This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(20)

If Jubilee’s dead it’ll be my fault.

When I round the corner, I can hear the thick sounds of fists and feet on flesh; not a sound from Jubilee, only inarticulate sounds of effort and rage from McBride. My heart stops, but my feet keep going—I burst into the cavern to find McBride slamming his boot into her ribs over and over. Using sheer momentum I slam him against the wall a few meters behind her. The air goes out of him with a grunt, and I twist to look back at Jubilee—that’s my mistake. With a heft of one arm, McBride sends me flying. I crash down beside Jubilee, the world spinning as my head cracks against the floor. She doesn’t move.

Then the others are there, and as Sean, Mike, and Turlough put themselves between McBride and me, Jubilee cracks open one eye to take a look at me. Her throat moves like she’s trying to swallow, and her cracked lips part, trying to make the shape of a word.

Romeo.

My breath comes out in a rush, hot relief flashing through my veins. She’s alive.

McBride gasps for air, and with Sean on one arm, Mike on the other, and Turlough pushing against his chest, he tries to surge forward. His gaze doesn’t waver—I don’t even think he’s realized we’re here, except as obstacles to what he wants. I hear Mike shout in pain as his bad knee gives, and I scramble to my feet, my back burning and my vision blurring for one dangerous moment. Before I can reach McBride, he’s grabbing for the stolen military Gleidel he carries, yanking it from its holster and spinning toward Jubilee. I leap for him again, shoving him back against the wall, so when his finger jerks at the trigger, the bolt dissipates harmlessly off the stone.

Sean wrestles the gun from his hand; the soldier crumpled at our feet didn’t so much as flinch in response to the sound of gunfire. McBride shoves me away, though he stays sagging against the wall, sucking in great lungfuls of air, grief etched all over his face. “You thought you could bring that—that thing here, to our home, and no one would find out?” McBride wipes a hand across his reddened eyes, all signs of the orator gone. If only the others could see him like this. See the insanity, the violence, lurking behind his calls for action. “Good thing Martha’s more loyal than you, you goddamn coward.”

“Get out.” My voice low with anger, I sound nothing like myself.

He shakes Sean’s grip off his arm, then lets Mike and Turlough guide him toward the tunnel. “Make sure McBride stays out there,” I tell them, my voice shaking with adrenaline. Sean stays to help me with Jubilee. We can’t leave her here, now that McBride knows where to find her. Sean wouldn’t condemn even a trodaire to that fate.

Jubilee is barely conscious as I untie her hands, and she’s murmuring incoherently—maybe in Chinese again, I can’t tell. There’s a storage room up closer to the harbor that’s been a cell for a long time now, for use if anyone got too trigger-happy and needed to cool their heels overnight. It was too exposed, too easy for someone to wander by and discover her, but now I wish I’d locked her there and left her unbound. No matter who she is or what she’s done, she doesn’t deserve to be tied down, unable to defend herself against a man half mad with grief and anger.

With Sean’s help I move her up to the storeroom, ignoring the faces that watch us go. They all know now who we’ve captured—there’s no point hiding her anymore. There’s a ratty mattress in the corner, and we lower her down there. Sean shoots me a long look and, without another word, vanishes again. I know he’s going to make sure that McBride stays where he is.

I pull a blanket over her still form before crouching beside the bed to study her face. The cavern’s bathed in the soft, eerie green glow of bioluminescence—the wispfire that grows all over Avon likes to cluster in these damp caves. But despite the poor light, I can tell her face looks ashen, her dark hair a wild tangle, so out of place on such a perfect soldier. My fingers twitch, wanting to reach out and smooth it back. Instead I run my hands down her side, keeping my fingers light. Her ribs are broken—that much is certain when her voice tangles in a sob at my touch. Her breathing is steady, so I think her lungs are okay, and she’s not coughing blood. The beating’s opened up the wound from my gun, though, and she needs treatment as soon as I make sure no one else gets the bright idea to take their rage out on her.

My gaze lifts to find her watching me through my examination, her brown eyes grave.

I was wrong, I want to say, my lips frozen. I scan Jubilee’s bruised face, her lips parted and brows drawn. All she’ll care about now is that the Fianna tied her down and beat her. In a single stroke, McBride has managed to destroy any chance I might have had at convincing her, at convincing any of them, to listen to me.

I push to my feet in silence, ignoring the lead in my heart and setting the canteen down beside the bed for her. I have to get out there and try to limit the damage—I know what McBride will do if I’m not there to counter him. The light of the wispfire is dim, but at least she won’t be trapped in darkness again. Then I shut the door behind me and double-check the lock before I walk away.

They’re already fighting in the main cavern when I walk in. Sean and McBride stand toe to toe, two dozen others crowded around.

“And if they say yes to a trade, and we don’t have her alive?” Sean’s demanding, heated, ready to start shoving. “What then, genius?”

But McBride’s no fool. That’s exactly what he’s hoping will happen. Standing in the doorway, I ache for my sister. She’d know what to say to them. But she’s gone, and it’s left to me.