by Amy Braun
Oh, God. The Vesper. He’s actually coming here. For me.
Dread swam from my chest to my head, dizzying me. I had to close my eyes and breathe. Everyone else exploded into anger. Sawyer slowly pulled away from me, though I could feel the heat of fury rising from his skin.
“Are you insane?” Gemma shouted at Riley. “Davin’s made it clear he wants our heads on his wall. He killed Moira and has Abby. Why would we even think about doing that for a second?”
“Just to trick him,” Riley reasoned. “If we let him think he’s in control, we might have a better chance to turn the tables on his plan–”
“No,” Sawyer interrupted. His fists were balled at his side, and he was rigid to the point of shaking. “We’re not giving Claire up. Davin did this. He captured Abby and killed Moira because he knew it would make us react. He wants us angry when we fight him, but he will know if we’re playing him. He’s cocky, but he’s not stupid. If we pretend to give up, he’ll figure out our lie and break it around us.” Sawyer took what sounded like a slow, calming breath. But he didn’t relax. “We’ll find a way to fix this machine, save Abby, then escape to the Breach and shut it. The Vesper won’t get near any of us.”
Riley pushed off the wall and took some fast steps to the captain. “Did you not hear Claire earlier? This could take months, if she can do it. I don’t doubt her skills, but this was used as a weapon, Sawyer. It was made to destroy. It can’t be used to fix anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you. None of us know if this will work. It was a gamble from the beginning. That was the only thing we knew.” He looked at me sadly. “We don’t have time, Claire.”
Understanding flashed through his eyes. He was right. Even if I knew the construction would work, two days wasn’t nearly enough time. This wasn’t like when Sawyer asked me to rebuild the engine for the Dauntless. At its core, that was a simple repair. What I had to do for the Palisade was nothing short of a complete reconstruction. I didn’t know anything about the machine or how it worked. My mother’s journal would give me vague ideas at best. Somehow, I doubted Davin would be so kind as to give up the plans he stole from me.
“Sawyer…” I sighed.
He turned in front of me, gripping my shoulders and ducking his head to look in my eyes, carefully avoiding the wound on my arm. He held me gently, but I bowed my head so I wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. I couldn’t. Not yet.
“You can’t give up,” he told me. “You never give up. You refused to stop looking for Abby. You stood up to Garnet and the Junkers. You didn’t abandon us when you could have. You saved Riley. You almost died so I could land the Behemoth.” He stepped closer, his forehead almost touching mine. “Don’t give up now, Firecracker. Two days is longer than you think. Work on the Palisade. If you can’t fix it by then, we’ll have another plan.” His next whispers were so quiet, I barely heard them. “Give me those two days. Please.”
My mistake was looking in his eyes. He believed everything he said. He believed in me. He thought there was a way out of this. Sawyer, who was cynical and grumpy more often than not. I don’t know what changed in him. It shouldn’t have made a difference anymore.
And yet…
I had the Volt in my pocket. My mother’s journal. Maybe I could reverse the Palisade’s design and turn it into a device that would close the Breach.
But if the Vesper was coming here, maybe I didn’t need to. I thought about the Volt, how it had affected the Stray Dogs watching the fight in the Crater.
Using the Palisade as a weapon again would be easier than turning it into something meant to repair. If I could use it against the Vesper and Davin, then I would have more than two days to put an end to the Hellions. The Breach could wait.
“Damn you,” I muttered. “I thought I could take a break for once.”
Sawyer grinned at me, filling my heart with warmth and hope. “Guess you rubbed off on me, Firecracker.”
We stood there for a moment, eyes locked and close enough to kiss. Part of me screamed to do it, not caring who else was watching. I hadn’t before. But this wasn’t the time for me to be distracted. I pulled away from Sawyer and turned to the machine. He didn’t try to draw me back, instead taking the role of commander.
“Riley, Gemma, you’ll come with me to get the supplies. We need to get Claire’s tools and find something to fight back with. It’ll be a short run. I don’t have enough bullets to take down Davin and all the Hellions he has with him.” After that grim announcement, he turned to Nash. “Stay here and help Claire however you can.”
“We’re going out there?” Gemma asked.
“Better now than never,” Sawyer replied, carefully pulling away pieces of the barricade. He set them down, close to the door in case it needed to be blocked up again. He peeked out of the open space and must not have seen any Hellions, because he pried another table from the barricade. Nash stood by the door, watching Gemma and Sawyer with nervous eyes.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Davin could be waiting for us to leave Claire alone. He could take her while we’re out searching, or kill us and then take her.” He gave Sawyer a pointed look. “There are too many holes in this plan that Davin can exploit.”
