“What’s not?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the shore. I was holding my sunglasses in my hand, clearly against the Gabriel rules, and shielding my eyes, squinting to see. I heard him sigh. He knelt beside me.
“Please, Blue. Keep the glasses on.” He touched my chin with his fingertips, turning my head to face him. He ran his thumb over the purple-and-blue flesh surrounding my right eye and pulled the hood lower. I could read fear in his eyes. “This is not a game. There are those who would kill you on sight, out of fear. There are those who would do much worse, out of hate.”
So we were back to that. I was the devil; I was a God. I was good; I was evil. I was pissed.
Didn’t these people know that I had just sailed in with the devil? Why did I get the bad rap? What had Tsunami Blue done but save lives?
“People fear what they don’t understand, Blue.” Gabriel was doing the mind-reading thing again, and it wasn’t helping. I was angry and I wanted to stay that way. If I stayed mad, I wouldn’t be so disappointed later when he told me I couldn’t go ashore. Okay, I admit it: devastated.
“Look, Blue.”
Oh, boy, here it comes. I turned away.
“Blue,” Gabriel said in that smooth, annoying voice he used when he wanted to soft-pedal bad news, “you can’t go ashore.”
I didn’t look at him when I gave him the finger.
Out of respect for Max, I didn’t say it, but I had to express it. I had to do everything in my power to stay angry. If I didn’t, I might cry. And I was so damn tired of tears.
Gabriel sighed. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath as he peered through his expensive binoculars. Shaking his head, he lowered the glasses and knelt once more to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to him. But I did want to know what had prompted the “brown word.”
“New Vancouver is a dangerous and ugly place,” he said.
“I just want to see a cow.” I felt like a little kid, and if I could have, I would have stomped my foot in anger.
“I know you do, Blue.” He knocked the hood back and stroked my hair. “But this is not the time or the trip. Look around you. Never have there been so many Runners in one place. Never.”
As I glanced around, I felt my blood pressure rise a notch. Make that two. My heart skipped a beat, then settled back into a regular rhythm. But just barely.
I’d been so caught up in the harbor and the activity onshore that I had just dismissed the Runners and all their ships. I now realized Gabriel was right. There was nothing little about this gathering.
Gray and black sails filled the sky, blocking the few winter sun rays struggling to get out. Sirens still blared at will, while the harbor filled as more and more ships entered through the breakwater. The noise grew, and the cursing and shouting floated across the water. A fight broke out on a ship close to us, and two men ended up in the freezing sea.
Only one surfaced.
The other was slowly drowning, and I watched in horror as money, even though completely worthless, changed hands to see how long he lasted.
He didn’t last long. Some unknown assailant helped the man along by throwing a knife into his neck. Others joined in, using the man for target practice. His body quickly filled with arrows and knives and even a gaff hook.
And these were the men who sought me. In numbers too vast to count. I felt the color drain from my face. I put the hood up and the glasses on.
The water turned red, but the worst was still to come. The sharks swam in and the feeding frenzy began. With five rows of razor-sharp teeth, jaws that unhinged, and a lust for blood greater than a Runner’s, the sharks made quick work of what only minutes ago had been a living, breathing man.
The only consolation as I dropped back into the boat tumbling on the V-berth? At least his screams had stopped.
Gabriel was being invited to a party.
“Guess I’m not welcome.”
“Be thankful you’re not, Blue.”
I didn’t have to think about that long. I crossed my booted feet and propped them up on a sail bag. “Will you be late, dear?”
“Funny.”
It wasn’t supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be a roundabout way of asking if he’d be home before dawn. Or before a day or two. Or maybe a week, for all I knew. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been at a Runner party before. Seamus had been legendary for them.
The other thing that concerned me were the female voices floating across the harbor from the other boats.
Gabriel looked good enough to eat in black jeans and a black thermal that hugged every hard line of his body. He’d donned that lethal-looking belt he favored, which only added to his dark and dangerous appeal. Gabriel Black was cut, lean, strong, and beautiful.
