The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(41)

Santa Elena laughs. It starts as a chuckle and builds until she’s howling, and the crew’s laughing with her, their voices a barrage of tiny knives that slash at the strings holding me up. I fight against them, but they keep coming, keep cutting. I’ve been surrounded by these cutthroats for months, but I’ve never felt less safe than I do now. My breath’s almost choked out of me by Swift’s grip, and I realize that I’m crying. Ugly, fearful tears plunge down my neck to join the saltwater of the spray that kicks off the Minnow’s stern.

Out in the ocean, through the haze of water that clouds my vision, I can see the dark form of Bao approaching, only this time I can’t see him as a Reckoner, as my charge. He’s a monster, an ancient horror emerging from the depths and coming for blood.

There are only two other people on the deck not laughing now—Swift, who’s got her nose buried in the crook of my neck as she tries to restrain me, and Code, who’s finally stopped shaking. He’s got his head hung, as if he’s finally ready for what the captain’s about to do.

“Don’t,” I choke, clawing at Swift’s hands. “Please. This is gonna ruin everything. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

And for some reason this makes Santa Elena laugh even harder. “Cassandra, this is unbelievable,” she chuckles once she’s calmed herself. “You raised this beast to do exactly this. You’ve always raised these beasts to do this.”

“I raise ship-sinkers. Not maneaters,” I sob.

“Eaten, drowned, crushed. Dead is dead. And you raise monsters that deal death because you’re too clean to do it yourself. That’s shoregirl thinking, kid. Won’t do you no good out here.”

“Please,” I call out again.

“Muzzle her,” Santa Elena orders, and then Swift’s hand is over my mouth and I’m screaming against it, thrashing, trying to bite, but I can’t wrench my jaw open wide enough. I can only taste her skin and see the captain as she turns to face Bao, who’s drawn up alongside the trainer deck. His huge eyes roam over the crowd, and his beak rolls lazily open as he leans forward to nudge the beacon, just like I trained him to do.

There’s nothing I can do at this point, and it’s only now sinking in. Swift must feel the fight leave me. Her arms relax, but she keeps her hand over my mouth, the other clenching my wetsuit. “Cas,” she warns, dropping her voice low. “He deserves this.”

Those are the last words I hear before Santa Elena pulls out the knife, and the trainer deck erupts into incoherent noise as the pirates cheer on their captain. But the trainees aren’t cheering. Lemon’s still folded up against the wall, Chuck and Varma are leaning close to each other, their faces set in stoic masks that hide what must be an ocean’s worth of turmoil, and I can feel Swift’s pounding heart against my back. This is their companion, their comrade who betrayed them and shattered the trust that had grown between them.

This is their traitorous friend, and he’s about to die.

I can’t look away.

Santa Elena takes Code by both shoulders and leans in close, whispering something that only he can hear. When she draws back, he’s crying, his face ashen, his hands limp at his sides. The captain turns the blade over in her hand, then draws it back, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

She thrusts the blade between his legs, flaying his inner thigh open, and a wash of red pours out in the knife’s wake. Femoral artery. Clean slice.

Code screams as he drains, his hands clutching the front of Santa Elena’s jacket, but all she says is, “Hush,” and his grip slips away until she shoves him backward. His arms don’t pinwheel—he flops into the NeoPacific with a wet slap, but he still struggles, still tries to swim even as the waves lift him toward Bao.

Don’t do it, you shit. Don’t you dare.

Bao tilts his head, and I can feel everyone on the deck lean forward to get a better view of the inevitable. Code has stopped screaming. He’s reduced himself to messy sobs that grow weaker and weaker with each breath he draws, and the Reckoner looms over him, beak dipping down to sample the bloodstained waters that wreathe him.

Don’t do it. Don’t—

My thoughts are worthless. Bao lunges forward, his jaws snapping shut, and then Code is in half. His torso disappears down Bao’s gullet, and it’s merciful because finally, finally, finally his sobbing stops, replaced only with the surge of the monster’s body against the sea.

I’ve never hated Bao more than I do in this moment.

Swift’s holding me so tight that she’s practically strangling me. She must feel it. Must feel how I’m a beast in my own right, waiting to strike, ready to surge at Santa Elena the second her hold lets up.

She’s ruined Bao, perverted him even more than he already is. He’s been given human flesh as a reward for coming to his goddamn beacon, and I can’t erase that. And even worse, Bao’s proven her right. He doesn’t need fancy training, with beams and noises and beacons to tell him what to destroy. He’s already the monster she needs, and I raised him. I could have killed him, but I raised him.

I did this.

I let myself go limp until Swift’s the only thing keeping me standing. I keep my eyes fixed on the bloody stain, on Code’s legs sinking into the depths, on Bao as he plunges after them.

When Swift lets me go, I run.