This Shattered World (Starbound #2)(53)

“I can’t,” she whispers, shutting her eyes. “I’m bad at this game.” She knows what happens next in this dream. He’ll kiss her and they’ll lie there together, and when they sneak back onto the base she’ll go back to work, and be unchanged, except perhaps a little colder without the blanket.

But this time the green-eyed boy takes her hand, and when she opens her eyes, the sky is full of stars.

THE UNDERGROUND HARBOR IS TEEMING with rebels. They’re like ants swarming around a nest, like repair drones clustering around a damaged Firebird. Some of them are marked with red and rusty brown, but they don’t move like they’re injured. There are too many people wearing their loved ones’ blood.

“McBride doesn’t have them organized yet.” Flynn speaks in my ear, grounding me before images of the massacre can cripple me again. “We might be able to use that confusion.”

Even through a whisper, I can hear his heartbreak. He should be with his people. He should be helping them figure out what to do. And he can’t, because he’s the one they’re after. Because of me.

I search the dark waters of the harbor until I spot what I’m looking for, floating a few yards from the near bank.

“The boat I came in,” I whisper back, pointing to where it sits, out of reach of the lights in the harbor.

A muscle stands out along his jaw. He doesn’t look at me, or at the boats. His eyes are on his people, aching for them. But then he nods, gaze snapping back toward the clusters of little boats moored along the docks.

We wade through the water with painstaking slowness to avoid making telltale ripples, slower still as the water level rises to our knees, our hips, our waists. My training takes over, forcing exhausted muscles to function long enough for me to keep each movement careful and controlled. Stealth, I can do. It’s a task to focus on, something to keep my mind away from—from everything else.

We’d be spotted if we climbed in now, so when we reach the boat, we each take one side of it and start walking it toward the gaping mouth of the harbor. I’m about to let my breath out in relief when a light swings across the surface of the water and blinds me.

Flynn gasps a warning in Irish at the same time my muscles tense, reacting to the threat before my mind has time to process it. A shout echoes through the cavern, and the swarms of people head our way.

For an instant, we move as one. I grab on to the gunwale, steadying the boat as Flynn hauls himself up into it—then, leaning his weight to the side, he reaches for my hand and drags me up after him. He’s fumbling with the motor. With the searchlight blinding me, our pursuers are little more than blurry shapes in my streaming eyes. Flynn jerks the ignition cable once, twice. The motor sputters to life, and he guns it too fast, briefly sending the nose of the boat skyward. A bullet punches through the gunwale, and shouts echo in the cavern. We both throw ourselves down into the bottom of the boat. Instinct takes over, and I lunge for him—for the gun he took from me.

I look up and see a fleeting ribbon of fear cross Flynn’s features. Fear—of me. He says nothing, not even silently, not even a mute appeal. But with that same flash of connection that got us working together to climb into the boat, I know what he’s seeing as he looks at me, still bloody, holding the weapon that killed half a dozen of his people. I feel sick, violated down to my bones by what I’ve done; I’d give anything, in this moment, for him to not look at me like that.

We speed toward the exit, but the rebels have found boats themselves, and they’re in pursuit. Too close for us to lose them in the swamp beyond the harbor. Close enough to shoot us—and close enough to be shot at.

Flynn jerks his eyes away from me as I lift my head, looking for a clear shot. I’m not killing any more people today, not when I’m me, myself. Not even if they’re shooting at me first. But they’ve got the searchlights pointed at us, and I can’t see.

My eyes lift, seeking a break from the blinding white light in front of me, and I see the ceiling of the harbor. Rough stone, naturally striated and dripping with condensation. The Gleidel won’t touch the stone, but it’ll vaporize the water seeping through the cracks. I lift my gun and brace myself against the bench so I can shoot over Flynn’s head, placing myself in clear view of those firing at us. Flynn shouts at me, but I can’t hear him as my world narrows, focusing on my target.

The Gleidel leaps in my hands and I throw myself down again before the rebels can get me in their sights. Its scream echoes back at me from the cavern, followed by the crack of stone split by steam, and then the roar of boulders striking the water. Then the frantic revving of motors thrown into reverse, as the rebels zigzag wildly in an effort to avoid the stones now jutting out of the shallow water at the mouth of the harbor.

I lever myself up again in time to see the mouth of the harbor retreating away from us, half lost in the spray of our wake, and the cluster of boats attempting to navigate through the new maze of boulders trapping them.

I glance down, and Flynn’s eyes flick up from mapping our route to meet mine for a split second. We’re out.

We don’t speak. There’s nothing to say anymore, even if we had the strength to shout over the roar of the motor. I look back at him once and see a jumble of white face, red-rimmed eyes, tears mingling with the spray from our bow wave—and look away with a jerk. I don’t try to look at him again.

The sky’s just beginning to shift from ink to charcoal by the time the distant lights of the base rise, mirage-like, from the horizon. Flynn shifts the motor down, its roar muted to a purr. We weave our way through the corridors of water until the bow of the boat slides up onto mud with a sickening lurch. The motor cuts out.