The Dark Sky Collection: The Dark Sky Collection

by Amy Braun

  “Promise me you won’t trust him. Not until you know the absolute truth about his time on the Behemoth. Not until he tells you everything.”

  Desperation filled his eyes. He was all but begging me to take his side. He wanted my permission to condemn Riley and throw him into the cold.

  Between this and earlier shame, I had no idea what was tearing him apart–if all the things he said were truly troubling him, or if there was something else underneath it all. Something he was keeping from me. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  I slowly pulled his hands away from my shoulders. I pushed them against his chest. Riley was my friend. I knew he was innocent. I wouldn’t condone anything that would get him hurt. There were bags under Sawyer’s eyes and heaviness around his shoulders. He hadn’t slept, and it was wearing on his mind.

  “He saved my life, Sawyer. He’s trying to help Abby. He knows where the Breach is. He’s a good man, and I trust him. Davin messing with you. He wants you to be sloppy and make mistakes. That’s how he’ll take advantage of you.” It’s how he’ll kill you.

  Sawyer hardly moved, yet the strife in his eyes remained. A battle raged inside him, its sides unknown to me. But I could see the losses, the pain he was bearing. It twisted my heart to see him like this, knowing he wouldn’t let me help him. He would shut me out. When I reached out to touch his face, he stepped back.

  Knowing that’s what he would do didn’t lift the weight from my heart.

  “You’re right,” he muttered. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m not like this.” He took the cutlass from the table behind him and sheathed it into the scabbard on his belt. “If you want to see Abby before we leave, this is the time.”

  “Sawyer...”

  He was already walking past me, acting as though he didn’t hear my silent plea. Maybe he hadn’t. The prospect didn’t seem so bad. It was better than thinking he heard the pain in my voice, and chose to ignore it.

  ***

  A foolish part of me hoped that Gemma and Riley were lying about Abby’s condition. They knew how much my sister meant to me. If she so much as suffered a paper cut, I would overreact.

  Walking into the cabin of the Dauntless Wanderer and seeing her on the bed almost brought me to tears.

  I stood in the doorway, struggling to breathe and feeling my heart strangle in my throat, looking at the tiny form on the bed. The little girl twisted in the sheets had pasty, grey skin and hollow cheeks. The night shirt and pants she wore hung over her frail body, so thin I could probably curl my thumb and pinky around her wrist. If I lifted the shirt, I would likely be able to count her ribs. Even her hair seemed to lose its life, the shimmering blonde curls now replaced with lackluster yellow snarls and tangles. Dark spots circled her eyes, her lips chapped and peeling. There was no pink to her cheeks, no signs of life other than the beads of sweat on her sickly skin and the rapid rise and fall of her chest. She was the breathing corpse of the sister I loved.

  Each step I took to the bed seemed heavier than the last. I was trapped in a nightmare, dragging my feet to the bed where she was bound to the bedposts with ropes around wrists and ankles. I touched her hand and winced at the icy chill of her skin. The ridges of her knuckle and finger bones stuck out clearly. My baby sister looked like an old woman on her deathbed.

  I knew that Gemma had been grim when she announced to me that it would happen, that it was Abby’s own idea, and that Nash had to physically restrain Moira until she would listen, but that didn’t make seeing it any easier. She didn’t deserve to be tied like this. Given her weakened state, how could she be seen as a threat to anyone?

  I choked on a sob. I couldn’t bear it. I started tugging at the bonds, working to free her. Abby’s eyes snapped open and locked on mine.

  “Don’t!”

  Her voice was raspy and broken, like she was being strangled and trying to beg for mercy.

  “Don’t untie me.”

  The pain in her voice crushed my heart again. “Abigail…”

  “Please, Claire. I’ll hurt you.”

  I looked at her, seeing the red bleeding into her irises. The white was almost completely gone. About a quarter of green remained. She was slipping away from me.

  “I hurt Nash,” she whimpered, still watching me with frightful, bloody eyes. Tears made her irises glisten. “I couldn’t stop. I was just so hungry, and that Hellion was telling me to.” Tears burst from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to do it, Claire! You have to believe me!”

  I bent over her, looking past the disease infecting her, searching for the sister I loved.

  “It’s okay, Abby. I know you didn’t. We all know that. But you can’t stay like this.” I couldn’t let her stay like this.

  Tentatively, I reached for the bonds again.

  “Don’t touch me!” she screamed.

  I yanked my hands back, staring at her in shock. Tears still wetted Abby’s eyes, but there was ferocity to them now. A primal danger to them that would not be ignored, and was barely controlled.

  “You don’t understand, I can’t shut him out. He can get into my head whenever he wants to. He wants me to hurt you, Claire. He wants you to pay for what Mommy and Daddy did.”

