Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(37)

Finally, when the moon had fully crossed the sky, she spotted a dark figure lurching down the street just beginning to lighten with the silver threads of dawn. Gripping her knife hilt tighter, she watched the figure stumble up the shoddy iron stairs leading to the balcony. He fumbled for the key to the hideously green door and pushed it open with a squeal of its hinges.

Amaya melted out of the shadows and slipped through the door behind him. He didn’t notice, rubbing a hand over his face while mumbling nonsense curses.

He did notice her boot kicking him to the floor.

Before he could cry out, she had the point of her knife pressed to his meaty neck.

“If you so much as move, I’ll nick an artery,” she warned.

“And I’ll blast a hole through your guts,” he growled back. Only then was she aware of the pistol trained on her stomach. She had underestimated his reflexes, even when he was sodden with drink.

Amaya cursed and backed away. He stood and dusted himself off, leering as he kept his pistol aimed at her.

Captain Zharo—except he wasn’t a captain anymore, she realized—had been obviously enjoying his new life of retirement. Although his shirt was stained with sweat, drink, and food, it didn’t have holes or tears like his shirts on board the Brackish. He had also added a couple more gaudy rings to his collection, fat bands of gold and gemstones twinkling against the weathered brown skin of his hands. A cursory look around the apartment showed a sparse yet decent setup, from the four-poster bed with mosquito netting to a kitchen area stocked with plenty of provisions. A door leading to another room had been left ajar, affording her a glimpse of a desk.

All paid for with Boon’s gold.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again, Silverfish,” Zharo rumbled. “Thought the ocean had swallowed you right up.”

“It did,” she said, eyeing the barrel of his pistol. “It spat me back out.”

“Not surprised, given how bitter you must taste.” He grinned again, all rotting teeth and malice. “You here for revenge, then?”

It sounded so basic when he said it out loud, almost childish. Silverfish—No, I’m Amaya, my name is Amaya—gritted her teeth.

“Go ’head and drop that toothpick,” Zharo said, indicating her knife with a wave of his pistol. “And let’s get this over with.”

When your opponent is cocky, you use that to your advantage, Boon had told her during his training. Make ’em think the advantage is theirs, then swoop in and grab it for yourself.

Amaya forced herself to toss the knife between her and Zharo, then lifted her hands as if in surrender. As Zharo approached, bending down to pick up her discarded knife, she kicked him in the head. He dropped to the floor with a grunt and she was on him within a second, pinning his arm down with her knee. She unsheathed the tiny knife hidden in her bracer and poised it above his left eye.

“I was going to do this quickly, but now I’m beginning to change my mind,” she said. She rested the tip of the knife against the corner of his eye, and he flinched. A shiver of delight ran through her at that flinch. “Do you remember threatening to carve out Termite’s eyes when she accidentally let a net of fish drop back into the sea? I do. I remember every single threat, every single punishment. I can re-create them all tonight.”

She went into free fall, remembering the way his hand struck her face, his boots catching her in the ribs and stomach, his gravelly voice telling her that she was nothing. The way he laughed when she was forced to eat bugs in her starvation. The way he ordered her to smile while she worked.

This hadn’t been her plan—she had wanted to get it over with, to feel some measure of relief at knowing this man’s life had been erased from the world. But the more she opened herself to that familiar anger she had felt every day aboard the Brackish, the more she began to realize that Zharo was not worthy of the mercy of a quick death.

Zharo glared up at her, teeth half-bared. “You can try, Silverfish, but you’ve not the stomach for it.”

“Let’s find out together, shall we?”

“Or,” he said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “I can tell you where your precious Roach is.”

Amaya froze. Roach. The other Water Bugs didn’t know what had happened to him, or what had caused his sudden disappearance. The worry had eaten at her ever since they’d acquired the Brackish a few months ago.

“Tell me,” she said, surprised at how calm she sounded, “or I pop this eye out of your skull.”

“I know some folks what’ll have the right connections to find out where he is. But it’ll take a day or two to get.”

Amaya narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t be sure if he was telling the truth, and her instinct told her to simply aim for his heart and be done with it.

But if there was any possibility of finding Roach…

She increased the pressure of her knee on his arm until the pistol fell from his loosened grip. She grabbed it and stood, aiming it at his chest. Although she had never shot a pistol before, Zharo didn’t have to know that.

“Up,” she ordered. “Come with me.”

She forced him to walk into his office, where she found a chair covered in red velvet. This is what he spends his money on? she thought as she made him sit in the chair. Taking the rope she had coiled at her belt, she lashed his thick wrists together behind the chair’s back. She tried not to shudder in revulsion whenever her fingertips grazed his skin.