Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(65)

I’m not supposed to be here. I hope I’m not contaminating him with my blood.

“Okay,” Bea said. I could hear a change in her voice. Hope, and something else too. “You need to listen to me now, Zara. Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“You’re standing right on top of one of Nadim’s main arteries,” she said. “The blood in there is moving very, very fast. I need you to focus, all right?”

I could actually feel the hiss of the liquid passing underneath my feet, a purely physical sensation that made me feel dizzy and a little sick. “What do you want me to do?” But I already knew. I just didn’t want to think about it.

“Use the laser scalpel and cut it open and get inside,” she said. “It’ll carry you part of the way. I’ll tell you when you need to get out.”

I didn’t bother trying to tell her I couldn’t, not this time. Surviving meant I had to. So I fumbled the laser scalpel out of my utility belt again; I was glad it was firmly attached, because I dropped it twice before I got a good grip. Focusing the light on it, I saw the deep slashes in my hands and fingers; no wonder I could barely feel anything. Shock must have clamped down hard, and the Leviathan blood had created a sticky rainbow film over the damage, sealing it almost like the skinsuit.

I sliced down with the laser scalpel—one decisive cut that opened up the tissue wide enough to allow me through. I braced for the pain, but oddly, it didn’t come. This tissue didn’t have nerves to damage. The thick wall of the blood vessel parted, and silvery liquid flooded out in a spray that nearly knocked me over.

I slid myself in feet first, hanging on to the rubbery edge as an irresistible tide tried to pull me free, and with my other hand used the laser to burn the edges together, right up to the edge of my grip. I hoped he’d be able to heal that relatively small tear quickly.

“In,” I gasped to Bea. The pull of the current was intense, and I couldn’t hold on for much longer.

“Trust me,” she said. “I’ve got you. Let go.”

It was like being blasted into orbit. I held myself as straight as I could and the tide carried me. It felt good to just relax, at least for a moment. Beatriz would tell me when to move again.

An alarm went off in my ear, and I flailed, turning in the current. I had to level out. If I blocked the flow of his blood, that would be worse still.

“What the hell is that?” I asked Bea, and for the first time, I sounded more like the old Zara.

“Oxygen alert,” she said. “Your suit can’t manufacture enough to last much longer, not under these conditions. It was never meant for this. Try breathing slowly, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “That sounds easy.” Just the idea made me want to suck in another, deeper breath. Nothing like the threat of suffocation to make you want to gulp air. I felt a little giddy, which was probably the falling O2.

“Focus, Zara. I’m going to give you a countdown from five. All right? Here we go. Five—four—three—”

The edges of the artery were brushing my shoulders now and still narrowing. I tried not to breathe too deeply. My vision glittered at the edges, and I felt dangerously light-headed. Bea’s voice sounded far away. Was she counting in Portuguese?

“Now, Zara! Cut your way out now!”

I spotted a minuscule tear ahead. Twisting, I managed to hook a hand in it—and the effort nearly tore my shoulder from its socket. I didn’t realize I’d been going that fast, but fighting the current and getting my other hand in place felt like lifting three times my body weight. When I pushed, the tear widened, and I wiggled out, shoulders, then hips, like a baby being born. I emerged in a forest of strange, thick filaments, and I squirmed through them, trying not to pull any loose. I was breathing deeper now, but it wasn’t helping. My head hurt. My vision was fragmenting into strange sparkles.

Then I was in a wider tunnel, this one smooth and similar to the connective ducts. The skinsuit was barely breathing for me now, no matter how deeply I dragged the air in; I wanted to rip it off, but if it was still trying to feed me oxygen, that meant the atmosphere here in this tunnel was toxic. “Bea?” I managed to gasp out. “Where?”

“Go straight!”

I stumbled on and then slipped when I stepped in something slick.

The processed-waste flow.

It seemed to take forever to stagger to the end of the tunnel to the mesh that marked the beginning of the human-built sector, but eventually I slid under a flap and into the familiar sludge so comforting I almost wept.

Hard tremors set in as I half crawled toward our section of Nadim. The skinsuit had quit breathing altogether now, and my vision was nearly dark. I stripped the mask off as I splattered out of the hatch and onto the floor.

Air. Sweet, wonderful air. I dragged it in, out, long gasping, raw breaths, and finally realized someone was talking to me. Beatriz. She was frantically telling me she was on her way.

I collapsed in a puddle of ick. No idea how long it took Bea to find me, but she didn’t bother with the biohazard suit. She was liberally splashed with muck as she rushed to my side in the narrow waste tunnel.

“Hey,” I said vaguely as she grabbed my arms and started to drag me. “I made it.”

She didn’t answer; she was putting all her effort into moving me. I tried to help; by the time she managed to get me into a corridor, I rolled up to my knees and let her help me to my feet, and together, we stumbled to the med bay.