The Dark Sky Collection: The Dark Sky Collection
Page 48
Sawyer wasn’t.
But he turned away from me and gazed out onto the deck. I didn’t say anything. I just stood with him in silence.
My eyes fell on Abby, who was pointing at the sky with Riley. He smiled and nodded at something she said, grinning when she scribbled in her notebook. I smiled to myself, relieved she had one thing to enjoy in her life.
“You’d be good with him, you know.”
I looked at Sawyer, who nodded at the traumatized survivors. “Riley. He’s falling hard and fast for you. He’d worship you if you asked.”
Maybe the captain was right, but I also noticed that he was grumpy and hostile around Riley when I was close to him. Despite what he pretended, Sawyer wasn’t about to give me up easily. It could have been sweet if my life wasn’t already so complicated.
“But I guess you want to find a way to close the Breach first.”
I broke out of my trance and found Sawyer looking at the skeleton key. I didn’t even remember taking it out, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Close the Breach? Are you insane?”
Sawyer smirked. “I remember saying something like that to you when you wanted to take down the Behemoth. You have a way of challenging the impossible.”
“But… The Breach. I… Where would I even start?”
He shrugged. “No idea. But it wouldn’t be you alone. If you really do intend to stay, then you’re one of us, Firecracker. If you want to go, I won’t stop you. You’ll always have a home here.”
Home. A word I hadn’t known in so long. I barely thought about my childhood home anymore. I could scarcely remember all the places I’d lived before we entered the colony. Garnet’s colony, which was never a home.
The Dauntless was still new to me, newer to Abby. I would never label myself a marauder. But it was growing familiar to me. Comfortable.
It could be a home, some day.
But it was a home that would be destroyed as long as the Breach remained open.
“Do you think it’s possible?” I asked softly. The hope growing in my chest weakened my voice. “Do you think there’s really a way to close the Breach?”
“I don’t know, but if it was opened then it makes sense that it could be closed. For argument’s sake, let’s say that it is. What would your plan be?”
My fingers found the key under the collar of my shirt. I pulled it out and turned it between my thumb and index finger. “Find clues. My parents’ notes, the ship they were on, things like that. Learn everything I can about the Breach. How exactly it was opened. What it would take to reverse the process. If it can be reversed. If not, finding a way to block it. Doing whatever it takes to make sure the Hellions can’t get through ever again.”
The more I spoke, the stronger my voice became. The harder my heart beat. The more potent my determination became.
And I began to forget the pain. The fear in Abby’s eyes. The uncertainty of where I truly belonged. The pain of Sawyer’s denial. This was something new I could focus on. A goal that needed to be accomplished. This was an impossible mission.
As Sawyer said, I had a way of challenging the impossible.
Sawyer whistled in a low voice. “Sounds difficult. You’re going to need help.”
I looked at him again. Saw a familiar gleam in his dusky eyes. The gleam that wouldn’t let me give up on him, or what we could have. “Are you offering?”
Sawyer shrugged his eyebrows and smirked. “Why not? It’s not like I have anything better to do with my time yet. And if we’re being technical, I owe you for saving my life a few times. This would probably make us even.”
His grin warmed my heart, filling me with desire again. I smiled to the best of my ability, quickly looking away so Sawyer wouldn’t know that he was still hurting me. Riley seemed like a good man and didn’t want to use me, but I knew then that I would always be pulled back to Sawyer. I wasn’t used to being torn, and I didn’t think the situation was going to end well.
As I lifted my gaze to the dark sky ahead, my heart’s desires were pushed aside. The Breach was out there, an open door welcoming Hellions back into our world. Word of the Behemoth’s destruction had likely gotten to the mysterious Vesper now, and I couldn’t imagine he was pleased. He would come for our blood, and wouldn’t stop until he’d drained us of every last drop.
And the secret to stopping him lay against my chest. I didn’t know what it would lead me to, but I was determined to find a way to follow my mother’s footsteps and close the Breach.
Every survivor believed in the impossible to stay alive. Hopes and dreams were too often crushed by the harsh reality of our world and lives.
Yet as I stood in the clouds under the moon, feeling the cool wind caress my face and hair, whispering of freedom and adventure, I knew I wouldn’t give up. I was determined to risk the impossible.
A small smile came across my face when I found that the darkness never seemed so bright.
THE END
MIDNIGHT SKY
A Dark Sky Novel
Amy Braun
Midnight Sky, a Dark Sky novel by Amy Braun
© 2016 by Amy Braun. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the author.
Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Design
ISBN: 978-0-9938758-8-5
Chapter 1
They were going to get us killed.
I leaped to the side as Sawyer and the Rattail he was fighting slammed into the tavern wall. Sawyer grunted but kept the larger man at bay. He jabbed his knee into the man’s stomach, getting the advantage and then slugging the grimy-skinned marauder in the jaw. He whirled on me, his tawny eyes filled with wildness and fire.
“What are you doing in here?” my captain growled.
I took a breath to argue, then turned my head when the Rattail surged forward and tried to hit Sawyer again. I made my point by lunging, striking the man in the face with my fist just as Riley had taught me. I didn’t have the muscles the Sky Guard’s son did, but my hit disoriented the Rattail enough for Sawyer to grab him by the shirt and pound his head into the wall.
He dropped the unconscious man and whirled on me again, still furious. “I told you to wait outside!”
“Seems like you could use help,” I barked.
Sawyer narrowed his eyes to slits. If I weren’t part of his crew, I would be afraid of him. Sawyer was the son of one of the most dangerous pirate Clans ever to exist. He wasn’t the kind of person to be crossed.
But after being on his crew for three months, I knew he would never hurt me, and that his pride– and arrogance– often got in the way of his safety.
“We can handle it,” he snapped.
A heavy crash caught our attention. Nash and two Rattails were lying on the ground, caught in a scuffle among the remains of a broken table. Nash was bleeding from a cut at the corner of his eyebrow, but he didn’t seem to notice the injury. He rolled onto his feet, grabbed a broken table leg and used it like a baton, swinging and smashing it into the heads of his attackers.
A few feet behind him, Nash’s lover Gemma was hanging on the back of a Rattail. Her arm was wrapped around his throat as she tried to choke him unconscious, screaming like a banshee. The Rattail growled and stumbled back, slamming Gemma into the wall. She cried out, but maintained her grip. He drove her back twice more before she was forced to release him. The Rattail roared and whirled around with a savage punch that would have caused Gemma serious injury if she hadn’t ducked and rolled away. She came up in front of the Rattail and started her assault again.
As efficiently as my crew was fighting, they were still outnumbered. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the Rattail Clan barged in and beat the life from us.
My captain said nothing, though I imagined his teeth were grinding behind the firm set of his lips. He glanced over my shoulder, his body going rigid. Riley must have come in.
“Keep her here,” ordered Sawyer.
He spun on his heel and took off to find another fight. There were still four Rattails engaging in the brawl–strong, bulky pirate brutes with meaty fists, soiled clothes, and scraggly hair tied at the nape of their necks to give them their name.
Nash, the dark-skinned, heavyset quartermaster dressed in dark work clothes, was throwing punches hard enough to split wood, but each strike was slower than the last. Gemma hadn’t drawn her any weapons, relying on her speed and grace allowed by her tightknit sweater, pants, and combat boots. She carried a variety of pistols and knives on her belt, but the feisty brunette didn’t have any more muscle than I did.
As for Sawyer… he was being reckless. He was dressed to his roguish nature, dashing in his military coat that hung to his waist, the buckled pirate boots, and cutlass strapped around his hip. Like Gemma, he remained unarmed, not wanting to incite death and the true wrath of the Rattails. We had just come here for information.
But Sawyer was throwing himself at three enemies. He was being sloppy. His temper was shorter these days, his surliness more prominent than before. If he kept acting this way, he was going to get himself killed.
Sawyer absorbed a punch to his kidney, wincing as he snapped an elbow back into his attacker’s face. Another blow landed in his stomach, winding him again. I took a step forward, but a hand clasped my shoulder.
I glanced at Riley, Sawyer’s newest rigger and my designated bodyguard. The white dress shirt, grey vest, pinstripe pants, and black boots made him look more gallant than his company, but the clothing did little to hide the muscles he’d been building since joining Sawyer and the Wanderers.
I thought his job to protect me was unnecessary, but given what I wore around my neck and the creature rumored to be hunting me, the crew wasn’t taking any chances.
“We should stay out of this, Claire,” he cautioned, bright blue eyes watching me with concern. “Sawyer has it under control.”
I shrugged his hand off and scowled. “Does that look like control to you?”
Riley winced, then glanced at the brawl. After a moment, he sighed heavily, resigned. “Stay back.”
