Grace and Fury (Grace and Fury #1)(63)
The woman led her through the destroyed lobby and to the left, down an open-air walkway bounded on one side by the stone and steel shell of a building and on the other by a brackish, bad-smelling canal. A matching building framed the opposite side of the water. Both structures were three stories high, lined with railed terraces and dark holes where doors should have been. At the end of the canal, a wide, round tower linked the two buildings. Most of the tower had burned, but its curved iron skeleton and ribs of concrete remained. At its base was a shallow marble staircase; Slash sat at the top, sharpening scraps of metal into knives.
She looked up at the sound of footsteps. Her spiky black hair framed an angular face crisscrossed with knife-thin scars. “What’s this?”
The lookout said, “She said she wanted to talk to you.”
Slash glanced at the woman. “And?”
Serina stepped forward and gently unrolled her clams again, setting them at Slash’s feet. She resisted the inexplicable urge to curtsy. “I don’t want anything from you but to talk.”
Slash raised a brow. “I don’t talk to traitors.”
“You can talk to the woman who spared your fighter,” Serina said, sounding more fierce than she felt. In truth, it was all she could do to meet the woman’s eyes.
Slash sat back in the rusted chair and spun the knife in her hand.
Serina suspected she had seconds before that knife flew through the air and buried itself in her chest. “The crews should join together and take the island,” she said, words blurring together in her haste to get them out before the woman attacked. “The guards have firearms, but there are fewer of them, and we know the island. If we joined together, we could share resources. We could be free.”
The knife paused.
“What did Oracle say? Presumably you shared your thoughts with her first.”
Serina struggled to hold Slash’s gaze, Her mouth was dry as sand. “I betrayed the crew by submitting. She felt she had no choice but to banish me. But that’s what Commander Ricci wants. He wants us to fight each other, to never question how things work here.”
“Why question it? This is our reality.” Slash tested the tip of her blade.
“It doesn’t need to be,” Serina argued. “Commander Ricci put hundreds of women on an island, barely supervised, and told them to learn to fight. He’s given us all the tools we need to overthrow him.”
Slash stood up slowly and descended the three shallow steps until she and Serina were on the same level. Serina held her breath.
“You’re a freshie and a stray, and you know nothing,” the woman said finally, twisting the knife in her hand.
Disappointment choking her, Serina turned to go. “Thank you for hearing me out.”
From behind her, Slash’s voice rang out. “Have you spoken to the other crews?”
Serina glanced back over her shoulder. “Only you and Oracle so far. I started with the strongest.”
Slash regarded her through narrowed eyes. “If you can get the heads of the other crews to agree, I’ll consider it. But only if there’s a plan. A good one.”
Serina sagged with relief. It wasn’t much to hold on to, but it was something. “Thank you.”
Slash nodded her dismissal. The woman who had brought Serina into the hotel now led her out. As Serina left the ruined lobby, Anika walked in. She stopped dead when she saw Serina. For a long moment, they stared at each other, and then Serina was past her, out into the fading daylight. The lookout walked her to the main path and then disappeared into the woods.
Serina sipped from her flagon, ignored her grumbling stomach, and began the long trek back to the east beach, a cautious hope pacing her. Tomorrow she would go see Twig. And maybe Jacana would make headway with Oracle.
Serina reached the east beach just as the sun set, sending the night streaking across the sky to find her. She stood at the edge of the water and watched the stars appear.
Someone whistled behind her.
Serina whirled, yanking the knife from her pants, hard enough to rip the fabric further.
Bruno stood a few feet away.
“I’ve been wondering where you holed up,” he said. The darkness hid his face and turned his black-clad body into shadow.
“Go away,” Serina snapped.
Her fingers tightened on her knife. She wasn’t the submissive girl she’d been the last time they’d met, but she was still scared.
He shifted closer. She fought the urge to step back.
“Why should I?” he said, his voice flat. “You don’t have a crew to protect you anymore. I can just take what I want.”
“You can try,” she growled, and then she lunged forward. She was betting he hadn’t seen her knife in the dark, and she wasn’t going to wait for him to attack first. She stabbed him in the gut, but it was a shallow wound.
He roared. Without hesitation, he backhanded her, hard enough to send her flying to the gritty sand. She kept her grip on her knife, but it was now slick with blood. As she stumbled to her feet, he kicked her in the side, sending her back to the ground.
“Submit,” he muttered. He loomed over her, his feet on either side of her hips. She hooked one of his legs with hers and surged upward into his wounded stomach as she twisted, bringing him down. Her knife slashed his side.
She made it to her feet and was almost free when he grabbed her ankle and yanked.