The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us #1)(8)

Nausea churns at my stomach, and for a moment the stench of Durga’s blood almost overwhelms me. I dig my fingernails into the flesh of my arms, fighting to keep my last meal down. If I don’t do this now, the pirates will use me. Whatever that means. They could force me to cough up information on every Reckoner my mother has ever engineered, every beast my father has ever trained. They could get me to confess weaknesses in our monsters, weaknesses in our facilities, anything that could give them an upper hand.

It’s clear enough. I’m worth more to the industry dead than alive at this point.

The ships that can afford to commission a Reckoner are safe to carry the most valuable goods and people across the NeoPacific. Kill the monster, and the boat’s practically gift-wrapped for you. If the pirates make me help them, I’ll be compromising the safety of every single one of those ships and all of the trainers aboard them.

Including my father. Including Tom.

For them, I think as my fingers curl open. For them, I think as I raise the capsule to my lips.

For them.

The closet door slams open, light floods in, and the girl who dragged me in here lunges forward, slaps my hand away from my mouth, and sends the pill flying.





5


Her hands are around my wrists before I have a chance to scrabble for the capsule. “Don’t you dare,” she growls, twisting my arms behind my back. “Captain wants you.”

I glance up to find a tall, slim boy in the doorway who’s holding a pistol, horror written over his features. His eyes flick to where the pill landed, then back to my face. There’s a tattoo etched across his cheekbone, but in the dim light of the closet, I can’t figure out what it is.

“Varma, give me a hand here,” the girl says as she attempts to wrestle me to my feet.

I keep my legs limp. I’ve blown my chance at ending my life—the least I can do is make it as hard as possible for the pirates to get what they want from me.

Varma loops one lanky arm around my waist and lifts. “C’mon, shoregirl. On your feet,” he urges.

I twist my head to face the girl holding my wrists, a snarl rising in the back of my throat. She winches her grip tighter, as if daring me to say something. “Have some dignity,” she hisses.

“What’s the deal with your hair?” I spit back.

It’s the last thing she expected. I savor the look of utter confusion that flickers across her face. “What do you mean, what’s the deal with my hair? ”

“Watch it, Swift,” the guy warns.

I hang my head, speaking through my teeth. “Did you get bored one day and hack half of it off? You look like you’ve had a close call with a weed whacker.”

Swift releases one of my wrists and grabs me by the hair. Guess I’ve hit a sore spot. She tugs viciously upward and I cave, bringing my feet underneath me at last as I try to keep her from yanking my hair right out of my scalp.

I glance at Varma just in time to catch him mouthing, “The fuck’s a weedwhacker?”

Maybe it was stupid to goad her, but there’s only so much she can do to me if the captain wants me. She’ll push me around and rough me up, but it’s all posturing, like Reckoners do sometimes when they’re starved for attention. And the easiest way to put a beast in its place is to snap back.

They wrestle me out of the closet and down the ship’s narrow passageways to a pair of elegant wooden doors at the aft. I can hear voices on the other side, voices that stop when Varma knocks.

“Come in,” someone calls.

Varma pushes the door open, and Swift shoves me in before her. She twists her fingers viciously around my wrist and gives my hair one last yank before she releases me, and my skin burns. I wince, but do my best to brush it off. Another rule of Reckoner training: you can’t let them see if they hurt you.

The room is vast, probably once a bar or a lounge before it was torn out of whatever yacht it came from and repurposed. Now it’s a throne room, choked with the pirate crew. They throng around a dais in the back of the room, where the captain lounges in an ornately carved chair.

So not only have I been captured by pirates—I’ve had the misfortune of being taken in by theatrical ones.

And their queen seems to have fully embraced her flair for the dramatic. She’s wearing a crimson evening gown; I almost fail to recognize her as the woman who killed Durga. Gone is the wide-brimmed hat and long coat that cut her intimidating silhouette, but she’s intimidating now in the same way that bonfires are. When her eyes meet mine, I can’t help but shrink back a little. Looking at her is like looking into hell itself.

“Welcome aboard the Minnow, Cassandra,” she says. She must have searched the Nereid ’s file system, must have pulled data to find out exactly who she’s taken prisoner. “I’m Santa Elena. You can call me that, or Captain. Swift here is a big fan of ‘boss,’ but I don’t think we’re quite on those terms yet.”

Everyone in this room could kill me, and most of them look like they want to. Swift and Varma have joined their captain on the dais. They stand next to three others at Santa Elena’s right, and I start to understand the hierarchy on this ship a little more. The pirates that crowd the room are the regulars, the muscle. On Santa Elena’s left sits a child. He can’t possibly be more than ten years old, and I’m stumped about his role until she ruffles his hair, a soft smile breaking over her cruel features. He has to be her son—by blood, it looks like, given the golden brown skin and wide nose they share.