And he was mine.
I touched the back of my head where I’d hit the deck. It was tender and still had a swollen knot the size of a golf ball. Not that I’d ever played golf. You needed dry land for that. Dry, flat land. But yeah, a bump that hard might have shaken up my brain some. At least enough to get it wrong about Gabriel Black. He was not mine. Would never be mine. I didn’t want him to be mine.
I heard the sea outside the boat whispering to me, Are you sure, Blue? Are you sure, Blue? Are you sure?
“Yes, I’m sure, damn it.”
Gabriel paused midway through putting on his duster and looked at me in surprise. “Sure about what?”
Well, if that wasn’t embarrassing. The sea, as usual, laughed. I shook my head. “It’s not funny,” I whispered.
“Blue?”
I glared at Gabriel, mad that he’d caught me being a freak. Mad that I was a freak. “Just go,” I told him.
He shrugged and walked past me. As he started up the ladder, he stopped, came back, and knelt beside me. I stared at my hands. He lifted my chin and kissed me on the nose. “Remember what we talked about. Don’t go topside, lie low—”
“Make no noise,” I joined in, “and if I have to fight, survive.”
“No one will dare board my boat without permission. It’s understood in my circle. It’s a death sentence.”
His circle. The Runners’ circle. I couldn’t ever forget.
I looked into his eyes, black like the night he was about to venture into. He grinned and twin dimples danced to the surface. I gave him a halfhearted smile. Then he surprised me with a kiss, deep and passionate and wonderful.
“I’ll be home in plenty of time to practice.”
It was a good thing Gabriel had given me that kiss. Because when a dingy hit our hull moments later and a female voice, sultry and seductive, called out to him, I just might have tripped him on the way up. Or broken his leg. Or worse. I peeked through the porthole and saw a tall, luscious blonde sitting next to him.
Too damn close.
I wasn’t worried about her seeing me. She only had eyes for Gabriel. Great.
Her platinum locks bore a stark contrast to his midnight hair, and I couldn’t help wondering how different the strands would look tangled together. How unlike my dark head, where you couldn’t tell where his hair started and mine left off. I had a pit deep in my stomach as I saw her reach up and run her hand down his back. I felt sick and I knew damn well it wasn’t from my head or the sea or the blood of a stranger.
It came from my heart.
As they rowed away I saw him flash a brilliant smile, complete with twin dimples. Great. Just great.
Chapter Eighteen
Gabriel did not come back to the boat all night.
By dawn my body ached for him to the point of physical pain.
It was a new kind of pain for me. Foreign and unfamiliar. It was pain that couldn’t be treated with smelly remedies or by slamming whiskey or old medicines. No this pain was lodged deep in my heart. And I didn’t know what to do about it.
I really didn’t.
I longed for his touch, his kiss, his warmth, for, well, for everything that was Gabriel Black. I’ll be home in plenty of time to practice.
I had believed him.
And now I didn’t. It was that Runner thing.
But it still didn’t make me feel any better.
And the sea had been restless too. All night it had whispered and taunted: Coming. Coming. Coming.
Finally, just as the colors of daybreak streaked across the sky, I rolled off the bunk and got dressed.
I wore all black, to match my mood. Black jeans, the black sweatshirt, black shades, and my boots.
And when I slid into my skull boots, that badass feeling came roaring back. All I needed was my knife. It was then that I realized I’d stayed at the party too long. I had been captured by a Runner, abandoned by a Runner, and been made love to by a Runner. Almost.
And what had all this drama gotten me? An ache so deep in my soul I didn’t know if I could ever regain the numbness I had lived in for so many years. And I desperately wanted to reach numbness again. Because when I did, this pain—this raw, twisting pain—would go away.
I made myself some Starbucks and contemplated my next move. Escape was always an option. But I wanted this boat. I needed this boat. With the impending wave, I needed to broadcast, and Gabriel had the means to do it right here on this little ship.
A ship that was now mine.
