The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(50)

He stared into the face of the sniveling war maggot, all pale and sooty with his wide scared eyes. “You ain’t going to thank me, maggot. But it’s better than dead.” And then he pressed the brand into the little war maggot’s face, three horizontal lines.

The cooking smell of pig curled up from the brand. The boy shook and fought, but he held on and rode through the pain, just like they all had.

When Ocho straightened, the warboy was gasping, but he hadn’t cried and he hadn’t begged.

He slapped the kid on the back. “Good job, soldier.” He waved at Tweek and Gutty. “Go get our brother drunk.”

“You going soft on me, Sergeant?”

Ocho stiffened. The lieutenant’s voice was soft, but there was a warning there. Like the movement of a cottonmouth in the swamp, coming at you, and then you were bit and poisoned and dying.

Ocho turned. The boys had found a bunch of antique furniture that they’d hacked up and piled into a bonfire, and everyone who wasn’t standing patrol against civvies coming back and looking for revenge was drunk off their asses. One of the soldiers had put the head of an old civvy lady on a stick and was running around saying, “But I don’t even like castoffs!” while everybody laughed.

And now Sayle was standing beside him. “You going soft?”

Ocho drank from his bottle. It was some bottle that had used to hold… what? He studied the label. Some kind of cleaning fluid, if the bleached-out picture on the plastic was right. Showed a Chinese lady with a floor that was sparkling bright as the sun. Ocho drank again.

Van had found the liquor store in the back of the old lady’s sundries shop, hidden. She’d tucked all the booze away as soon as UPF showed up, but Van had that nose for liquor. Ocho drank while he considered his answer.

“Soft?” he asked, and handed the bottle up to the man who controlled his world.

Sayle snorted. “Soft?” he mimicked. “You know what I’m talking about.” He waved the bottle over at the company. “You recruited that war maggot?”

Ocho followed the man’s gesture to the bonfire, where the new recruit stood surrounded by soldier boys. At their command, Ghost was taking drinks from a bottle that they were passing around the fire. He was scared. Eyes like a rabbit, looking for a way out. The half-bars Ocho had laid on his cheek stood out, red and blistered.

“He’s tough,” Ocho said. “And he’s loyal.”

“How you figure?”

“Followed the doctor into hell.”

“That’s not loyal. That’s just stupid.”

“There’s a difference?” Ocho deadpanned, making Sayle snort his alcohol. “I figure if he’s fool enough to follow that crazy doctor, he might be smart enough to follow someone who saves his maggot ass.”

He took another swig of burning liquor. It was trash. Nowhere near as good as the stuff that got smuggled in on Lawson & Carlson ships when the recycling went out, but that was what you got with the homegrown stuff. Probably make him blind if he drank enough of it. His old man used to say you could drink homemade hooch and go blind.

“What you going to do when that little pup turns and tries to bite you?” Sayle asked. “Maybe puts a bullet in the back of your head?”

Ocho shook his head. “He won’t.”

“Big bet, Sergeant.”

“Nah. I’d put a million Red Chinese on that boy.” Ocho studied the recruit. “We’re all he’s got.”

When you were alone in the rising ocean, you grabbed whatever raft passed by.

23

COWARD.

COWARD. Coward coward cowardcowardcoward…

The word kept running through Mahlia’s head, and with every step away from the village, the accusation echoed louder.

I tried to tell them. I tried to save their dumb asses. They would have been fine, if they’d just listened to me.

Doctor Mahfouz was always talking about places where kids grew up without worrying about bolt holes and what to do if soldier boys came. Places where you lived past twenty. Mouse should have been born there. He just didn’t have the Drowned Cities instinct. He was too nice for his own damn good. Just a sad-sack farm kid who didn’t know how to stay alive.

Yeah. He was so dumb, he saved you, right?

Mahlia hated the thought, but couldn’t keep it from surfacing. Mouse had charged, when he should have run in the opposite direction. He threw rocks and drew gunfire, even though it was the dumbest thing in the world.

Why didn’t you do the same for him? You owe him. If it had been you in that village, he would have done something.

And that was why he’d gone back for the doctor, and all the townspeople, and how he’d gotten himself killed.

Coward.

The word kept running through her head as she stumbled through the jungle, accompanied by the silent, shambling half-man.

Coward.

The thought burrowed into her heart as darkness fell. It coiled in her guts as she wedged herself amongst the boughs of a tree to sleep. And in the morning, it woke with her and clung to her back, riding on her shoulders as she climbed down, hungry and exhausted from nightmares.

She was a coward.

Yellow dawn light filtered through the jungle, highlighting misty humidity. Mahlia looked around at the greenery, feeling sick, knowing she would feel this way until she died. She would never escape it. She’d run away instead of helping the only family she had left.