The Dark Sky Collection: The Dark Sky Collection

by Amy Braun

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  Sawyer let out a shuddering breath. He placed his hands on either side of my head.

  “I love you too, Claire.”

  He pressed a kiss to my forehead, letting his lips linger on my skin. A moment later, he was gone. In the blink of an eye, he was across the room with his back to me.

  I took it as a signal. There was nothing more to be spoken between us. Not without causing more pain. I would lead the Hellions away, and with a little luck, they would forget about the Dauntless and its crew.

  A piece of me was crushed, knowing I wouldn’t be able to see Abby or my friends. I hoped Sawyer could make them understand. Then again, I didn’t know if he would have the heart to tell them. He hadn’t taken our parting very well.

  I turned for the ladder and scurried up it. I gently pulled Sawyer’s sword out of the rungs and dropped it onto the ground a few feet away from him. He didn’t turn or look at it.

  Heart sore, I pushed open the trapdoor and peeked around the house. I couldn’t see anything. Believing it was okay to continue without giving Sawyer’s position away, I crawled out of the basement and onto the floor. I closed the door and jogged out of the house. I shimmied out of the alley the way I had come, heading in the direction I had come. It wasn’t long before I heard the shouts.

  I panicked, not sure if the despair was coming from the Dauntless. I didn’t know anything about these people that Sawyer recruited. They couldn’t be soldiers because all the members of the Sky Guard were dead. Nash and Gemma were fighters and I trusted them with Abby’s life, but they were still human. They could be killed, and my sister left defenseless.

  Then I heard the cannon-shot.

  A thunderous crash rocked one of the lean-tos ten feet away from me. I turned away with a scream. The building exploded in a flurry of splinters, shredded cloth, and warped metal.

  The shouts became clearer.

  “I do not care what you assume, Davin,” Riley shouted. “We are not prepared to combat the Dauntless. We are retrieving Claire and leaving.”

  “This is our chance to take that little bastard out of the picture! You might think he won’t cause trouble, but you don’t know him like I do. We leave him alive, we’ll be making a huge mistake. Now let me do what you fucking expect me to do!”

  As they were arguing, I was tracking their voices. I came to a stop by the center of the village, where the blacksmith’s shop was. Around ten Hellions remained with Davin and Riley. The two superior Hellions faced one another, murderous intent written on their faces. The three fires hadn’t been put out, continuing to rage behind them.

  For a moment, I considered going back on my word. I could turn around, find Sawyer, and leave with him. I would lose my advantage, but I wouldn’t be hurt. I would live for a few months longer. Maybe even a year or two, depending on how quickly the Vesper could act.

  If I returned to Hellnore, I would be closer to my goal. But I would suffer greatly.

  I was afraid. More than I’d ever been before. I didn’t want to die. But my one shot at taking down the Vesper and stopping the Hellions was right in front of me. I couldn’t pass it up. I would never get another chance.

  Taking a deep breath, I summoned up as much courage as I could muster. Then I clumsily stumbled into the open, acting like I hadn’t intended to.

  I made such a racket that the entire group saw me instantly. Davin and Riley forgot about their argument when they saw me. Riley’s eyes narrowed with distaste. Davin scowled and looked furious.

  I turned and ran in a random direction. The cannon fire seemed to have stopped for now, likely a warning shot for the Hellions to stay back. I got the feeling that whoever Sawyer found to defend his ship, they weren’t trained in military tactics. Otherwise they would have been fighting with him.

  I didn’t even make it to out of the square. A heavy weight slammed into my back and drove me into the ground. Breath was knocked out of my lungs, dry grass scratching my face. I grasped it with both hands, searching for my footing. A knee was placed on the back of my neck. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Trying to run away, were you, darling?” Davin taunted above me.

  I clawed the ground, kicked my legs. None of it helped. Every time I opened my mouth, all I tasted was dry grass.

  “You’ll have to be punished for that. And this time, I think the Vesper will let me do it.”

  Something crashed into the back of my head. I felt the blast of pain, saw black, then felt nothing at all.

  Chapter 11

  Sawyer

  When I saw Davin punch Claire in the back of the head, I almost lost control. It took everything in me to stand there and do nothing as he picked up her limp form and slung her over his shoulder. His hands drifted too high on her legs, and there was nothing she or I could do to stop him.

  Riley watched as well, with no expression on his face. He saw what was happening, and he didn’t care.

  I tightened my grip on the cutlass hilt, promising to make them both bleed for capturing and hurting her. Claire didn’t tell me what happened to her in Hellnore. After this, I knew it would get worse.

