The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(45)

Swift catches it with one hand, and I don’t miss the slight bounce she gives it as she evaluates the weight.

Chuck nudges her as she walks past, tossing her mane of wavy hair so that it slaps Swift in the face.

“Oh come on,” she yelps, but the mechanic lackey only laughs.

“Have fun, you two,” Varma calls over his shoulder as the pair of them disappear around the corner.

I’ve never seen Swift go redder. “This can’t be happening,” she mutters under her breath. “Okay, look. I have business I need to take care of at the Flotilla, so you’re gonna have to just shut up, play cool, and come along for the ride.”

“I shouldn’t leave Bao—” I protest, but Swift silences me with a jerk of her wrist that causes the handcuffs to bite into my flesh. “Ow, Jesus!” I yelp.

“This is non-negotiable. The Flotilla’s our biggest stop on the trade chain—that’s why we get paid here. I have to—” She cuts off, her face souring. “Never mind. Just work with me, okay?”

I nod. There isn’t much else I can do.



We go to one of the midlevel decks to keep an eye on Bao while the ship makes its approach. He spots the Flotilla looming on the horizon and swims out ahead of us, blowholes flaring curiously, but then the trainer deck beacon flashes on, and he returns to the Minnow’s wake like a well-behaved dog. Santa Elena is giving the signals herself this time. She wanted the feeling of rolling into port with a Reckoner at her beck and call. It gives me the afternoon off, and there’s no way someone else will make a pass at Bao with the captain on deck. All that remains is for him to handle being in port like a properly trained beast.

He’s never had a problem with the ship’s Splinters, so it’s no surprise that as we draw closer, he pays little attention to the smaller ships that dart around in the distance. Some are ferries, carrying crew to and from massive smuggler ships that anchor out on their own where their autonomy is unquestionable. Others are fishing vessels returning from the net stands, loaded with enough meat to feed a hundred families for a week. My lip curls when I spot one of them dragging a bundle of neocete carcasses.

The Flotilla towers over us as we creep closer.

I’ve seen pictures of this place in textbooks, usually in the context of the justification for the Schism. Dividing the world into smaller states was supposed to ensure that governments were small enough to take care of all of their people. But some people still slipped through the cracks and floated out to sea, and the currents coagulated them into the floating cities, the fringe civilizations that live off both their wits and their availability to the pirate trade.

The Flotilla’s a Jenga game of shipping crates piled on skeleton hulls piled on what looks like real concrete foundation but must be something far lighter. The pile winds its way up into towers that steam and smoke in the noon sun. It’s a place that’s been carved out of salvage and wrought into something alive, something that rises and falls with the sea, a breathing being in its own right. Though it towers above us, it also splays out into a winding network of docks, like a cephalopoid’s arms, that host a veritable armada of pirate vessels.

I’ve never seen so many hunter ships in one place before. They slumber right next to each other, just waiting for a crew to wake them, to take them out and blaze their guns. I can feel an old impulse rising inside of me, the one that orders me to point projections, to direct Reckoners at the largest threat. Unleash a fully grown, fully trained Reckoner like Durga on this place, with all of the ships in such tight quarters, and we’d squash a good percentage of the NeoPacific’s infestation within hours. But everything here is bristling with heavy artillery, and I know that it’d be a waste to pit a single Reckoner against it.

It’s not like Bao would be up for the challenge anyway.

Or me, for that matter.

There’s some sort of nervous energy thrumming away in Swift. She keeps on fidgeting with the sack of cash, her eyes fixed on the looming Flotilla. If it wouldn’t take me along for the ride, I’d push her over the side of the boat. In all of her twitching and glancing and picking, she hasn’t bothered telling me what’s eating her. I don’t want to ask. Being chained to her is bad enough—it only gets worse if we have to have a conversation.

The Minnow prowls into the Flotilla’s inner harbors. We’ve gotten docking permissions at a prime slot, and I have no doubt that Santa Elena paid an arm and a leg to get us such a prestigious spot, just so she can show off her new pet. Bao follows quietly behind us, and already people are lining up along the docks, scrambling over haphazard stacks of crates and rickety platforms that balance on barrels and slabs of foam. Their eyes are wide, and some are already snapping pictures with their phones. When Swift spots them, she tugs me back from the railing and into the shadow of the ship’s interior.

Because of course we can march into the harbor with an unregulated Reckoner, but god forbid a presumed-dead girl turns up alive and well in the background of a viral video. It’s not like anyone would recognize me anyway—all of my hair is hacked off and I’m dressed in Swift’s clothes. It’s been months since the Nereid went down. Everyone’s probably given up on me by now.

When did I start thinking that?

The realization doesn’t bowl me over or anything. It’s something that’s always been there. Everyone at home thinks I’m dead. They think the pirates killed me when they sacked the Nereid, or else I took the pill when I was captured. Nothing’s given them reason to assume otherwise. No one’s looking for me anymore.