“We don’t have a choice,” his captain said. “We go on this hunt, we possibly get captured or hurt. We sit here and wait for two days, we definitely die. There are no good plans in this situation, Nash. We have to make the best of it as quickly and as carefully as we can.” Nash glared at him. “Believe me, I don’t like this anymore than you do. But I know Davin. He’d rather chase and scare us than sit around for two days.” He was about to step out when he paused and looked at Nash seriously. “Give us an hour. If we’re not back by then…”
Nash’s frown was bleak, his nod even more solemn. Sawyer glanced at me once, then stepped out of the barricade. Riley followed him, but didn’t look back. Gemma stopped in front of Nash and wrapped her arms around him. He buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes, as if he thought he would never see her again. When they pulled away from each other, she placed her hand against his cheek and smiled. He kissed her deeply, holding her against his body until she parted and left. I almost told them to come back, that this wasn’t worth it and couldn’t work.
But the intense faith in Sawyer’s eyes flashed through my mind. The sound of Abby’s screams. Davin’s cruel laugh. Moira’s hands and sad smiles.
My mother’s description of the Vesper, who wanted me for some kind of torture or revenge. The Vesper, who had destroyed so much of what we loved. The Vesper, who would be here in two days to destroy it all again.
I looked around the room until I found a stepladder to use. I set it in front of the Palisade’s left tube and climbed to the top to assess the damages. They were critical; the heat had melted the graphtium base and chewed through the wires. The prongs would need to be replaced, since they were as black as charcoal.
But I started working, despite the throb of pain in my shoulder. I would take it apart, examine how it worked, and rebuild it. When the others returned, I would instruct one of them to repair the generator so I had something to run it on. Then I would find a way to hook up the Volt, and begin charging current into the tubes.
This would work. It had to. The moment I thought otherwise, would be the moment I surrendered.
***
The only reason I knew the hour had passed was because Nash started pacing. I didn’t need him for this part of the repair, so he must have been counting the minutes as they passed by.
Sawyer, Riley, and Gemma were late.
I tried to push the thought away as I stripped out the old wires and replaced them with new ones I found in the storage lockers, but it ticked at the back of my mind like the timer on a bomb. I didn’t trust Davin not have loosed some Hellions. He wanted his brother to suffer. Why, I had no idea. Davin was cruel in ways I couldn’t begin to understand. He simply seemed to enjoy it.
I continued t
o work as Nash paced, stopping when I heard panicked shouts. I dropped my tools and jumped off the ladder, running to the doorway Nash was racing from. He was in the main corridor, flying across the floor to get to the crew.
Gemma was trying to drag a heavy metal trunk. Behind her, Sawyer and Riley used their swords to fend off the two Hellions chasing them. I ran into the hallway to help them, stopping by Gemma to help her carry the trunk.
One of the Hellions swatted Riley’s sword away, then lunged for his throat. Nash shoved him aside and punched the Hellion square in the face. There was a sickening crunch as the brass knuckles shattered the monster’s nose.
Next to him, Sawyer dodged a Hellion’s slash. He kicked it in the ribs, quickly pulling his leg back before the Hellion could cut it with its claws. He was still bruised from the fight in the Crater, but he moved like he felt no pain.
He swept the cutlass in front of his chest, catching the Hellion under the throat. It hissed and jumped back. Sawyer drew his flintlock and fired a shot. The bullet crunched through the monster’s skull, coming out the back of its head in a spray of blood.
He took a step to help Nash, but Riley came behind the Hellion and drove his cutlass through its chest. He twisted the blade and wrenched it out, dragging a howl from the creature. Riley hacked the sword once, twice, and removed the Hellion’s head from its shoulders.
Gemma and I struggled with the heavy trunk. Nash grabbed the back of it and lifted it, easing the weight for us. The wound on my shoulder felt like it was on fire. I didn’t think about the pain, carrying the metal box to the engineering bay. More Hellions screeched from the shadows.
We ran back to the bay, Riley and Sawyer guarding our backs until we were inside. Finally, we dropped the trunk. I hissed and grabbed my shoulder, glancing around for the tables and crates we used to make the barricade earlier. We clustered together, piling items together until it became as sturdy as we could make it.
The Hellions pounded against it. We pushed back, holding them away. The strain in my shoulder worsened, but I refused to move. The Hellions smelled the blood oozing from our wounds.
After a few more attempts, the monsters hissed and gave up. We waited until their angry chattering faded. When it was silent again, we stepped back. I winced and reached over my right shoulder, feeling warm blood on my fingertips. I sighed and looked around for some kind of fabric that wasn’t covered in grease or dirt.
There was a tearing sound, and soon Riley was beside me with a strip of fabric in his hand, torn from the bottom of his shirt.
