The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(42)

21


The crowd parts. That’s the first surprise. The second is that Swift takes the time to wait for the captain’s approval before sprinting after me. I see Santa Elena nod to her as I glance back over my shoulder. My bare feet pound against the trainer deck as I leap through the hatch and take off down the hall.

“Cas!” Swift bellows from behind me, and it’s like a spur in my side. I skid around a corner and scramble up a set of stairs.

I still don’t fully know the ins and outs of the Minnow, but I know where I can go to escape her. It’s somewhere on the ship’s second level, near the stern, nested between a set of heating pipes that run down into the engine rooms below. Swift’s bootsteps come thundering up the stairs just as I spot it. I open the door, throw myself inside, and slam it behind me.

The harsh scent of ammonia and other weird cleaning solvents washes over me as I clutch the handle of the janitorial closet’s door. It feels so familiar, like no time has passed since the first hours I spent on this ship. If I root around on the floor, I’ll probably find that little blue capsule again. It’s tempting.

The handle jerks under my grip, and I hear Swift grunting on the other side of the door. “Goddamn it, Cas,” she groans, but I keep my hold. “What was that shit you were trying to pull back there? Do you want us both killed?”

I’m so out of breath, so disoriented that it takes me several seconds to reply. “You held me back. You stopped me from—”

“You wouldn’t have saved him. You would have just gotten us killed along with him. Jesus, Cas, he needed to die. He tried to kill us.”

“No one needs to die,” I gasp. “You’re so messed up, all of you.”

“Cassandra Leung, you’re a filthy hypocrite and you know it.”

“Leave me alone,” I scream. I don’t want to hear anything she has to say, not after what she’s just done. It’s like the nightmare when we hit the bucket, all over again. Swift takes the captain’s side no matter what. She’s killed for that woman, and she’d die for her.

“You fucking listen to me, Cas. All your life you’ve killed people like Code. You’ve sent beasts at us that shred us, that swallow us—you measure their success by the percentage of death they deal. And you do it because they attacked you first. There’s no difference between what the captain just did and what you, as a trainer, do every goddamn day.”

“You—”

“What was I supposed to do? Let you tackle Santa Elena? Let you push her into the water with your killer beast?”

“You could have—”

There’s a hollow thud on the other side of the door, like Swift’s just punched it. “There was nothing I could do but save your stupid life, like I always do. Every—every single—”

I can feel a storm building inside me, a fury that won’t quiet. Swift has the nerve to compare Reckoner justice to the brutality I just witnessed. She’s nothing but the captain’s pet, a dog at the end of a very short leash. She’s seen nothing of the world I know. “You’ve never once saved my life, you piece of shit,” I growl. “Everything you do, you do to save your own neck.”

I expect her to scream back, but there’s nothing but empty silence on the other side of the door. I keep my fingers winched tight around the handle, ready for her to wrench it open at any minute, but there’s only stillness.

Then I hear her sigh faintly, the metal between us warping the sound until it rings. “Did it ever occur to you that your neck might matter to me at least as much as mine? Actually, probably more than mine?” she says.

I freeze, suddenly aware of how my breathing has slowed. I’m trying to picture her on the other side of the door in this moment, but an image doesn’t settle. She could be standing, arms folded, wearing that confident smirk that she always puts on when she’s teasing, but I seriously doubt that’s what’s going on. The Swift I picture on the other side of the door is the one that she doesn’t let the captain see. Her forehead’s pressed against the metal, or maybe buried in her hands, or maybe she’s got one hand clutching the handle of the door, waiting for that opportune moment to twist it open.

I don’t know what to say. I knew she cared for me, but I didn’t expect her to come out and say it like this. Sleeping with her arm folded around my waist feels like an eternity ago, a frozen moment in time that I can’t fathom going back to. After everything that happened this morning, what did she think this would accomplish?

“Swift,” I start, but I don’t know what to finish it with.

“Forget … forget I said anything. It was off base. I—”

“Swift, I’m a goddamn prisoner on this ship.”

“I know. I—”

“We aren’t on equal footing, not in the slightest. You realize how messed up this is?”

“Cas, I didn’t mean I want to—”

“I’m in no position to be thinking about any of that shit right now. I’ve got bigger problems to deal with than you and your feelings.”

“I know,” she snaps, and there’s the thump of her fist again.

I hear voices farther down the hall. People are starting to disperse from the trainer deck and move back to their stations. The Minnow will be underway soon.