The Dark Sky Collection: The Dark Sky Collection

by Amy Braun

  “He’s gone. He dragged me over here before I was knocked out.”

  “What do you mean?” Nash asked, slowly walking closer with Gemma. She hadn’t said a word since the crash began, leading me to see how shaken she was. Healing her arm would be difficult, but I knew Nash would move mountains to get care for her.

  Sawyer captured my attention again when he stood up, took my hands, and helped me to my feet. I felt steady enough, but his hands lingered on me until I pulled away. He wiped the blood away from his head, trying and failing to act casual.

  “After the other Hellions burned up, I got in a lucky strike. I thought I knocked him out, and had to glide the ship in. Just before we touched ground, he grabbed me and pulled me from the helm. He promised me the Vesper would get his revenge, and the Hellions would finish what our families started. Then he kicked me and knocked me out. I don’t know if he lived after that or not.”

  But we all agreed on the same thing. If we couldn’t see Davin’s body, then he likely escaped. I was certain we hadn’t seen the last of him. He didn’t seem like the type that was easy to kill. We destroyed the airship he’d likely captained, and he wasn’t going to shrug away this defeat. The only reason he left us alive was because he wanted to torture us to death with his bare hands.

  I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself, instinctively grasping the skeleton key tucked under my shirt. As I turned it over in my fingers, I thought about the warning Davin gave Sawyer. What revenge was he talking about? The Discovery hadn’t exactly been welcomed by the Hellions, but what could the explorers and the marauders have done to make this race of monsters so vengeful?

  I stopped turning the key and gripped it tightly, shoving it under my shirt. I could no longer run from the truth like I wanted to. I needed answers, which meant tracking down anything I could from my parents’ old lives and finding out what they had planned to do with the key. If it could close the Breach like Garnet said it could, maybe it would keep the Vesper and the Hellions from continuing their attack. I could only hope that they didn’t have another massive airship like the Behemoth waiting in their world. There was no way we could endure a second Storm.

  Glancing past Nash and Gemma, I looked through the destroyed window that framed Westraven. We had landed somewhere in the market district, close enough to the underground that they would have definitely heard the crash over their heads.

  I walked past the marauders to the window, stepping out of it and feeling the cool, early winter breeze on my face. Dust fluttered to the ground while I stood in the middle of destruction. It was impossible to tell if anyone had been crushed under the Behemoth, but I couldn’t let my thoughts linger on that idea. Not when my mind was spinning over what we had accomplished.

  I turned and looked up at the Behemoth. It still retained most of its shape, but the smoke no longer coughed out of the stern. Its raging engines were silent, and the docking bay and skiffs were crumpled messes under the ship’s weight.

  We’d done it. The impossible. We tore the Behemoth from the sky.

  I lifted my head, sure it was all a painful dream. But all I could see were grey clouds and tiny, falling snowflakes. A huge weight released from my chest.

  The Behemoth had been destroyed.

  I stared at the sky, and saw nothing. No raiding skiffs, all of them shattered in the crash or stolen by the victims. No ghastly ship looming over our heads, taunting us with its power and striking fear into our hearts. Nothing but rippling grey cloud.

  Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t remember a time when the sky looked more beautiful. I smiled.

  Voices behind me caught my attention. I turned and watched as a handful of survivors emerged from behind the broken buildings. They moved tentatively, peeking out from corners and manhole covers like mice waiting to see if the cat was gone. I recognized some of them from Garnet’s colony. After so long underground, they had to squint to adjust their eyes to the brightness around them. They looked even paler and sicker in the light, but they continued to move closer. They had to see the fallen ship for themselves. They had to know they weren’t dreaming. The Behemoth could no longer haunt them. There would no longer be raids that kidnapped husbands and wives, sons and daughters. They were safe.

  For now, I reminded myself. Davin and the Vesper are still out there. The Hellions will return. This moment isn’t going to last.

  But I would take it. I would breathe it in and remember that for the first time in a decade, I could stand without fear. I could look at the skies and stop fearing that a skiff would come and separate me from my sister.

  Thinking of her drew my attention away from the survivors as they approached the ruined airship. I heard their skepticism and disbelief. Praise was given to the marauders as they exited the cockpit, and many survivors were talking about what could be salvaged. They intended to take the Behemoth apart and use any parts they could. It seemed fitting to me.

  But I couldn’t care less about the Behemoth’s deconstruction. I looked away from the survivors, and searched the empty spaces between buildings, hoping to see the only person who mattered to me.