It must have been the coffee kicking in, because I had just commandeered this vessel and claimed it as my own. Now, see? I told myself. Gabriel should have just come home last night and none of this would have happened. At least, not this soon. After all, if truth be told, taking the boat was always the plan. But I had been reconsidering the throwing-him-overboard part. Until this morning, when I woke to a cold and empty bed.
So I guess it was official. I was one of those woman-scorned types. Who knew?
I hummed an old Taylor Swift song from back in the day, and when I reached the part about saying no and coming home, I threw caution out the hatch and belted out the lyrics as loud as I could.
There. I felt better.
Until I heard the approaching dinghy and the loud, gruff voices that went along with it.
I peeked out the porthole. Shit. Runner scum. Two of them. Well, I hoped they liked country and western. If not I was pretty much dead. Oh, who was I kidding? I was pretty much dead anyway.
I watched, crouched in the V-berth, out a tiny porthole. I should be okay. Gabriel said they wouldn’t dare board. He said they’d be dead meat, he said— Shit. They’d just boarded.
Did they have a death wish? Didn’t they know Gabriel would kill them for trespassing on my boat? I meant his boat. That was now my boat. Whatever.
Exasperated, I scrubbed my hands on my face. Of all the mornings for Gabriel to have pulled an all-nighter. He needed to be here to kill these people. What was he thinking, leaving it up to me like this? And I’d had only one cup of coffee. I needed at least seven Christmas Blends—with cream—to kick their Runner asses.
They were talking at the moment, not seeming too interested in coming down here. This, at least, was good.
“Did you hear singing?”
“Thought so. Pretty bad. Hurt my ears when we were rowing over. Sounded like that country crap to me. Probably came from across the water from Horse’s boat.”
Pretty bad? What? A Runner critic? Are you kidding me?
“You mean Horse’s ass, don’t ya?”
Both men laughed at their little joke. I shook my head. Now they were comics and critics. Well, they were just annoying. They either needed to come down here and kill me, or I needed to go up there and kill them. Whichever. It just needed to happen soon.
“So who’s gettin’ Black’s boat?”
I raised my hand.
“Trace.”
What? The thieving bastard. Well, see, there you go, Blue. If someone was going to steal this boat, I just knew Gabriel would rather it be me than “Mr. Missing Persons” with a fucking ear fetish. I felt bad about thinking the F-word—I was trying hard now that I knew kids were around—but really. Jars of ears stacked around this boat for decor? No.
“That bastard, he always gets the good ones.”
“Yeah. Guess that’s what happens when you’re Runner royalty.”
“What makes that bastard royalty anyway?”
“Black has them convinced he’s the only one who can bring in Tsunami Blue. Alive. Untouched. In one piece. Now I ask you, where’s the fun in that?”
Runner royalty? And they believed this crap? That was it. I was heading up. Gabriel must have a knife hidden nearby. I started searching.
I listened to the men walk around topside and complain about how this went to Trace and that went to Trace, and to tell the truth I’d pretty much tuned out both of them and written them off as whiners, until, “…when Gabriel Black dies tonight.” Now, that brought me up short.
“Indigo won’t be happy when his precious Gabriel doesn’t show in Seattle next week.”
Precious? That wasn’t good.
“He’ll be even more unhappy when he finds out Gabriel had Tsunami Blue in his sights and lost her to Trace. Black was supposed to deliver her personally, with a bow around her scrawny little neck.”
“He had her? Actually had her?”
“Naw, but Trace thinks he was close. Trace figured she had to be in the area, because that’s where Black was headed. With the net Trace is casting, it’s only a matter of time.”
I really hated the word scrawny. But what I really, really hated? Was that Gabriel Black was nothing more than a delivery boy.
“Yeah, and I just bet that bitch gets delivered without any ears.”
“Count on it, bro. I want to be there to ask her if she can still hear the waves coming.”
“Man, that’s messed up.”
“Not as messed up as when we did those girls, remember? Trace paid pretty damn well for the ear with that pretty little diamond in it.”
