It was every person for themselves on a mission. This would be no different.
Her gaze was caught by a gleaming puddle on the floor, originating from beneath the door, and seeping across the room toward her. It glowed red, and for a sickening moment Marin thought it was blood.
Her heart tripped, stumbled, caught itself.
Not blood. Water. Glowing red with the reflection of the emergency lights in the hallway.
The hull had been breached. This ship was going to sink.
“Help! Someone’s down here!” she yelled.
She jerked on the bars again, again, becoming more desperate with each unanswered plea. She wasn’t going to drown here. She wouldn’t meet her death locked in a cage.
“Help!”
“Marin!”
She stopped. Her hands tightened around the bars. She leaned closer, listening for the sound, but all she could hear was the siren. It was so long before she heard it again, she swore she’d made it up.
“Marin!”
“Here!” she shouted as loud as she could. “I’m here!” She didn’t care who was coming, just as long as they got there quickly. Water was coming in faster now, sloshing over the toes of her shoes. The hull groaned again, and then tilted harder to the side, forcing her to cling to the bars of her cell to stay standing.
“Keep talking!” shouted the voice, this time closer.
“Here!” she cried. “Hurry up already!”
The door shoved inward, the way impeded by water.
Ross.
She saw only his silhouette first, bathed in a wash of red light coming from the hallway. It reminded her of the stories sailors told, about souls sent to a watery grave returning for vengeance, and in that instant she regretted every bad thing she’d ever done.
“Marin.” Her name from his lips was no more than a whisper, but still she heard it, and it haunted her.
His gaze met hers. He held fast to the sides of the doorframe, making him appear too big for this narrow space, and strong, like he could tear the bars away with his bare hands.
Any small amount of relief that had come with his presence faded when she saw the hard look on his face. He must have forgotten how she’d saved him when his idiot self had nearly drowned.
He sloshed toward her.
“Hurry!” she said again. He was still soaked, his clothes sticking to his chest and legs. Red light slashed across the side of his face and his wild, wet hair.
“You need to find the key,” she said. “The guard had it.” No, who was she kidding? This guy wasn’t going to take on a guard. “Okay, wait. Okay. There’s got to be some kind of tool in the supply room. A lever, or maybe an axe.” She was grasping. She didn’t even know that this boat had a supply room.
The water was rising. She could feel it in her laceless boots, making her socks cling to her toes. From somewhere behind him, she could hear it rushing, like a faucet on full blast.
He reached the cage but did not even glance at the lock.
“Did you set me up?”
“We don’t have time…”
“Did you set me up?” he shouted, and the hard gleam in his eyes had her spine drawing straight as a ship’s mast. “Did you know the Shorelings would be here?”
“No,” she said. “Shorelings are doing this?”
“Who are you?”
“Please, you gotta let me out of here.”
He didn’t move.
She swallowed. The water was coming faster now, climbing over her ankles.
“I’m Marin. I told you.”
“Are you a criminal?”
“No more than your father!” she snapped, anger bursting over the fear.
Ross grew still, a strange, unsettling image with the gradual tilt of the room behind him. The water had reached the bottom of her calves now, and was still rising.
“Please.” Panic squeezed her chest. “I didn’t mean that. You get me out of here, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“The gyre,” he said.
“What?” Earlier, he’d lacked the sea legs to stay aboard a moving boat. How did he know about the gyre?
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t go there. Not yet. Not without money.
She didn’t have a choice.
“Fine,” she said. “Great. I love the gyre.”
“Swear it. Swear you’ll take me there.”
She would have sworn to stand on her head for the next week if it meant he got her out of there.
“I swear,” she said.
He lunged forward through the water and bent low to examine the lock. He shook the bars. They didn’t budge.
“I’ll be right back.”
And then he was gone.
The door was pushed as far open as it would go, and as she waited, she watched the flashing lights and willed him to go faster. The dark and the lights and the sounds felt like they were inside her body, shocking her, making her quake. She couldn’t escape them, even when she covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes as tightly as she could.
Over it all came a voice, whispering from the past.
It’ll be quick, Marin. One breath in, and it’ll all be over.
I can’t.
You have to.
Tears filled the corners of her eyes. She looked up, imagining she could see sky. Please hurry, please hurry, please hurry.
Ross crashed into the room, reaching above the threshold to keep himself upright. “There’s nothing that will work.”
His face was pale, his eyes round.
“Then find the key, the guard…”
“They’re all on deck. We’re being attacked. I can’t go up there.”
He took a step back.
“Wait,” she said. “Don’t leave. Help me.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice was low. She could see his throat working to swallow.
He disappeared out the door, leaving only a red pool of water in his wake.
“No!” she screamed.
The water hit her knees.
The bottoms of her thighs.
He wasn’t coming back.
She shook the bars. She braced her feet against the hull, and pushed back against the gate, straining every muscle as one. It didn’t budge.
The water reached her hips. Then her waist.
One breath in, and it’ll all be over.