  After spinning in circles and seeing nothing, my eyes stopped on a small blonde girl with big eyes and bloody clothes. My heart skipped when I saw Abby. I forced my aching legs to work as I ran to her. I didn’t even know she was still with Riley until she yanked her hand from his and raced toward me, tears bursting from her eyes. My heart swelled with joy as I dropped to my knees and opened my arms. She collided with me and wrapped me in a tight hug, accidentally reminding me of all the bruises and cuts I had.

  But those didn’t matter. She was safe and alive. I stroked her hair and soothed her, promising that I was all right. Abby held me tight, her tiny body shaking against mine.

  “I thought you were gone,” she whispered. “You left me and the ship crashed and I thought–”

  I pulled out of her embrace and held her shoulders. Tears streaked Abby’s dirty cheeks. She couldn’t stop crying or shaking. I knew it hadn’t been easy for her to watch me leave, knowing what I would do, but I’d never meant to hurt her.

  “I’m so sorry, Abby,” I whispered. “I had to stop them. I just… I had to.”

  Abby broke into fresh tears and buried her face in my chest, tightening her grip more than an eight year old girl should have been able to.

  “Don’t go again, Claire,” she sobbed, her tears wetting my shirt. “Please don’t go. I won’t have anybody if you leave. I won’t know what to do, I’ll be scared–”

  I shushed her, stroking her tangled hair and holding back tears of my own. “I’m not going anywhere, Abigail. Never again. The monsters are gone. Nothing can hurt you. I won’t let anything hurt you ever again.”

  A flicker of doubt crossed through my mind when I made that promise, but I crushed it before it grew. Losing Abby had been devastating. I wouldn’t let it happen a second time. I would die first.

  “She’s a brave girl.”

  Still cradling Abby, I looked up to find Riley kneeling down in front of us. A gentle grin softened his features, but it didn’t hide the scars on his body. His striking blue eyes were alert and easygoing. He hid his trauma better than anyone else I knew.

  “When she saw where you were going to land,” he deftly avoided the word ‘crash’, “she directed us where to go. She almost jumped off the skiff before I landed it, she was so determined to get to you.”

  I threaded my fingers through Abby’s hair, grateful she’d stopped shaking. “She is brave,” I agreed. “Thank you, Riley.”

  He smiled and waved his hand. “There’s no need, Claire. You were the one that rescued me. Protecting your sister is the least I could do.”

  Carefully prying myself from Abby’s embrace, I took my sister’s hand and stood up. My body felt stiff and pained when I moved, but Riley was quick to take my elbow and steady me. I forced a smile onto my face when I stood up.

  “Where are the others?” I asked when I looked over
his shoulder and couldn’t see any of the other hundred emaciated men, women, and children.

  Riley’s smile turned into a frown. “Seems that those volunteers weren’t lying about their skill. While I was in the air, they split up. They all sailed over Westraven, but in different directions. I swore one or two were going for the barricades. I couldn’t track them all. The ones that touched ground close to us were gone when we landed. I had to make sure Abby didn’t get hurt, so I don’t know where they went. I’m not sure how many we’ll see again.”

  I nodded. “Good.”

  He blinked, confused. “Good?”

  “Yes. They’ve been trapped in that awful place for who knows how long. They deserve to run wherever they want now that they’re free.”

  A hundred lives had been spared torture from the Hellions. I couldn’t say what would happen to them now, but I hoped that they would find some kind of peace. At least it would be their own.

  Riley’s confusion disappeared and became a smile again. My heart warmed at the sight of it.

  “Do you know where you’ll go?” I asked. I was grateful for the way he guarded Abby. I wanted him to live a life that would distract him from the nightmares he was bound to have.

  He shrugged. “Part of me wanted to ask Sawyer if I could join his crew, but I don’t know if he’d have me along.”

  I frowned. “Why not?”

  “Partly because he doesn’t trust me, and would trust me less if he knew I was the son of a Sky Guard.” He smirked. “It’s a good thing my father showed me a thing or two about flying smaller ships. Otherwise I might have crashed the skiff you set me on instead of landing it smoothly.”

  His words were teasing, but I still gaped. The Sky Guards were the soldiers of Westraven, among the first casualties when the Hellions attacked in The Storm. Before that, their sole purpose had been hunting down and arresting marauders.

  “Also, I don’t think he’d want me to get close to you. I saw him looking at you when the battle started, and he seems like the dangerously jealous type.”

  I scowled. “Sawyer doesn’t have feelings for me. If anything, I’m a new, useful friend. He doesn’t see me the way you think he does, and he doesn’t control my heart.”

  Riley beamed at that. I couldn’t stop the flush that filled my cheeks. “Then I may change my mind. Are you part of his crew?”

  “Not yet, but he’s asked. We haven’t talked about it in a while, and with everything that’s happened, I don’t know how well we’d work together.”

  I glanced at the ground, wishing I could sort out my thoughts. I cared about Sawyer, nearly broke when I thought he was dead, but couldn’t look past the knowledge that was he Davin Kendric’s brother. He went back and forth with me, rushing to my side at one instant then running away from me the next. I wasn’t sure I could handle that kind of push and pull from someone who made it clear they weren’t interested in me.

  Riley walked closer to me, resting his hand on my shoulder. I looked into his brilliant blue eyes and felt words escape me.

  “You’re an extraordinary woman, Claire. Anyone can see that. Sawyer will want to have you around, but you’re more than a worker. Anyone who can’t see that is a fool, and doesn’t deserve you.”

  I could have swooned. For most of my life, all I had been was an engineer. The only thing anyone wanted me for was to repair something they often broke themselves. I was seen as a tool, not as a person. That was the only reason Sawyer agreed to work with me.

  But Riley didn’t see me that way. After spending so much time with monsters, he would see me as a person, someone to spend time with and know rather than a resource. I couldn’t do anything about my blush when it finally filled my cheeks, but Riley didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he smiled more, and leaned closer to me. My heart jumped.

  “We should get back,” I said before he could do… whatever he planned to do. “We’re all pretty tired.”

  Riley tilted back and nodded, still smiling but looking somewhat disappointed. He grinned at Abby then walked toward the Behemoth. I turned to follow him and caught Sawyer’s eye. He had been watching us, and he didn’t look pleased. He quickly turned away and walked to Gemma and Nash, but there was no mistaking what I’d seen on his face when he looked at me.

  Anger, hurt, and sadness. Maybe Riley was right. Maybe Sawyer wasn’t willing to share.

  But I wasn’t a possession. I was freed from Garnet and the Hellions. I was able to make choices for myself, and the only person who would never ask me to give them up was the same person I would die for.

  Abby stared at the Behemoth with fear and wonder. She sensed me looking at her and met my eyes, giving me a weak smile.

  It was small, but it was a start. This day was a new start for all of us.

  Chapter 16

  Abby’s scream woke me up for the second time that night.

  I shot up from where I was sleeping in the cabin and scurried over to her side, quickly wrapping her in my arms and using my chest to muffle her cries. I rocked her gently, smoothing her hair and telling her she was safe. Abby’s screams lessened, but her tears flowed freely. I held her and exhaled.

  The two weeks that followed the collapse of the Behemoth weren’t as smooth as I hoped they would be. Fights and riots broke out over Westraven as the colonies emerged from the underground, everyone desperate to take whatever they could from the destroyed ship and hold it over their heads. It was only luck and a well-timed punch from Sawyer that let me get the Volt back from a greedy man who was ready to break my arm for it.

  It only took a week after the Behemoth’s fall for other factions of marauders to come out of hiding and take control of whatever and whomever they could. Sawyer said he stayed away from them, but I didn’t believe he wasn’t talking to them when he went on scavenging missions with Nash. He claimed he was trying to find information on Davin, and maybe he was, but I didn’t voice my disbelief.

  Gemma’s arm was still healing in its cast, but she avoided infection and returned to her usual, chatty self.

  Even Riley was adapting to his new position as the Dauntless’ rigger. Despite his initial reluctance to add him to the crew, Sawyer grudgingly admitted he needed more help manning his ship, and that Riley had natural skill.

  The only one having trouble adapting was Abby.

  Her nights were constantly plagued by visions of the Hellions. They became so bad that we had to sleep on the opposite end of the ship so the others could rest. Constantly waking up to comfort her was exhausting, but Abby needed an anchor to reality, especially now that we were in the air again.

  “I’m sorry, Claire,” my sister mumbled.

  “Shh, no,” I soothed, pulling back to smile softly at her. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  I tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Abby looked better than she had in years, cleaner and fuller now that Sawyer was trading in Westraven freely. But the green eyes that I knew and loved so well were haunted now. Abby never really talked about her time on the Behemoth, and I didn’t ask. I wasn’t going to force her to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. It was enough that she suffered through it. I wanted to put that horrible time behind us and build a better life for my little sister.

  Yet I always asked in case she needed to clear her mind, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  As always, Abby shook her head. She snuggled close to me, resting her head on my shoulder. “I just want it to go away,” she murmured. “I want it to be over.”

  I rubbed her arm slowly, reminding myself that the needles were gone from her body. She was safe here with me.

  “It will,” I promised her. “It’ll take time, but the nightmares will go away. I’ll stay with you until they do.”

  Abby bit her lip. “I know you will, but they won’t go away, Claire. They’re just getting started.”