He stalked forward without another word, and I fought the temptation to follow him. Despite having trained me in basic self-defense over the last few months, Riley had the same problem Sawyer did when it came to accepting my help in fights–they said no because they didn’t want me to get hurt.
Sawyer was too stubborn to ask for help, though I always wondered why he didn’t have Riley come with him in hostile situations like this. Sawyer was a good fighter, but Riley…
No one saw him coming. He came up behind the man attacking Nash’s unprotected back and grabbed the man’s arm as it extended for a punch. The Rattail looked at Riley in surprise, and was immediately punched in the face. He stumbled back, but Riley still held onto his arm. He dragged the Rattail forward and slammed his arm across the man’s chest. His legs flew up almost comically before he was driven into the ground, unconscious.
His next target was the Rattail who had Gemma pinned to the wall with both hands around her neck. Riley was there in a heartbeat, slamming both his fists down on the Rattail’s arms. The man barked in surprise, turning to Riley, who maintained his grip on his wrists. He jabbed his knee into the Rattail’s stomach twice, released his hands, and snapped his elbow across the man’s jaw. He kicked him in the stomach until he was doubled over, then grabbed the nape of his neck and drove his knee into the Rattail’s face. Riley dropped the marauder, who didn’t get up again.
He swerved to where Sawyer was being battered by the last two Rattails. The young captain was on the defensive, unable to find an opening to fight back. Riley appeared on Sawyer’s right side, leaping and sending a powerful kick into the side of the closest Rattail. The man yelped and stumbled into his friend, both of them falling out of Sawyer’s range. Riley advanced, kicking the left man’s inner knee and jabbing the face of the man on the right. He released a flurry of punches, moving almost too fast for my eyes to see.
Blow after blow landed on the Rattails, who couldn’t even get their arms up to defend themselves. Riley stepped back and swung a wide roundhouse kick that collided with both of their jaws, knocking them to the side. One man’s head struck the wall with a loud crack. He slumped to the floor and remained motionless. Riley kicked the chest of the last Rattail, sending him careening into the tavern’s wooden beam. The Rattail stumbled forward at the same moment Riley’s foot snapped up and caught him in the chin. He grunted, then collapsed on his stomach in a heap.
He stared at the men he had attacked, making sure they wouldn’t rise again. Satisfied, he turned to Sawyer, who was slumped on the floor holding his ribs. Riley held out his hand to help him up. Sawyer glared at him, then stood on his own with a quiet grunt.
“Nash, Gemma, you okay?” Sawyer asked, purposefully ignoring Riley.
“Fine,” grumbled Gemma. She was standing with her lover, drawing her fingers over the cut on his eyebrow, as if her touch would stop the bleeding. Nash was doing the same thing to her neck, touching her like he feared she would break.
“Did you learn anything?” asked Riley, walking over to my side. “With all of this bluster, you must have gotten some information.”
I stepped closer, eager to hear what the crew said. Sawyer had heard rumors that the Rattails came across a ship that hadn’t been pillaged since The Storm. A decade of abandonment would leave the ship in scraps, but without the Hellions to dog the air over our heads, the scavengers had become more confident in their hunts. There was little they wouldn’t risk, even less that they wouldn’t claim for themselves.
Sawyer looked at me. The exhaustion and strain of the fight wore on his shoulders. His temper still flared in his golden eyes, but I saw something else there. A haunted look that resembled mourning when he looked at me and saw Riley nearby.
“Was their ship named the Centurion?” Sawyer asked blandly, erasing the grief I thought I’d seen.
I shook my head while my heart sank. The name didn’t bring back any memories that would lead me closer to my parents’ ship. Gut instinct told me it was the wrong one.
“Then no,” he said quietly, as if he were sorry he couldn’t find the answer for me. Sawyer rubbed his bruised sides. “Doubt they would have given us much anyway. They were more interested in settling old scores.”
I waited for Sawyer to give an explanation. He didn’t. I turned to Gemma and Nash, who were still huddled close together.
“One of them recognized Sawyer as a Kendric,” Nash explained. “The Rattails were old rivals of the Wanderers. They had some bad run-ins with Davin, and... well.”
Nash shrugged, but he was just as uneasy as the rest of us. Ever since the fall of the Behemoth, no one had seen or heard from the Hellions. But with the old marauder Clans returning to the surface, tensions became high. The Wanderers were once the most feared marauder crew in all of Westraven because of stonehearted Captain Robertson Kendric’s and his eldest son, the cruel ravager known as Davin Kendric.
Sawyer’s father and older brother.