“It’s not as clean as I want it to be, but this will stop the bleeding,” he said with a grim smile.
“Is it that bad?” I asked when he walked around me.
“Not really,” he answered, carefully tying the fabric over the top of my shoulder and under my arm. “But it probably hurts when you try to work.”
“How are you doing with that?” Sawyer asked as he cleaned his cutlass with the hem of his shirt. Nash and Gemma huddled together, his big arm over her shoulder so he could hold her close.
“I got most of the burnt wiring fixed,” I informed, struggling to focus as Riley’s warm fingers brushed some of my exposed skin. “I need to replace the prongs and filaments before I start thinking about powering it, and I don’t have the right parts yet.”
“Guess again,” announced Gemma, sliding free of Nash and undoing the latch on the trunk to raise the lid. I approached curiously, looking down into the long box.
Every tool and material I could ever dream of was in here. Drills, bolts, hammers, plugs, gages, wrenches, a backpack welding blowtorch, gloves, goggles, and welders masks lay on the top of the instruments I was looking for. Prongs and filaments of various sizes were wrapped in clean coveralls. They were the perfect size for the ones on the Palisade.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, stunned.
“Found a locked storage closet in the Repair Room. It was pretty well hidden, so that’s probably why no one managed to take it.” She looked in my eyes. “Soon as I saw the name on it, I knew it’d be a gold mine.”
Hearing that, I walked around the trunk and looked at the front. “J & D ABERNATHY” was clearly printed in block letters on the metal.
“Of course,” I started saying. “Of course they would have a back up kit. They must have blown dozens of filaments before they made ones strong enough.”
The others shifted awkwardly beside me. Apparently they didn’t like the idea that these could be easily fried. I looked at Gemma. “This was the only one you found, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “There might have been more, but we didn’t have time to find them before the Hellions showed up.”
“I thought your brother was giving us two days,” Riley accused Sawyer.
The young captain glowered back. “He also said he would be waiting on the ship. He never said anything about holding back the Hellions. I knew he would try something. I just didn’t know what.”
Riley huffed angrily and started pacing. “We’re not going to make it to those two days. We might not even get through one.”
“Claire has the parts she needs,” Nash reminded him. “This gives her a better chance, doesn’t it?” I nodded when he looked at me. “Calm down, give her time to–”
Riley whirled around and kicked the trunk lid shut. It snapped close with a heavy thud.
“The Vesper is coming through the Breach! The Vesper! Do you know what that means?” He didn’t wait for a response. “No, of course not. How could you? You’re used to the regular Hellions. Davin is the most advanced as far as you’re concerned. That means you have no idea, no idea, what the Vesper is capable of. And he’ll torture you all the more for it.”
We stared at Riley for a long time. The fear coming from him was infectious. I remembered the descriptions Abby and my mother gave of the Hellion King, and shivered.
Sawyer finally stepped forward until he was face to face with Riley.
“Two days. We stay here and work until then. Davin might not keep his word. I don’t expect him to. But I’m not hiding from the Hellions anymore. I’m not going to let them destroy anyone else’s life. You want to keep the Vesper away from you? Then stop whining and help Claire.”
Riley scowled, and I was sure he was going to hit Sawyer. I never imagined Riley would be capable of so much rage, or so much fear. But if the Vesper was truly on his way, it made sense. Riley had met the creature, and nearly had his mind broken by it. If the Vesper arrived and recognized him, would he take his slave back, or torture him to death?
I couldn’t let either of those possibilities come true.
“I can do this, Riley,” I said. He slid his eyes in my direction, but didn’t move otherwise. “Just give me the time.”
He continued to glare at me, and that strange flare went through his eyes again. It stilled me, and suddenly I wanted to do anything I could for Riley. He had suffered enough.
Before I could give him any reassurance, he backed away from Sawyer. “Show me what you need.”
***
For the next five hours, I instructed the marauders as best as I could. Most of the time, I had to leave my share of work to show them how to wire something together properly, or how to properly replace a filament or instrument. I felt more like a teacher than an engineer.
Yet I couldn’t have done it without them. Our production time tripled, and at the end of the fifth hour, all of the re-wiring was done, the filaments and prongs replaced, and the generators recharged with some fuel and energy from the room’s lightning. Using the lights for the Palisade and generator darkened the room, but my torches would last for another seven hours before the timers stopped.
We all wanted to keep going, but exhaustion caught up with us quickly. It had been almost a full day since we last slept, so I didn’t protest when Gemma proclaimed she was getting some shuteye. Nash followed her a couple minutes later, stretching out on the floor and putting his arm around her. As soon as he finished draping
his coat around them as a blanket, they fell asleep.