This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(28)
“Who else, then? Forget the janitors, maybe someone who does deliveries.”
“Davin Quinn.” That’s Mike Doyle at the back. “He’s got a new job in the warehouse on base.”
Davin’s weathered, grinning face flashes up before my eyes. He has a daughter not much younger than me, and he wants nothing to do with our fight. I refuse to drag more innocents into this. I brace myself against the wall as I ease up to my feet, raising my voice before McBride can approve Doyle’s suggestion. “Quinn’s too old to move fast enough for us. Speak to Matt Daly. He sells his poitín to the trodairí. They’ll let him onto the base if it means more of his moonshine. There’s a chance she was too injured to keep track of where she was. She might not know anything.”
There’s a quick murmur of agreement from the group. I start to straighten, and Tran’s hand comes out to steady my shoulder as the concussion threatens to send me staggering.
When I turn my head, McBride’s gaze is waiting for me again, still burning. But the idea’s a good one, and it’s not the right time to speak against it—against me. “Try him,” he agrees, and like that, they scatter. Back to work.
And hours pass. Search teams report in with no luck, and I can’t escape the thought of Jubilee, broken ribs and all, lost in Avon’s ever-shifting waterways. The thought shouldn’t stay with me the way it does—I shouldn’t care whether we’re empty-handed because she drowned or made it back to base. Her words are still echoing in my ears. There are never just two sides to anything.
We all work through the night. My concussion proves minor, and as my eyesight starts to clear, I focus on the maps, handing out new coordinates to tired teams. As each reports back, I dread hearing they found her, and I dread hearing they didn’t. On my breaks I help load currachs for those evacuating, afraid she’ll lead the trodairí to our door.
If she hasn’t found her way back to the base by now, then she’s probably dead. Avon’s waters are treacherous, and if she ran out of gas and ditched the currach she stole, then the bog most likely swallowed her. And yet, every time I hear the sputtering of an engine returning to the harbor, I have to swallow the bitter fear that it’s her, and that she’s brought an army with her.
She knows my face now, too. Nobody says it, but it’s in their glances, their pauses. She knows my face, and if they catch me in town after she reports back with my identity, I’ll be lucky to spend the rest of my life locked up.
McBride’s out with the search parties most of the night—if he’s the one to find her, it will cement his leadership for good, and he can’t miss that opportunity. But he returns now and then, ostensibly to refuel. I see him mingling, moving among the people left behind, dropping the right words in the right ears. Talking, reassuring, quietly fueling their anger under the guise of sharing their concerns. His tone’s always calm, but I can’t forget the contempt I saw in his gaze, the venom. He’s not finished with me. I wish I could guess at his next step—figure out what speech or trick he’ll use to win the rest of my people to his cause.
When he lays his hand on my shoulder, I lose my patience, shrugging him off and turning away from the table where I’m standing to stride away down a hallway. I can hear his voice behind me, but my head’s pounding, and the words I’m biting back will only make things worse. Letting him take a jab at my receding back is the lesser of two evils. I brought her here, I let her get away, and if I want a chance to be heard at all, I know it won’t be tonight.
I turn right, away from the main cavern, automatically making for Sean and the classroom. He’s got the children sleeping in there, little mattresses lined up, their bodies small lumps under the blankets. He’s standing silent watch over our innocents as they sleep, his expression unreadable. I wonder if he envies them.
Then he spots the shifting shadow as I pause in the doorway, and he turns to make his way over to me. “How’s your head?” No hint of his usual tease, his gaze searching.
“Sore, but thick-skulled as usual. Takes a harder hit than that to kill me.”
Sean’s voice remains low, thoughtful. “I’ve spent all night thinking it over, trying to work out how the trodaire escaped. Doesn’t make sense, especially since you had the only key to the door.”
A heavy weight settles inside me, and when I look up, his gaze is waiting.
He speaks again, almost inaudible. “If I figured it out, how long do you think it’ll take McBride and the others to get there?”
“Sean, I—”
“You’ve signed our death warrants, Flynn. All of us.” The note of betrayal in his voice cuts me far deeper than the anger.
“This is how we start to find common ground,” I reply, hoping my face doesn’t show how guilty I feel. “She’s not what you think. She’s different from the others.”
“Different?” Sean’s jaw tightens, eyes shadowing abruptly with horror. “God, you like her. Flynn, please. Tell me you don’t think—”
“Of course not,” I snap, then lower my voice with an effort when a few of the children behind my cousin stir in their beds. “But if there’s a chance she’ll help us, I have to take it.”
“She’s a trodaire.”
“I don’t think that means she deserves to die for doing her job.”