The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(98)

Mahlia looked back. Tool held up a hand in farewell, and then he turned and plunged into the canal, disappearing entirely. Mahlia stared after his disappeared form, wishing him well.

46

THE ZODIACS RIPPED down the canal, leaving frothing wake behind. Ahead, gunfire echoed.

“Here it comes,” Ocho muttered.

“We going to make it?” Mahlia asked.

“It’ll be close.” The zodiac’s engine whined higher as Stork ran the thing full out. Ocho pushed Mahlia down, covering her with his body. Bullets zipped and whined overhead. The UPF boys were all flopping down, lying low, returning fire. Shell casings rained down on Mahlia as guns chattered.

They shot across the leading edge of the AOG, running a gauntlet of bullets, firing all the while, and then they were past, and Ocho was shouting for his soldiers to report.

Mahlia straightened, trying to get her bearings. A soldier boy with missing ears was frantically patching holes in the side of the zodiac, blocking the air loss. Mahlia leaned over to the kid. “How can I help?”

“Put your hand over this,” the boy said, showing her a hole. “Cover this one, too. I got tape somewhere.”

Mahlia awkwardly pressed her stump and her bandaged left hand over the tiny hissing holes while he rummaged through their treasures. He came up with a bag, stripped it open, and found tape.

“Last time we used this, I think it was on you,” he said, grinning. Mahlia stared at him, trying to figure out if he was a threat, but the kid was like a puppy that couldn’t control itself. He was practically bouncing up and down.

“I’m Van,” he said as he slapped tape over the holes. Bullets started wailing overhead again, but Van didn’t stop smiling. Just kept doing his job like it was the best thing in the world to be ripping down a canal with enemies closing in on them.

He was crazy, she decided.

But then, as she looked around at the other soldier boys, she realized they were all like Van. It was like they were alive with energy. Everything they did felt eager.

They were getting out. All of them. They were leaning into the wind, eyes brighter and more alive than anything she had ever seen. A whole pack of soldier boys, all pursuing a future that they thought they’d never be allowed to have.

Ahead, UPF sentries saw them coming. They lifted their rifles, but Ocho threw up UPF colors. The sentries lowered their weapons and waved them on. Mahlia and the soldier boys shot past, three boats in a row.

Mahlia watched the checkpoint sentries, thinking how odd it was to simply whip past them like this. She wondered if any of them caught sight of her, and if they wondered what a castoff was doing, running with the UPF. And then they were past the final checkpoints, and they hit Potomac Harbor, and Mahlia stopped caring forever about what the UPF or any of the warlords thought.

Open water stretched before them, blue and wide, sunlight glittering on the waves. All across the harbor, clipper ships were readying their sails, preparing to flee. Some were already moving, their white sails billowing, filling with wind. She watched as one of ships rose on its hydrofoils and cut across the waters for the high seas.

It was beautiful, like a gull breaking into flight.

“Now what?” Ocho asked.

Mahlia scanned her choices. Pointed. “That one.”

It was rich. Sleek and fast. A shining white hull and sails that were only now unfurling. A wealthy blood buyer, glutted on scavenge and now escaping as the violence once again overcame the city.

“You sure?” Ocho asked.

“They’re just like the people my mom used to trade with.”

Ocho gave the order, and their raft angled across the waves, chasing for Mahlia’s chosen destination. She stared up at the gleaming ship as they approached, remembering how she’d stood on the Potomac docks years before, begging and desperate for the peacekeeper ships to return.

You’re not begging this time, she thought. You’re buying.

“Is this going to work?” Ocho whispered as they closed on the clipper ship.

“Yeah, it’ll work. Put up that old flag. The one with the stars in a circle, and the red and white stripes.”

“That old burned thing?”

“Yeah. That’ll get their attention. They’ll want it, for sure.”

Their zodiac hurtled across the waves, flying its ragged banner. Sure enough, the clipper ship’s sails that had been unfurling halted, and started rolling themselves back up.

Mahlia could see people on deck, looking down on them with binoculars. Watching them. They’d want what she had to sell. Her heart beat faster. It was going to work. It was really going to work.

“Keep your guns down, boys,” Ocho said. “Try to smile and look friendly.”

Mahlia almost laughed at that. Ocho seemed to catch her humor, but his smile faded, almost as soon as it showed.

“You think they’ll take us? Really?”

“They already are.”

“No. I mean…” He touched his cheek and his brand. “They’ll know what we did, right? They’ll know what we are.”

Mahlia looked at him, and once again, saw that other part of him. The part that was other than a soldier. Some part of whatever the sergeant had been, before the Drowned Cities had swallowed him up. The scared kid who’d been beaten and whipped and shoved around so long he’d almost lost every bit of his humanity. He was right there. A whole other person, trying to believe.