The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(93)

Ocho looked from Stern to the girl before them, uncertain.

“Hold him!” the lieutenant shouted, and Ocho did as he was told. He grabbed Ghost’s shoulder as the LT did the same on the other side.

Ghost started to struggle.

“Don’t,” Ocho warned. “LT’s got a plan.”

They muscled Ghost forward. The half-man was chained, ankles and wrists locked down, lengths of chain as thick as Ocho’s arms disappearing into poured concrete.

Even captured, the monster was a frightening sight. Not far away, the doctor girl lay roped to her own pillar. Blood smeared her face and her skin was blotched with bruises.

“Mahlia?” Ghost asked.

“LT?” Ocho asked, uncertainly. “Are you sure—”

“Steady, soldier,” Sayle said.

Glenn Stern was standing over the girl, smiling. “It’s time you learned your choices have consequences, girl.”

The doctor girl was looking from Stern to Ghost. “Mouse?”

“What are you doing?” Ghost asked them, looking from Stern to Sayle to Ocho. “What’s going on?”

“One last time,” the Colonel said to Mahlia. “Your friend wars on our behalf, or you suffer the consequences.”

The girl shook her head.

“Mahlia?” Ghost asked. “What’s going on?”

Ocho was wondering the same thing. There was a terrible tension in the room. The smell of blood was strong. The girl huddled against the pillar. The half-man was growling, low and warning. Ocho had seen similar scenes, but this one filled him with unease.

Glenn Stern turned to Sayle and Ocho. “Put him on his knees.”

“LT?” Ocho asked.

The lieutenant barked at him, “Do it, soldier!”

Reflexively, Ocho responded to the order. Glenn Stern produced a knife. “You want this for the boy?” he asked Mahlia.

The girl was staring in agony. At first, she’d looked like she wasn’t even there, so drugged and out of it, she’d seemed, but now she was straining forward. “Don’t touch him!”

“Mahlia?” Ghost asked again, his voice cracking. He was starting to fight now, but Ocho and the lieutenant held him. The half-man was growling, louder, deep in his throat.

Ocho knew what was coming, and yet his mind refused to believe it. It felt as if someone else was holding Ghost. Someone else was forcing the soldier boy to hold still as he finally realized the boy was about to be a blood sacrifice.

Is this me? Am I doing this?

Ocho’s mind felt like it was molasses. Ghost struggled, but Ocho was stronger. He thrust out his warboy’s hand, sickened, as Stern seized the boy’s fingers.

“You want this?” the Colonel shouted.

The knife flashed and Ghost howled. Blood poured onto the tiles. And there was a finger, too. Right there on the floor. Ghost shrieked and bucked. Ocho held him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the finger.

Am I doing this?

“What’re we doing?” Ocho shouted. “He’s our boy!” No one seemed to hear him, though. Ocho wondered if he’d said anything at all.

Had he just turned coward and shut up? Did he imagine that he’d protested?

Ghost was still thrashing against Ocho’s restraining hands, and Stern was scooping up Ghost’s finger. He waved it in Mahlia’s face as she and Ghost sobbed.

“Is this what you want? You want more fingers? You want them all?”

“Let him go!” Mahlia screamed. She fought against her ropes. Ghost bucked against Ocho’s grip. Glenn Stern stalked back to him. The blade flashed again. Red on the floor. Blood and bright as rubies. Brighter than the sun.

It didn’t make sense. Ghost was their boy. Ocho had recruited him. He was theirs. UPF forever. Full bars. The Colonel might have been vicious to the Army of God, or Taylor’s Wolves, or civvies, but not—

Sayle’s voice whipped Ocho with command. “Hold his hand, Sergeant! Stand strong!”

The Colonel didn’t see it coming. Ocho himself was surprised.

One moment Ocho was holding Ghost, fighting to keep the boy from twisting away as the Colonel went after another trophy—and they were all jostling and wrestling now that the boy knew what was coming—and the next moment, Ocho had his own knife in his hand.

He sunk it deep into the Colonel’s kidney. In and out, just like he’d been trained. Warm blood poured over Ocho’s hand.

The Colonel gave a gasp. The man’s own knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

Without Ocho to restrain him, Ghost popped free of Sayle, screaming, and dove for the Colonel’s blade where it lay on the tile.

A couple of Eagle Guards were running forward, shouting, trying to figure out what was going on, calling for backup as they ran. Ghost scooped up the Colonel’s blade in his good hand and lunged for Stern. The man didn’t even dodge as the boy sank his blade.

Glenn Stern’s eyes were wide, surprised, his hands trying to reach around to the hole in his back and then reaching around to the front where Ghost had just stuck him. Ocho wasn’t even sure if the man was there anymore, or if it was just some lizard part of his brain, still making his hands move, while he bled out…

More Eagle Guards were charging into the room, but they were all zeroing in on Ghost. They fired and bullets ricocheted, missing. The LT was pulling his own knife, staring at Ghost and the Colonel. Ghost jammed the knife into the man’s belly again. Mahlia was screaming and struggling to get out of her ropes, and the half-man was roaring, and the LT… He was staring right at Ocho.