The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(20)

Most of Reckoner training is a waiting game, and it’s one that makes Swift steam at the ears. She sits on the counter where I’ve grown used to sleeping, knees drawn up to her chin, tossing the radio back and forth from hand to hand. I would have thought the monotony of ship life had prepared her for a couple of boring days, but apparently there are better things to do today aboard the Minnow than watch a beast pup swim.

Bao keeps the pace that the ship sets, and for the first time this morning, I allow myself to relax. If he continues to follow these instinctive patterns, his imprinting behavior will engage, bonding him to the Minnow, and the part that’s up to him will be over.

Which means the part that’s up to me is days away.

Bao’s cunning. He’ll learn quickly. He’s a Reckoner, bred to be trained. And I’m going to train him to kill. Not to defend a ship, no—this beast is going to be taught to hunt down and destroy innocent vessels. To ravage the NeoPacific, just like Santa Elena wants.

And if I can’t escape, if I can’t get myself back to shore, it will all be by my hand. The possibility of failure hits me like a bullet to the chest, and all of a sudden I can feel it—I can feel the slug that’ll be put in me if I do anything to sabotage the captain’s plans. My heart thunders and my jaw locks tight. If it comes to that, I’ll have to keep going along with her orders. I’m too scared to do anything else.

I slump to the floor of the trainer deck. Dampness soaks into my shorts as a small wave breaks against the side ports.

“What’s eating you, shoregirl?” Swift drawls from her perch.

A twinge of annoyance rattles through me. “Don’t play that game. You don’t want to know what I’m feeling.”

“I’m bored as shit—I’ll listen to anything.”

I consider. She’s the closest thing I have to a friend on this boat, even if she does want to gut me most of the time. And after today, I have to move back in with her. “I’m thinking about home,” I lie.

“You’re SRCese, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, crossing my arms. “We’re based just outside of New Los Angeles.”

“Never been,” Swift shoots back.

“It’s nice. Good beaches. Of course, it’s empty three quarters of the year. The coast’s lined with summer homes and hotels, so there’s not much in the way of permanent residents. But during summer it comes alive.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Gimme open sea any day. Couldn’t stand living on a beach.”

“Oh yeah? You’ve never tried it?”

Swift grins, stretching her arms behind her head. “Nah, shoregirl. Flotilla, born and raised. Didn’t touch solid land until after I’d started my bleed.”

Of course she’s from a floating city. Now that I think about it, that’s the only place that a crew like this could come from. Those behemoths thrive on piracy, unregulated by any state as they drift with the currents cycling the NeoPacific. They’re too big to be taken down by a military force, and no state has the balls to try. The last attempt was twenty years ago, when a Filipino armada tried to blockade a floating city and starve out the pirates supplying it. The retribution was ruthless. Pirates across the NeoPacific began wrecking any ship flying the flag of the Philippines, and their ocean trade is still struggling to put itself back together in the aftermath.

It suits Swift to be from such a volatile place.

“How long have you been on the Minnow, then?” I ask. My gaze flicks to the ocean outside, and I’m relieved to see Bao continuing to keep pace.

“Captain took me on when I was thirteen, started me off as a deckhand. So, uh, five years?”

Confirming that Swift is, indeed, about my age. I nod. “And when did you get appointed one of Santa Elena’s … trainees?”

“Christ, is this a job interview? I’ve been in the running for a good year and a half now. My turn to ask a question.”

I roll my eyes.

“You go by anything shorter than Cassandra?”

I wasn’t expecting a question like that. I sit there blinking for several seconds. “Uh … I mean, most people call me Cas.”

“One syllable. Nice.”

“Ooh, syllable. Big word for a Flotilla kid.”

The smile drops from Swift’s face, but her teeth remain, bared and ready to bite. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”

I don’t dare say anything.

Swift pushes off the counter, padding over to my side. She crouches until she’s nose to nose with me, her blue eyes unblinking as she leers into my face. “You think the SRC’s the peak of civilization, huh? You think the little bubble you live in is as good as the world gets, that the rest of us are just hanging onto the fringes.” She’s close enough that I can feel the soft push of her breath against my cheek. “You’ve thought it for so long that the idea’s just a joke for you to banter with. And then you get all hurt when we call you shoregirl, as if there aren’t a thousand worse assumptions rattling around inside that empty head of yours.”

She doesn’t touch me, doesn’t scratch my still-healing scalp or shove me in the ribs. I have hundreds of vulnerable points right now, but Swift isn’t looking to hit me there. She wants me to feel guilty.