The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(14)

I prop myself up on my elbows, watching as she rummages through the drawers. I’ve got no earthly idea what time it is, apart from “not night.” There’s no window in Swift’s bunk, and it strikes me now that the janitorial closet might have been roomier.

When she strips off her shirt, I don’t spare her the way she spared me. Her body is laced with scars, but that’s not the only thing marking her skin. Inked across the bottom of her rib cage is a bird, its pointed wings curving down toward her hips, its head covered by the bottom edge of her bra. A swift.

Of course.

“So did your mom give you that name, or did people just see your tattoo and start calling you that?” I ask.

“Mom.” She says the word like it’s eggshells that she’s dancing over. “Now quit staring, jackass,” she snaps, and throws her shirt in my face. “Get off the floor. You’ve got shit to do.”



Five minutes later, we’re jogging through the halls on the ship’s lowest level. Down here, the engines groan and grumble as if we’re passing through a giant metal heart, and the smell of saltwater winds through the air. The upper part of the Minnow is stitched together from mismatched pieces, the halls bleeding from metal to wood and plastic in a train wreck of bolts and glue. But down here, the comforts of the yacht parts melt away into the cold, industrial womb of a warship.

We round a corner and step through a hatch into what I should have known the ship possessed from the start. The Minnow already has a built-in trainer deck. There are two huge cutaways with roll-up doors on either side of the hull that open out to the ocean, and a runoff trough that takes in whatever seawater washes over and sweeps it into a channel that feeds out the back of the ship. A massive cutaway dominates the rear wall, with a similar set of roll-up doors which have been pulled up to give us a wide, sweeping view of the morning sea. The floor is damp under my bare feet, and I take care not to slip as I pick my way after Swift. Santa Elena waits at the edge of the trough, four of her crew beside her and the pup’s tank at her side.

On the back wall, a knot of cabin boys and girls takes me in with wide eyes. None of them look older than thirteen, and Santa Elena’s boy is among them. I can’t tell which is the bigger spectacle for these kids: the monster pup, or the shoregirl dragged aboard to hatch it.

A pit of dread builds in my stomach. The pup’s in its purse, which keeps it in stasis. It’s safe and warm, fed by the rich fluids that cradle it. The second it’s exposed to the outside world, it needs constant care and attention. We usually have a rotating staff when the pups hatch back home—a night shift, an early day shift, and a late day shift. Twenty-four hour supervision.

With my life tied to this baby monster, I can’t afford to do any less than that.

“I’ve collected the tools you need,” Santa Elena says as we draw near. She’s dressed in sweatpants and a track jacket, her hair bound back in a ponytail, a far cry from the elegant woman who lounged in the throne room last night.

For a second, I hold the captain’s gaze, and I’m sure she sees the questions in my eyes: How do you know what we need? How did you get this equipment? How did you get this pup?

But she only smirks. “Your knife is there. Turn it on any of my crew and I’ll have lead in your skull faster than you can blink.”

She gestures to a bank of instruments spread out on a workbench. Whatever her source, she’s clearly done her research. There are tubes and bellows for clearing the baby’s airways, towels for wiping it down, an adhesive thermometer to monitor its temperature. And then there’s the blade,

gut-hooked and wicked looking, designed to carve the leathery skin that forms the sac.

I take it in my hand, testing its weight. I’ve only ever been the one holding the knife once, a year ago. I remember what Mom said to me as she hovered over my shoulder, ready to swoop in the instant my wrist twisted the wrong way. “Make the cut along the lower edge of the purse,” she told me. “Let the fluid drain before the pup does.”

But we had Tom with us, holding up the other end of the purse while Mom guided me through the work, and technicians on the sides, ready to swoop in with the care the pup needed. I need more hands than I have here, but no one’s stepping up to help. Swift’s fallen back to the captain’s side, and none of her crew look interested in anything but watching me struggle.

“Put up the dams,” Santa Elena barks. Two of her crew, a man and a woman, move to the edges of the drainage channel and haul up partitions that catch the water, creating a miniature tank that fills to knee-depth in a minute.

My hands are shaking.

“Dump the purse,” the captain orders the men to her left. They wrap their arms around the tank that holds the Reckoner pup and tilt it over slowly but surely until the amniotic fluid drains into the pool, the sac sliding out after it. The waters flush a muted orange, and the pup convulses in its purse.

I grab the rest of my tools and step over the barrier, shuddering as the chill of the seawater sinks into me. The amniotic fluid forms a thin, slimy skin on the water’s surface, one that the pup will have to fight once it’s free-breathing. I set the tubes, bellows, and towels down on the other side of the partition and move toward the purse, my fingers curling tighter on the knife.

The purse is about four feet long and three feet wide. By my estimates, the pup’s probably around two hundred pounds, almost twice my weight. As soon as this thing gets free, it’s going to have a mind of its own, and it’s up to me to get out of the way before it gets any ideas.