  And I couldn’t help her. Not in the way that mattered. Even if I could demand that my crew follow them, there was no way we’d make the journey. We would be seen. We might not survive the tunnel that Claire mentioned. My recruits weren’t ready to fight. We didn’t have the equipment to breathe the air beyond the Breach. I would get everyone killed, and Claire would continue to suffer alone.

  I stayed in the shadows, watching the group disperse into the weaving mess of the village. I didn’t move until I saw the two strange, domed skiffs lift to the sky and disappear into the clouds. I couldn’t bring myself to move. For all I knew, today might have been the last time I saw Claire. Even if she succeeded, there was no guarantee she would survive what the Volt could do, especially with an unstable, foreign power source.

  I never should have let her go.

  But she was right. Risking a rescue would only rush her, and these things took time. I had faith in Claire. But I was terrified of never seeing her bright green eyes. Never twining her soft gold hair through my fingers. Never feeling her tender kisses against my lips.

  Never hearing her say she loved me again.

  My chest felt cramped as I turned away and walked back to the Dauntless. Each step was heavy, and all of my bruises were eager to make themselves known. My shoulder ached the most and would have to be tended to. Maybe even stitched. It was going to be agony climbing up to the deck.

  The clouds were lightening by the time I reached the Dauntless. Dawn was starting to break over the sky. I could hear shouts coming from the deck. Nash’s voice was louder than usual. I couldn’t see him, but Gemma was straddling the railing, kicking one leg lazily through the air and watching whatever was happening on the deck. Nash was close.

  “Care to cast down the net?” I yelled.

  Gemma jumped and twisted around. I was worried she would fall off, but this was Gemma. There was nothing she couldn’t climb, and she had the reflexes of a cat.

  She swung her legs back onto the deck and shouted Nash’s name. He stopped yelling and raced to the ledge. He looked over. His eyes were so wide I could see them all the way from the ground. He raced out of sight, then returned with a harness that he threw over with the help of Gemma and a handful of crew members. I hooked it around my waist, and gave Nash a thumbs’ up signal.

  Moments later, he shouted for the crew to heave. I was jolted upward, the harness tightening around my waist.

  After a few minutes, I was at the ledge of the Dauntless. Nash and Gemma grabbed my arms and started to pull me onto the deck. I growled at Gemma as she pulled on my wounded shoulder.

  “Could you take it easy?” I snapped.

  “Sure,” she shot back. “I’ll take it easy and watch you fall to your death. Now stop whining.”

  I scowled, but said nothing until my feet hit the familiar wooden planks of the Dauntles
s. I exhaled a long, deep breath. It was good to be home again.

  I looked at my quarter master and rigger. “Where are the injured?”

  “Below deck in the storage room,” answered Nash. His face was grim. “We lost another one. Wounds were too great.”

  My shoulders slumped, heavy with defeat. I tried to picture the faces of the men and women we lost, but they blurred in my memory. I hadn’t taken the time to get to know them well.

  I wasn’t sure if that made the situation better, or worse.

  “What happened?” Gemma asked.

  I looked at the ground, fresh memories of Claire swirling through my head. I would have to tell them soon, but not right now. I needed to rest, and hope that sleep would actually come.

  “Later. Have the crew fed, Nash. Put them on two hour watch rotations, ten men at a time. And I want our three strongest men watching Beck until I wake up.” I started for my cabin. My friends followed me.

  “Do you think he’ll try something?” Gemma asked.

  “Against us? No. But he’s hiding something, and his actions cost six lives. I need to rest a bit before I try to knock his teeth out.”

  “I could do it,” Nash offered when I reached the door to the cabin. I glanced over his shoulder, seeing a small smile on his face. I grinned.

  “True, but then I wouldn’t have the satisfaction.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “You boys didn’t even think to ask if I wanted a shot.”

  My smile widened. It seemed impossible to believe I’d gotten as lucky as I did with finding them.

  “Wake me up in four hours,” I said, gripping the door handle and starting to push.

  “That’s it?” Nash frowned. “Are we short on time?”

  I thought about the journal in my coat. The marks on Claire’s neck that looked like they were from teeth. The way my brother groped her while she was unconscious. That final, desperate kiss she gave me, as though she believed she would never do so again.

  “We never had any, Nash,” I muttered.

  He and his lover shared a nervous, worried look. I pushed the door handle again. “Four hours,” I repeated before I walked into the cabin.

  As soon as I closed the door, Abby ran into me. I bumped against the door, chuckling a little and putting my hand on her head.

