The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(34)

“Damn, Mahlia,” Mouse said. “I think you really would miss me if I bit the bullet.” He was still laughing. Trying to shake her off, and then he started to hit her, pounding her with all his strength.

“You were late!” he shouted as he beat on her. And then he started to cry. Sobs wracked his small frame.

“You were late.”

14

IT TOOK A WHILE to get Mouse calmed down and get the story from him, as well as to tell the story of their own experiences with the UPF soldier boys. The half-man lay in a hollow not far away, huddled amongst banyan roots, like some kind of dead troll from a fairy tale.

Mouse squatted on the swamp bank and stared across at the creature’s corpse. He pushed red hair off his freckled face.

“It let me go,” he said. “I dunno why.”

“Maybe it died too soon,” Mahlia suggested.

“No. It let me go. And then it crawled over there and curled up. Could’ve done me, easy. Had plenty left to sink me and make sure I never came up.” He shrugged. “Didn’t do it.”

The doctor was wading around the beast, staring. Even dead, the monster was imposing. Mahlia had known it before, but seeing the doctor standing next to the creature drove it home. The half-man had been huge. She thought of the three dead soldier boys and the wounded sergeant back at Doctor Mahfouz’s squat, and couldn’t help wondering what a monster like that could have done if it were healed and healthy.

The doctor waded back to them, moving clumsily through the muck.

“It’s not dead,” he said grimly.

“What?”

Mahlia found herself backing away, even though she was meters distant from the huge body.

“The half-man is still breathing. These creatures are very difficult to kill entirely.”

Mouse’s eyes had gone wide. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes, I think that’s best.” The doctor climbed out of the swamp and wrung brackish water from his dripping trousers. “The soldiers will be searching for us. I’d like to be deeper in the swamps before they find this place.”

Mouse didn’t wait for the doctor to finish. Already he was headed into the jungle, hopping over roots and wading across spongy mosses, moving deeper into the bogs. Soon he would be nothing but a shadow amongst the moss-draped trees and crumbled vine-covered walls of fallen buildings. And then he’d disappear entirely. He was good at that.

The doctor clapped Mahlia on the shoulder. “Come. We should be on our way.”

“Where to?”

Doctor Mahfouz shrugged as they walked. “We’ll go deeper into the jungle. There are buildings everywhere. We’ll find a new place we can use until the soldiers leave. Eventually they’ll give up and we should be able to return.”

Return? Mahlia stopped short. She looked back toward Banyan Town. Return? All she wanted to do was get away. “And then what do we do?” she asked.

“We’ll rebuild.”

Something on Mahlia’s face must have given her away because Doctor Mahfouz smiled. “It’s not so awful as that.”

“But you know those soldiers will just come back. If it isn’t UPF, it’ll be Army of God, and if it isn’t them, it’ll be someone else. And then we’ll just have to run again.”

“This war won’t last forever.”

Mahlia couldn’t help staring at Mahfouz. “You serious?” But from his expression, she could tell that he was. He really thought things were going to get better, like he was living in some kind of dream. Like he couldn’t see what was going on all around.

Mahfouz was like her mother had been, insisting that the soldier boys could be reasoned with, that they could be bribed with the art and antiques that she’d collected, and that they could be safe, even if the peacekeepers had left and the warlords were taking control again.

As troops had swamped the city, she’d clutched Mahlia close and insisted that Mahlia’s father was coming back for them. And then when he didn’t, she’d insisted that they could always bribe passage on a scavenge ship, even though there wasn’t a single one left in the harbor.

Reality was all around her, but she couldn’t see it. She just kept pretending.

“Come on, maggot!”

Mouse was perched on a low tree branch, looking back, a small shadow amongst the looming trees and tangling vines.

“We should go, Mahlia.”

The doctor stood waiting, expectant in that way adults acted when they thought they were in control. Mouse waved for her to get her ass moving, but Mahlia didn’t budge.

Running.

She was always running. Like a rabbit chased by coywolv. Always hunting for some new safe bolt hole, and every time, the soldier boys found her, and forced her to rabbit again. The doctor was wrong. There was no place to hide, and she’d never be safe as long as she remained close to the Drowned Cities.

She looked back at the dying half-man. Amongst the shadows of the banyan roots, the creature was nothing but a black hump blended with thicker shadows. Coywolv bait. Just another skeleton that someone would someday find and wonder what its story was.

Mouse jogged back to them. Gave her arm a tug. “Come on, Mahlia. Them soldiers ain’t going to sleep after how you did them.”

She didn’t move. “The half-man let you go?”