I heard them high-five each other and laugh like a pair of donkeys. I was frantic for a blade now. I couldn’t wait to get up there and feed them to Jaws.
My hand closed around the hilt of a mean-looking hunting knife. Nice. What better to gut two Runners with? Gabriel had hidden it well, but I had been raised by Seamus O’Malley. Nothing eluded me for long.
Except Gabriel, the sea whispered.
“Not now,” I said in anger, my voice carrying up and away.
“You hear that?”
The Runner’s voice, nasal, nasty, and mean, hurt my ears. I would kill him first. Just because I couldn’t stand the sound of his voice.
“Hell, yeah, I did.”
Like nails on chalkboard or a screeching wrong note, I hated the second Runner’s voice even more. Well, it was his lucky day. I just bumped him to the head of the line.
They met me coming down. I met them going up.
Both were armed with those long, skinny fillet knives Runners favored. And it just didn’t matter what I was armed with. I was lethal with any blade. And so much better than they could ever hope to be.
“Which of you wants a go at me first?” I purred with my knife behind my back.
“Who the hell are you, girly?”
“Baby,” I said in a sultry voice, “it’s just little old me, scrawny Tsunami Blue.” And then I added, “Your worst nightmare, asshole.”
He came at me. Just like they always do.
I met him halfway, cutting his Achilles’ tendon in one swipe and slicing into the femoral artery on two. He’d bleed out in minutes, but I hadn’t the patience or time to watch him die. I delivered a kill shot to the heart, the same one I had planned for Gabriel on that first morning. The next time I saw him—and there would be a next time—I just might use it.
The second Runner screamed, jumping me from behind. Just like I knew he’d do. I turned with such speed that he couldn’t see the blade until I had sunk it into his stomach. He came down on me hard, and on my blade harder. A belly stab is the worst; it can take the longest time for the victim to die. But I needed him alive for a few minutes. I had a few questions. Like where in the hell was Gabriel Bla
ck?
It took a full ten minutes to get the info I needed. The Runner was…how should I put it? Not willing to share? Shy? Yeah, that about covers it. But in the end, I got what I needed. Gabriel was scheduled to fight in the cage at midnight tonight.
And all bets said he wouldn’t come out alive.
Chapter Nineteen
As dusk seeped into twilight I maneuvered Gabriel’s sleek, black-hulled sailboat out of the harbor, past the breakwater, and steered her out to open water. I thanked God for the absinthe and parties and the violence that engulfed Runner mentality when darkness fell. No one cared about an unmanned boat they figured would be fine until morning. What I would have given to see the look on their faces when they woke to find Gabriel’s boat gone. Now that would have been a Kodak moment.
The winter winds were up and I was under way in no time. I trimmed the sails the way I’d seen Gabriel do it. He had made it look easy; there was nothing easy about it.
But then, he knew what he was doing.
Still, with twice as much work, blistered hands, and a rope burn, I persevered.
It was official: I was stealing Gabriel Black’s boat. And it served him right. He had stolen my heart. And it wasn’t even a fair trade. He could easily get another boat. I couldn’t get another heart. But I would try to find him tonight, confront him, and I would do my best to make myself hate him. Only then did I have a prayer of reclaiming the pieces of what was left of my heart.
I could admit it out here, alone on the sea with only the wind and clouds across the moon for company. I could admit that I had fallen in love with him, crazy as it sounded. Probably on that very first night. But it was over for me. I’d been used again, just as I’d been used all my life. Nothing new there. It just hurt more this time. A lot more.
Tonight, under the cover of darkness, I would find him.
I didn’t know what “the cage” was, and it didn’t sound good, but I needed answers too much to be intimidated.
I was going to find out once and for all who Indigo was and what he wanted with me. I needed to know what I was up against. Then I’d leave Gabriel Black and never see him again. He found me once, but it wouldn’t happen twice. Tears came to my eyes, and for one self-indulgent moment, I let them tumble and fall.
Tsunami Blue Page 14