  “I’m okay, Stargazer.”

  She pulled back and looked at me with big green eyes. Sadness jolted through me as I remembered her sister sharing the same expression. It had been too long since I’d seen either Claire or Abby smile.

  Abby shuffled back awkwardly, wringing her hands. “I heard shouting, and then lots of guns,” she said. “They fired the cannon, and then Nash came back and said you were still missing, and there were lots of shouts, and people wanted to leave, and…”

  I knelt down and put my hand on her shoulder, giving her a gentle smile. “It’s okay. We made it back. We’re safe.”

  Abby smiled wanly, an expression that disappeared too quickly. “Was Riley there? Was Davin?”

  I took my hand back and scrubbed it over my face. Then I nodded. Tears filled Abby’s eyes.

  “What about Claire? Was she with them?”

  My heart felt torn in two. I wanted to lie, tell her that Claire wasn’t with the bad, dangerous men, but I would have to explain the journal to the crew later on. Even if they were going to remain silent, there was no guarantee Abby wouldn’t overhear someone with a loose tongue.

  Besides, she was Claire’s only known family. She deserved to know.

  “She was. She saved my life.”

  Abby’s eyes filled with tears, making her green irises shimmer. “Is she here?”

  I shook my head. “She had to go back. I… I couldn’t save her, Abby. I’m so sorry.”

  Admitting it was like admitting defeat in combat. I kept replaying the scene in my head, wondering if there was something I could have done or said that would have changed Claire’s mind. She should have been here. I wanted to see her smile as she rushed down to hug Abby with all her might.

  Maybe I should have brought the little girl with me. If Claire saw her sister, there was no way she would be able to return to Hellnore.

  No, the rational part of my mind understood. She would still go back. She’s a soldier on a mission. She won’t stop until it’s done.

  Abby burst into tears. I put my hand around her back and hugged her to my chest.

  “Why didn’t she come back?” the little girl sobbed. “She’s my sister. She’s supposed to love me.”

  “She does,” I soothed. “She loves us all. That’s why she went back. She has a chance to protect us all from the Hellions–”

  Abby pushed away from me, beating her tiny fists against my chest. “I don’t care about that!” she wailed. “I want her to come home!”

  I didn’t tell Abby to calm down. It would be useless. For her whole life, Abby had looked up to Claire. Had been raised and protected by her. I could only imagine what Claire shielded her from. What she sacrificed.

  It made me love and miss her more.

  “I love your sister, Abby,” I told the girl. Her crying paused. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything. More than Nash and Gemma, more than this ship. You have no idea how hard it was for me to let her go.”

  “Then why did you?” Abby sobbed.

  I looked down, watching the rug on the floor blur in front of my eyes. “Because she told me to. She has a chance to trick and defeat the Vesper, and if she doesn’t take it, we’ll never get another one.” I blinked rapidly, staring at the floor until the pattern in the rug became clear again. Confidence slowly returned and I looked at Abby. She looked at me the same way my younger brother did before he died. Eyes wide and full of wonder, innocence, and hope.

  “I’m not giving up on Claire, Stargazer. I’ll never give up on her. I promised to save her. I didn’t break that promise. I just couldn’t fulfill it yet. Do you understand?”

  Abby sniffled, then said, “But what if you can’t? What if she goes to help us like Mommy did, and doesn’t come back?”

  I managed a small smile. It confused poor Abby, but that was all right. She would understand soon. If Claire were anything like her mother, she would find a way to survive until we could rescue her.

  “Do you remember your mother, Abby?”

  She shook her head, swinging gentle gold curls around her face. “I never met her. She died when I was a baby.”

  I reached into my coat and pulled out the journal. I looked into Abby’s eyes.

  “No. She didn’t.”

  ***

  Between consoling Abby, telling her about her mother and Claire’s fate, eating some rations, patching up my shoulder, and changing my clothes, I got two hours of sleep. It seemed like I had just blinked my eyes closed before Gemma was banging on the cabin door and telling me to get my ass out of bed, on my own orders.

  I shoved a hand through my hair and tested my right shoulder. The wound burned when I moved it, but it wasn’t deep. I had endured much worse.

  Leaving Abby to her constellation books– on the stubborn promise that I would fill her in on any plans we made– I left the cabin and walked with Gemma across the deck.

  Hopelessness was thick in the air. The crew went about their training, mending, and cleaning with downcast eyes and tired frowns. Many of them knew those who died. I imagined they were thinking the same thing I was: