door and nudged past Sawyer, throwing her arms around my chest and hugging me tight. I winced a little at the pain she sent through my new scar, but I didn’t try to dislodge her. This might be the last time I saw her. I wanted to remember her happiness.
“I thought you were dead,” Sonya muttered into my chest. “When you were shot, I...”
My arms circled her shoulders so I could push her back. I smiled.
“We ran into some trouble, but I’m fine.” I looked at the man at my side. “Sawyer looked after me.”
The young marauder shrugged, like it was no big deal. Like he did it on a daily basis.
Sonya looked at him and removed herself from my arms. She was a little shorter than him, so she had to arch on her toes to kiss the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you,” I heard her breathe.
Sawyer grinned roguishly before cupping her chin and pressing a kiss to her mouth. Sonya startled a little bit, but quickly melted into his embrace. It was the only reason I didn’t pull Sawyer away from her and give him a solid smack in the face.
They finally parted, Sawyer grinning at the red flush Sonya’s cheeks had taken. He caught my glare and looked at me, shrugging again.
“What can I say?” he teased. “I like blondes.”
I blinked, then turned my attention back to Sonya. “How have you been? Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Davy’s treated me wonderfully. He hasn’t laid a hand on me.”