The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(61)
She catches my eye and grimaces. “Equal footing, huh?” she says, as if she’s read my mind.
I nod, knowing it crushes her, knowing it crushes me. We’re oceans away from a world where Swift doesn’t have power over me, power I can’t ignore, power I can’t afford to expose myself to. And until we stand on the same level, absolutely nothing can happen between us.
And it sucks, because all I want to do is kiss her. It’s infuriating how perfect it would be to kiss her right now, perched on a cannon on a pirate ship under the stars. That sounds like something off the pages of an adventure novel. But my life isn’t one of those stories. My story is a hurricane, and here with Swift is just the eye.
And so I stare up at the constellations she outlined and listen to the engines churning below us, the waves sliding off our bow, and somewhere under that, the gentle sound of her breathing, and let that be enough.
30
Santa Elena holds court the next evening.
She puts out an all-call after dinner, and the entire crew packs into her throne room. My newfound invisibility has me pressed up against the back wall, trapped behind a sea of bodies that block my view of the dais where the captain sits. From the glimpses I catch between shoulders, she isn’t dressed up like the last time we were in here; instead she’s armed to the teeth and decked out in a sleek set of body armor. The pursuit is coming, and our captain is ready for war.
“Cassandra,” she barks over the grumble of the crowd, and silence washes over the room. I push off the wall and make my way forward, nudging my way past the crew members that block my path.
Santa Elena steps off the dais to meet me as I approach. She wears a predatory grin, but underneath it I can see the stress that’s eating away at her. The whole room aches with tension. My gaze flickers to Swift, who sits on the dais’s edge with Chuck and Varma. Lemon’s off in the navigation tower, keeping watch over the instruments and the horizon. While Chuck and Varma keep their eyes fixed on the captain, Swift’s are locked on me.
I draw my lips tight, trying not to give anything away as Santa Elena circles around me, her hands folded behind her back.
“We have a bit of a situation here,” the captain starts. “Which is to say, we have a complete clusterfuck on our hands, and it’s centered around you. Your IGEOC friend’s got hell raining down on us, and from what I’ve gathered, we’ve got ships with Reckoners of their own inbound to bring our merry little adventures to an end.”
A discontented mumble rises from the ranks, but Santa Elena quiets it with a wave of her hand as she stalks back around to face me. She lays her hands on my shoulders and I wince as her nails bite against the cotton of my shirt. “Fortunately for us,” she says, her gaze unflinching as she stares me down, “you’re also our way out of this mess.”
I can’t blink. Not now. I shift my weight, but Santa Elena’s grip stays rooted in me.
“You did a fine job with the quadcopters. I’m genuinely impressed with how far the beast’s training has come. But it’s become clear to me that our endeavor with him is not sustainable. We’re abandoning it.”
A roar fills my ears, overwhelming the shouts of the crew. Bao is my life aboard this ship. I’ve put so much work into making him the monster he is today—what right does she have to throw that away?
She must see the defiance, the rejection in my eyes. “Cassandra, there are children on this ship. Children I’m trying to do right by, children that I can’t have falling to ‘Reckoner justice.’ My son among them. I never anticipated that the response from shore would be this severe, and my miscalculation has put every soul on this boat at risk. We need the SRC off our case permanently, and that means ridding this ship of both its Reckoner and its trainer. No, I’m not going to kill you,” she drawls as she feels me tense under her grip. “Until we’re in the clear, you are this ship’s best defense. And I know you’re going to defend it,” she mutters, casting a glance back at Swift. “You’d do anything to protect ‘this ship,’ right?”
I nod. There’s no point in lying.
“That’s the spirit!” She claps her hands together and turns back toward her throne. “Here’s the plan. You lot!”
The crew roars.
“You wear your loyalty on your skin. Show it to me.”
Arms thrust into the air with little black fish sketched across them. Trousers roll up to reveal calves stained with the ship’s mark. On the dais, Varma’s grin widens, stretching the Minnow on his cheek, and Chuck sweeps her mane of wild hair to the side, revealing the ink that slashes between her shoulder blades. Swift nods her head to expose her neck, but her brow is still set in that resentful furrow.
“I’m not gonna hide it. We’re in deep shit. But when has that ever stopped us?”
“Never!” the crew screams back at her. Some of them have slid their weapons out; others brandish their fists.
“When the inbound hits, I want you to hit back with everything you’ve got. We’re gonna show them that trifling with us is the worst mistake they’re ever gonna make. But Cassandra, here—” She points to me, and my spine stiffens. “Cassandra will be doing the brunt of the attack. She and our beast are going to make our stand, and those shore-rat bastards are going to fall on her like flies on meat. And when they do, that’s when we start running.”