  It had never been so hard to look in my baby sister’s eyes. “Did he say why?”

  She shook her head, limp curls sticking to the sweat on her face. “He just keeps saying the same thing over and over and over again. He’ll finish what they started.” Fresh tears lined her eyelids. “Why is he doing this, Claire? What does he want?”

  I gingerly plucked the hair from her face, stroking the top of her head carefully. “I don’t know, Abby. I wish I did. But it’ll be okay. We’re going to stop him. We might have a special machine to shut the Breach.”

  Abby’s thin body relaxed, but the terror remained on her face.

  “I’m scared. I don’t want to be one of those things. I want to be me.”

  She broke my heart then, but I forced a smile to my face. I had to give her hope, though I felt mine dwindling away. This burden was too much. I was a compass with no arrow. Useless until I had the pieces that would fix me.

  “You will be,” I promised. “I won’t let you become one of them, Abigail. You’re going to leave this cabin. You’ll live a new life. When the Breach is closed, the Hellions will never bother you again. Someday the nightmares will go away.”

  The hope in her eyes was tainted by the redness of the Hellion disease. “They will?”

  I nodded, reminding myself to keep the smile on my face. Abby had to believe what I was telling to her, and I needed this moment. I needed to see the look on my sister’s face, to have it burned in my memory before I went to the Barren.

  “They will,” I guaranteed. “It won’t be right away, but you’ll see. Things will get better for you, Abby. You just need to fight this. Promise me you’ll keep him out.”

  She winced. “I can’t. He’s too strong.”

  I shook my head. “You’re stronger. I know you are. Promise me you won’t give up. No matter what happens.”

  Abby’s confidence wavered, but between the smile on my face and warmth in my eyes, I convinced her. She nodded.

  “Okay. I promise.”

  My smile was genuine this time. I lowered my face and pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was like kissing melting ice.

  “Riley left something on the table for you,” I said when I pulled back. “I found it at home.”

  Abby looked confused. “Home?”

  “Our old home. The one I used to live in with Mom and Dad.”

  Abby’s eyes widened. “You went back there? What was it like?”

  I hesitated, then quickly said, “There’s not much left. But I found their passbooks. They have photos of Mom and Dad in them.”

  She shifted to sit up a little higher. “Can I see them?”

  Feeling a twinge of guilt, I said, “Will you promise to eat when Moira comes back in?”

  Abby frowned, then nodded. I stood up an
d walked to the table where the passbooks were. I scooped them up and brought them back to the bed. I opened my father’s first and turned it to show her the photograph.

  Abby looked at it with curious eyes. “He looks serious.”

  I smiled. “He wasn’t. He was always joking with me and Mom.” I set his passbook aside and opened the second one. “This is her.”

  My sister’s eyes went from the photo to me. “She looks like you.”

  I felt a pang in my chest, but managed a smile. Abby looked at the photos again, studying them, perhaps making her own memories of the parents she never met. She looked at me with wide, curious eyes. The same eyes I recognized before disaster crashed into our lives.

  “Can you tell me more about them?” she asked.

  In the conversation that followed, I told her about more than our parents. I told her about what was going on with the crew and gave a description of the old house. I didn’t tell her about the squatters, the Hellion attack, or the bloodshed. When she asked about the bandage around my neck, I lied and said I scratched it when we were escaping some marauders.

  Abby probably knew it was a lie, though she didn’t say anything, and I admitted even less. I hated the dishonest dreams I filled her head with, but I would shoulder the guilt if it meant she would hang on for one more day.

  Chapter 8

  Dovercourt was a shadow of what it used to be. The only structure that remained standing was an expansive, stone and mortar wall that circled ten miles around the district, protecting the Sky Guards and their families. The seventy foot wall had been pulled down in places, the result of cannon fire from the Behemoth. The gaps were filled in with jagged pieces of rebar and broken flagpoles that stabbed toward us in a crooked row, a mockery of the barricades set up by the Hellions when they took Westraven. Cannons on the two remaining watchtowers pointed outward, targeting us though no one could be seen manning them.

  Light snow drifted down from the pale grey sky. The snowfall seemed innocent, betraying us with bitter, cutting cold. I hunched over on the skiff, keeping my gloved hands in my pockets and trying to retain as much body heat as I could. Riley sat close to me, hiking his shoulders so the collar of his jacket covered his mouth. Nash and Gemma stood at the helm of the skiff with Sawyer. She huddled close to Nash, and if I hadn’t seen the puffs of air coming from his mouth, I would think Sawyer was frozen.

