The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(21)

But I don’t.

Everyone on this boat is complicit in taking everything I hold dear from me. They’re killers and captors and thieves, and if I hurt their feelings, so be it. It’s not my aim to play polite with a girl who can’t hurt me any worse than the damage I’ve already taken.

So I just keep still until she stands up straight and goes back to sulking on the counter.



Bao homes to the ship for the rest of the afternoon, and by the time Hina puts out the all-call for dinner, I’m certain that he’s completely locked onto the Minnow. For the first time in weeks, I’m allowed off the trainer deck and into the main body of the ship. I follow Swift to the mess, realizing that I’ve already forgotten the twists and turns of the Minnow’s halls.

She doesn’t invite me to sit with the other lackeys when I get my tray, but I do it anyway. When I’m not on the trainer deck, the safest place on this boat is glued to Swift’s hip. I haven’t said a word since this afternoon; at this point, I think pretty much anything out of my mouth will offend her.

The lackeys all seem too happy to see me. Even Lemon lights up a bit when she spots me tailing Swift over to their table.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Varma says, grinning extra wide as I slide onto the bench next to Swift. The guy probably gets kicked out of funerals for looking too pleased with himself.

I eat in silence and leave with Swift. We go back to her room, she throws a change of clothes at me, and it’s just like the first night, minus the punching. She just collapses in bed, rolls over, and I follow.

But this time I don’t let her drift off. I have questions, and the first is, “Why do you guys like each other so much?”

Swift startles. She lifts her head, her half-there hair flopping over as she twists to look at me.

“You and the other lack—trainees,” I continue. “Only one of you is going to be captain in the end, right? Shouldn’t you all be at each others’ throats?”

For a moment I think she’s not going to respond, but then she rolls over to face me, and something seems to soften in her.

“We’ve been through a lot of shit together,” she says. “When you work like we do, when you hunt side by side—it’s something that bonds you. Sometimes the captain does stuff like this. She sets up situations where someone’s clearly getting special treatment, and yeah, it gets messy sometimes. But when you suffer with someone, you learn them. And it’s hard to kill a person you’ve learned.”

I nod. I’ve seen that kind of suffering-bond firsthand every time we have a pup in the stables—the caretakers of the newborn Reckoner become caretakers of each other. “But it can’t last, right?”

“It might have,” Swift sighs. “But then you came along.”

I don’t know what to say. Does she expect me to apologize for being dragged bodily aboard this ship to raise a beast I want to destroy more than anything?

“You still on those pain meds?” she asks. “You’re awfully talky today.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Reinhardt weaned me off them a week ago.” My ribs still twinge on occasion, but I don’t want Swift to know that—she’d probably jab them if she knew.

“Ah, so you’re just getting more comfortable.”

“Well I am sleeping in your bed,” I grumble.

She grins, and for a moment her eyes light up in the same way they do when she’s joking with the other lackeys. “Don’t get too chummy with me, Cas. I’ll eat you alive.”

I can’t help it. I snort, and it gains momentum until I’m cackling. “Was that a threat? God, you’re the least intimidating pirate I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.”

“Then clearly you haven’t spent enough time around Varma.”

It’s like Swift’s room is a whole other world, a subdimension of the Minnow where Swift isn’t a pirate and I’m not a prisoner. Here, away from the gaze of the rest of the crew, we’re talking and laughing together as if we’re something like normal. There’s something that unlocks in Swift when she’s sealed away from the rest of the ship, something honest. Something I actually can respect.





12


The next morning, the captain wants to oversee my training session with Bao. She paces along the trainer deck as I lure the pup back to the ship with the homing LEDs. There’s a spark of excitement in her eyes, and it’s keeping the tension in my muscles.

Bao’s blowholes flare as he approaches, blasting a fine mist into the air that hangs over the morning sea. A piece of fresh meat hangs out of the corner of his mouth, the twisted remnants of some fish he’s caught. At least he’s figured out how to feed himself on his own. That’s a weight off my shoulders, and the fact that he’s eaten recently makes me much less apprehensive about what’s about to happen.

I’m dressed in a brand-new wetsuit that Santa Elena furnished. It’s made of some of the most breathable fabric I’ve ever encountered, but it’s snug and warm around my torso. A new, top-of-the-line respirator hangs around my neck. If it weren’t for the circumstances, I’d feel utterly pampered.

Bao’s had a night to adjust to the ocean, which means today’s the day I start water work with him. If he’s going to be in my charge, I have to get him comfortable with having me in the sea at his side. Mom and Dad never let me do this stage of training. It always went to the most experienced, the bravest. I’ve only ever watched first contact from behind the glass of a tank.