“Dad, help,” she whispered, and it was as close to her mother’s prayers as she had ever said.
Ross appeared back in the doorframe, gripping the handle as he trudged across the floor toward her. She choked down a sob.
“I found this in a glass case.”
He held up a silver gun, not unlike the one his bodyguard had used. The handle was short, the barrel not more than an inch. The trigger was a button directly on the top for the thumb, beneath a fingernail-sized, auto-aiming screen.
She could barely speak; her throat was too tight. She motioned for him to give it over.
He handed the gun to her through the bars, but the second it was in her hand she realized this would do her no good. She couldn’t shoot the lock from inside her cage; it was on the outside, and needed to be hit from there.
She shoved it back toward him. Swallowed. “You have to do it.”
He took it, though he held it uncertainly in his open hand.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“Thumb on top,” she said quickly. “Make sure the center of the circle on the screen is on the lock. Don’t let it autofocus on me, all right?”
He gave a curt nod.
“Then press the button.”
He lifted the gun.
“Wait,” she yelped. “Back up.”
He was going to shoot her. At least it would be better than drowning.
He moved back, the water now just rising to his belt. The warm liquid climbed up her hips, a tempting comfort drawing her down while above her wet clothes twisted around her body and cut into her skin.
He squinted his eyes
.
“Keep them open!” she said.
He did.
She scrambled to the far corner, making herself as small as she could. Her cheek and shoulder wedged against the bars. She was the one to close her eyes.
He fired.
The gun made only a hard pop, but the clang of the metal as it slammed back against the hinges made her good ear ring. A quick feel of her arms and neck told her she was still in one piece, and she rushed forward to push at the door. It moved an inch, then another. Ross, finally shaken from his freeze, moved toward her and pulled it the rest of the way open.
She nodded.
He tucked the gun in his hip pocket.
They made their way out of the room, him in the lead, her holding on to his forearm. His height made it easier for him to still walk, though each step was labored as he dragged his legs through the water. She was practically swimming behind him. Giving up on her boots, she kicked them off, and let him pull her into the hall.
“This way,” he said.
The overhead lights were flashing as they reached a hard turn in their path. He peered around the corner, then trudged forward, pushing aside a packaged life jacket and some other floating debris.
“Where’s the Déchet?” she asked. “My boat? Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
If her ship had been sunk, they were trapped.
They reached another turn, this one marked by directions painted on the wall. To the right was the galley, to the left, the deck. Arrows pointed each way.
Ross stared at the sign. “I … I don’t remember how to get out…”
Clearly not through the galley. Maybe he’d been underwater too long before she’d cut him free.
“Come on.” She took the lead, pulling him toward the deck. His grip stayed firm on her wrist, and even though she was dragging him, he didn’t feel like deadweight.
They came to the stairs, where she’d been hauled down before the attack. Up they climbed, out of the water. The metal grating dug into Marin’s socked feet, but didn’t slow her down. She continued on to the next level, where she heard the distinctive sound of gunfire.
Shorelings, Ross had said. She remembered the boxes of weapons in Gloria’s storage room at the library, crates with the Oil Nation bird on them. Apparently the Shorelings were tired of fighting with their fists.
“We have to go up,” she said. “Stay close.”
He nodded.
Keeping low, they crept up the last stairs, clinging to the bannister so they didn’t slide off to the port side, where the ship was sinking deeper into the water. When they reached the top, she kept close to the hatch, glancing quickly outside to find the side of the deck clear. Even with the shouts and bitter smell of smoke cutting through the rain, she felt infinitely better. Her blood began to buzz.
“Give me the gun,” she said.
“Don’t shoot me.” He handed it over.
She grinned.
Keeping low, they ran the length of the deck through the sheets of rain, around the swell of the lower cabin. A gun wasn’t her ideal weapon. She wanted her knife; she was more comfortable with it even in this fight, but the sailor who’d wanted to toss her overboard had stolen it.
Once they made it to the end of the upper deck, she glanced around the steps that led into the raised control room. The windows had been shot out, and shards of glass stuck up from the bottom sills like glowing teeth. Inside, she could hear a woman’s voice shouting a message.
“We’re under attack. The Shorelings have attacked Base Seven, I repeat, Base Seven is under attack…” There was a pause, and then, “I said reverse! Get us out of here!”
Looming behind the control room was the monstrous oil rig, smoking and smoldering from the attack. A black number “7” marked every support beam.
To her left was the cockpit and the front of the ship. A quick listen told her that that was where most of the action was happening. She glanced in that direction, seeing that the boom, cracked near the midpoint, had fallen, and dragged the mainsail into a triangular heap of canvas that half a dozen Armament crewmembers hid behind. Beyond it, she could see two Shoreling women with red scarves in their hair, hanging on the outer stairway that wrapped around one of the supporting beams of the oil rig.
Grabbing Ross’s hand, she ran toward the back of the boat. Soon she could see the Déchet’s white mast, stretching defiantly upward despite the sails that had been tacked down. Twin steel ropes had fastened her boat to two steel hooks on the back of the Armament ship. The Déchet’s cockpit appeared empty and the hull was in one piece.