  Gemma was still fuming at Sawyer’s refusal to take the Dauntless. She actually tried to slap him, but Nash stopped her and took Sawyer’s side. He reiterated that his old Clan, the Stray Dogs, closely monitored the Barren. If there were guards on the wall that saw the Dauntless coming, they would warn the rest of the Clan and set up a trap for us, even if we hid the airship somewhere in the streets.

  Gemma snarled and pouted for a while, but despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep throwing verbal jabs at Nash. His expression and demeanor had become sullen and distant.

  I glanced at Nash as Gemma rested her head on his shoulder and laced her fingers through his. He stared at the jutting spikes with a distant look on his face. I had no idea what he was thinking, but he didn’t look like the relaxed, easygoing Nash I’d come to know. Replacing him was a man who was as hard as the crumbling stone walls and as cold as the winter wind sweeping around us.

  “Leave the skiff here,” Nash instructed, never moving his eyes from the sharp entrance in the wall.

  Sawyer hadn’t said much to the crew aside from some basic orders, but he didn’t argue with his friend. He followed whatever directions Nash gave, turning the skiff to a small, caved in side of the wall. The niche would partially obscure the Hellion ship, hopefully keeping it from the eyes of thieves.

  Nash jumped out of the small ship, holding out his hand to lead Gemma down. Sawyer followed, pulling up the collar of his coat with one hand and resting the other on the flintlock attached to his belt.

  Riley was the next to exit. As soon as his boots touched the ground, he turned and held out his hand to me just as Nash had done for Gemma. I stared at his hand. After leaving Abby, I had slept for another hour and ate as large a breakfast as I could afford with the rations. I was still feeling a little weak, but I would be strong enough to keep up with the crew today. Not that it stopped Riley from dogging my every step, standing just inches away from my shoulder as if he expected me to shatter at any moment.

  Deciding to prove that I wouldn’t collapse at the slightest action, I hooked my legs over the ledge of the skiff and hopped down by myself. I stumbled a little upon landing, but only because it was a clumsy one. Riley was reaching for my elbow to steady me, so I stepped away. I smiled, which made him smirk. I shoved my hands back in the pockets of my long winter coat and followed the marauders to the wall of daggers.

  Nash took the lead, marching with purpose while Gemma struggled to keep up with him. Sawyer walked briskly behind them, his flintlock already out of its holster and resting at his side. Riley was beside me, one hand on the hilt of the sword he’d taken from the air hangar. He glanced up at the watchtowers, looking at the cannons. He didn’t change his pace, so I was guessing he couldn’t see anything.

  Nash came to a stop when he was directly in front of the vicious wall. He paused to look it over before turning his head to me.

  “Claire, come see if there are any Pitfalls.”

  Leaving Riley’s side, I made my way to Nash and looked at the crude, deadly barrier.

  At first, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. Of course, the rebar and sawn off flagpoles punched into a layer of rubble at the ground were intimidating. Each direction I looked, a sharp, rusted piece of metal stared back at me, daring me to get closer, slip, and plunge through my eye.

  Then I took a closer look, and understood why Nash called me up.

  Tucked away in the crevices of the rock, coiled near the bottom of the metal spears, was a simple black cord.

  “They have some kind of wire near the ground,” I said, squinting to get a better look. “I can’t see what it’s attached to, but I’m guessing it’s some kind of defense system.”

  “Electrified?” Sawyer asked.

  “Maybe. I have to get closer to see.”

  “I’ll do that,” Riley offered.

  I cast him a sharp look. “Let me guess, you’ll ask me to stay here and shout instructions at you?”

  Riley’s blue eyes sharpened. “If it is a trap, you have no idea what it will do to you.”

  “Not yet, but I will when I get close. I can figure it out, Riley. This is my job.”

  The soldier looked at Sawyer for help. To my surprise, the pirate captain shrugged casually. “Like she would ever listen to me.”

  Sawyer gave me a mischievous wink. Something in his eyes still seemed guarded, but the torment I’d seen in them last night had changed somehow. It was like something unseen had happened, and he released the tension he’d been holding onto. A lopsided smirk curved on his face, and my heart danced.

  “If it’s not safe, don’t move forward,” Riley said, voicing his concern.

  I nodded so we wouldn’t argue. I was almost missing the days where Sawyer was the anxious one.

  Concentrating on the gaps between the spikes rather than the spikes themselves, I took a deep breath and started forward. I glanced at the ground, making sure there were no trip wires or snares that would catch my foot and trigger. The snow was thick but falling lazily. I could still see the rugged cement ground under my feet. I glanced up and twisted, slimming myself so I could slide between the rebar. My gaze went back to the ground, every step a careful one. It was slow moving, but without knowing what this trap would do, I wanted to play it safe.