The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(54)

“If you say so,” Santa Elena drawls, her lips edging into a lopsided smile. It’s not an answer, and I hate that it’s not an answer. The agony of Durga’s death is still raw inside me, and all I want, all I need to close the wound, is somewhere for the blame to fall.

My gaze falls on the duffle I’ve unceremoniously deposited at the captain’s feet. “But if he’s your broker, why would he try to get me rescued?”

“Who knows? He’s a friend of your parents. He has an inkling of a conscience. He never anticipated uneducated pirates successfully hatching and training one of the monsters he sold us. Or maybe we’re not his most valuable clients.”

The last thought sends a shiver down my spine.

“Go ahead,” Santa Elena prompts, indicating the Otachi. “Give ’em a spin.”

I crouch, pull one of the devices out of the bag, and set it over my forearm. There’s a set of straps that I have to adjust to keep the Otachi in place and some loops that go over my fingers. It takes a few minutes to get everything where it should be. I roll my shoulder, adjusting to the weight, then switch the device on. As the dials beneath my fingers glow to life, a rare sensation takes hold of me, something I haven’t felt since that night on Bao’s back.

I feel powerful.

With a few twists of the dials, I set the Otachi to project Bao’s signal set and call up the homing signal. The tech responds at the lightest touch, a far cry from the heavy switches I’m used to. I step up to the edge of the trainer deck and raise my teched-up arm, pointing it at the tug’s side as my fingers hover over the triggers.

I pull them, light blazes from my wrists, and the tug’s side lights up with the familiar pattern. Speakers on the Otachi ring with the low noise that draws our Reckoner to the ship, and somewhere off in the blue, a puff of steam rises as Bao hearkens to the call.

The devices are heavy. The beams waver in the air as I keep them fixed at the spot I projected to. I duck my elbows down to compensate.

A minute later, Bao surges out of the sea, his nose pointed right at the projections on the tug’s side. I draw them down the ship’s hull, and he follows. It’s like a cat with a laser pointer, but with a beast the size of a house. Varma chuckles from somewhere behind me. I click off the projections and let my arms fall to my sides.

“Optimistically, we’ve got about three days before some sort of shitstorm comes raining down on us,” Santa Elena says. “Less, if SRC politicians by some miracle deliberate relatively quickly. Either way, whenever our reckoning comes, we’d better have a Reckoner of our own.”

Swift snorts, and Santa Elena aims a kick at her.

“I’ll … ” I start, but I don’t know what to say. It takes months to train Reckoners into aggression, but then again, that’s with safety considerations. That’s with standards and regulations, with pacing that avoids stressing out the beasts. If I push Bao, maybe we can get somewhere in three days. Maybe I can make him lethal.

He’s already lethal, I remind myself, thinking of Code’s bright green eyes.

“You’ll do your damndest, Cassandra, or dear Swift will be that thing’s next meal,” Santa Elena snarls.

For a moment I think she’s kidding, but I see the way Swift’s jaw clenches, the way her body leans slightly away from the captain’s side. That must have been what they talked about last night, and suddenly I feel stupid—so completely and utterly stupid—because this was Santa Elena’s plan all along.

When I was alone on this ship with nothing to lose, she could barely control me. It was a stroke of luck for her that I felt the need to uncover the mystery behind Bao’s origins. But she gave me a companion, a protector, a friend, and she bided her time until it became clear to her that I’d been snared by her trap. That’s why she didn’t seem bothered by my revelation that Bao was still docile. It wasn’t because she thought that he’d instinctively fight when the time came.

No, she knew about that idea stewing away in the back of my head. The one where once I’d gotten what I needed to know, I’d take the beast she gave me and turn him on the ship that had taken everything away. The one where I used Bao to crush the Minnow into oblivion.

The one that’s impossible now, because I care too much about Swift. I can’t take her life, her livelihood; I can’t let her family starve.

And not once in this conversation have I questioned using Bao to fight the pursuit. Not once have I doubted that I can turn my monster against the people coming to rescue me. Santa Elena has worked her magic.

“I’ll do everything I can,” I tell her, hating how much I mean it.





26


In the first few hours with the Otachi, I’ve been able to bait Bao into ramming the tug enough that he now associates the flashing pattern with charging. When I project out against a wave, the beams cutting into the murky ocean waters, he surges after them, throwing the full force of his body after the bright lights.

My arms are sore. I’ve been switching between them, trying to keep myself going, but by noon I’ve hit a point where I can barely lift either of them.

Swift brings down a tray of food from the mess just as the sun reaches its high point in the sky. She avoids my gaze when she hands it to me.

“Hey,” I say when she turns her back without a word.