She was still seaworthy.
Using the autofocus, Marin aimed the gun at the far line and fired. The rope broke apart with a snap, the smaller boat immediately drifting away from its holding. She aimed at the second line and waited for the auto-aim to focus.
Relief singing in her chest, she almost missed the Shoreling man charging from the far side of the stern. He collided with Ross, sending them both tumbling into the railing. Though he was smaller than Ross, he had the advantage of surprise and ended up on top of him.
Marin didn’t wait to see if he was armed, or what he would do next. She kicked him square in the side and sent him sprawling over Ross’s head. When he turned back, she raised the gun.
“He’s with me,” she said.
The man scoffed, like this was some kind of joke, but when Marin took a step closer, he scrambled backward, flipped over, and ran for the front of the ship.
She reached for Ross’s hand and hauled him up. He gave her a breathless nod.
“Try not to drown yourself this time,” she said.
He glanced down to the twenty-foot drop into the water, just as she shot through the line. Her boat was free now, and she wasn’t about to let anyone else put their hands on it.
Bracing her weight on her forearm, she swung her legs over the railing. The fall was quick, and in the corner of her eye she saw Ross jump before her feet even hit the water. Gunfire, raised voices, the crash of metal against metal were all silenced as the warm water swallowed her whole. Pinching her eyes closed against the acid, she swam hard, the gun handle slippery in her fist. Faster she went, until finally her hands found the half-submerged ladder beside the motor.
Ross was right behind her.
“What do I do?” he asked as she launched herself toward the boom to untie the mainsail.
His words made something swell beneath her rib cage, but this wasn’t the time for fear, or anger, or doubt. Each second mattered, and feeling anything at all risked both of their lives.
“Stay out of my way,” she said.
She barely stopped to wipe the rain from her eyes. Soon, the sail was raised, and she was beating a path through the heavy curtain of fog to freedom.
CHAPTER 18
ROSS SAT huddled beneath a tarp while the boat sliced through the low clouds, listening to Marin hum to herself. It wasn’t quite a song, but more like a one-sided, wordless conversation with her boat, or maybe even the sea itself. He caught whispers of it on the wind, and when he moved, and the tarp crinkled, she would abruptly stop and glance back, as if surprised he was still sitting there.
He couldn’t stop thinking of the Armament, and what had become of the ship. He imagined Captain Ingold and the other crewmen floating facedown in the water and fought off a chill that had nothing to do with the heavy, salted breeze.
He should have tried to do more. Something his father would have done. Tried to negotiate, or used the radio, maybe. Part of him felt compelled to call the mainland now and tell his dad what had happened, but when he asked for Marin’s radio he found that she had none.
His comm was gone. He had no way to contact his family.
Maybe it was for the better. He wasn’t sure what he’d say at this point anyway.
His thoughts slid from the captain’s suspicion to the steward’s words about the gyre and the special detail taking the prisoners. How many of them were innocent, like
Adam? How many Shorelings thought Ross’s father was a criminal, like Marin had alluded? He felt like he was looking at a picture from behind a veil; a complete image existed, but as much as he focused on it, it remained unclear.
“Hey,” said Ross, his throat dry and voice rough. “Stop the boat.”
She turned back, one hand still on the wheel. Her hair bobbed in tight, wet curls around her chin. It wasn’t raining anymore, but misting, and the bare skin of her arms and chest glistened, even in this dim light.
“Can’t stop.”
He rose to his knees, shucked the tarp, and then stood, steadying himself with both hands on the least sharp-looking piece of the motor. The boat hit a swell and jostled him sideways. Her weight only shifted from one leg to the other, which didn’t irritate him in the slightest.
“We need to talk.”
Her mouth tilted up.
“So talk.”
At the next wave he gave up trying to stand, and sat on a crate fastened to the siding. “I can’t think like this. Just slow down for a minute.”
“And risk the Armament throwing me back in a cell? I don’t think so.”
His neck grew uncomfortably hot. His hands too clammy. Anger took control of his words before he had a chance to think them through.
“I could have left you in that cell.”
His stomach turned again, both from the steady thunk, thunk, thunk of the hull smashing down over the waves and the reminder of what they had just left behind.
“I could have left you in that iceberg,” she said with a shrug. “But I didn’t.”
He recalled the feel of his lungs squeezing, of the panic contracting inside his body as he fought to swim to the surface.
“That’s fair,” he said.
One brow cocked beneath her wet curls. He was struck by the rightness of her, standing there at the helm of this small ship. On land she’d stuck out; there was something different about her. Her skin was a little darker than those who lived in Lower Noram, like she’d spent all her life beneath the sun. Lean muscles defined her arms and thin waist, and she displayed them proudly, unafraid to let the rain touch her. She moved with a grace here that he hadn’t seen when they’d been running, or even sitting in the taxi.
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