Ice Massacre
Page 20
“I know.”
“So you admit she knows what she’s doing.”
I narrowed my eyes at the tiny window in front of me. “She has some good plans, but I’d sooner jump ship than call her my captain.”
“Why?”
“I don’t trust her, Annith!”
“She might be your only chance at staying alive.”
I rounded on her. “You think I can’t stay alive if I don’t join your cult?”
“I just don’t think,” she said, and I could tell she was fighting to stop her voice from shaking, “that you’re taking this all very seriously.”
I drew myself up taller, not breaking eye contact. “Not taking this seriously? You don’t see me making jokes about eating mermaids, or keeping all my plans a dramatic secret so—”
“Not like that. I mean you hesitate too much. You still don’t like to kill. I see it on your face.”
My stomach felt like it’d reached its boiling point, but I didn’t know what to say. Could she not read the regret in my eyes?
I know! I wanted to shout. I know I screwed up!
I needed to bring the training master’s lessons to the front of my mind again. I needed to force that black tar over my heart and kill every mermaid I laid eyes on. The survival of my crew and my own skin depended on it.
I glowered at Annith. She had no business telling me this. Besides, the Annith I knew would never have accused me of being too compassionate.
“Did Dani send you here to tell me this? Are you her personal slave now?”
Annith crossed her arms haughtily. “She’s the captain. As captain—”
“Don’t you have any pride left?” I said, my voice growing heated. “Since when do you let someone else make your decisions, especially that psychotic—”
“Since she proved she can keep me alive.”
Never in my life had I wanted to slap Annith, but at that moment I was prepared to use any means possible to knock the sense back into her.
She uncrossed her arms, revealing her clenched fists. I stared at the sharp, white knuckles—a sight I’d rarely seen on Annith.
The stairs creaked beside us and Dani appeared. Drawn to an argument like a shark to blood.
“What’s going on, girls?” she said with mocking lightness. She dropped her pointed chin, eyes fixed wickedly on the two of us. Her face looked worn, sunken, her hair more un-groomed than I’d ever seen it.
“Just talking,” said Annith, straightening up with an important look on her face that made me want to slap her even more.
“So mind your own business,” I said, feeling my upper lip curl.
Annith shot me a glare.
“Ooh,” said Dani, gleefully. “An argument between the two best friends in the whole world. Isn’t this fun?”
She leaned against the wall, clearly with no intention of going anywhere.
“Dani,” I said, my voice growing louder by the second, “if you don’t get out right now—”
“She’s right, you know,” said Dani.
I closed my mouth, teeth snapping together.
Dani picked at her worn-down fingernails as she spoke. “You’ve got no guts to properly kill a mermaid. I’ve known it since we started training. If you don’t harden up soon, you’ll end up like the other pathetic captains before you: mermaid lunch, or lying useless with a big hole in your back.”
My breaths grew heavy as more than a decade of hatred for Dani bubbled up inside me. My fingers throbbed in my tightly balled fists.
“It must run in your blood,” said Dani. “You won’t be the first in your family who’s too inept to fight.”
I lunged at her.
Annith must have known it was coming because she grabbed both my arms. Dani seemed torn between backing off and attacking, and she made a funny lurch that ended in a half-crouch.
I yanked myself free from Annith’s grip, and her full weight landed on my back. She let out a long, high-pitched scream, hitting me over the head with one hand and waving the other in Dani’s direction to keep us apart.
Dani came at me with her fists up. I punched her hard in the stomach. Annith, still screaming and hitting me on the head, kicked her feet at Dani and used her free hand to grab her around the throat.
A roar came from somewhere behind us.
“STOP!”
The three of us froze: Annith glued to my back, one of her hands in the middle of cracking me on the head and one around Dani’s throat; Dani buckled over and reaching out to claw me in the face; and me with one hand on Annith’s wrist to stop her from hitting me, the other winding up to punch Dani again in the stomach.
We all turned to gape at Blacktail, shocked that someone besides the unconscious Linoya had been in the room this whole time. She emerged from the dark end of the cabin.
“What - are - you - doing?” I’d never seen Blacktail get angry, and the tendons in her neck bulged. “Meela, Annith, you’ve been best friends since the beginning of time. Shut up, accept each other’s decisions, and get on with it.”
The stairs creaked on the other side of us, and Shaena, Fern, Nora, and Blondie peeked in.
“Dani”—Blacktail eyed her with an air of revulsion—“save it for the battlefield. I think we’d all appreciate you directing your venom at the enemy.”
I dropped my hands, and so did Dani. Annith’s legs unclamped from my sides and she slid to the floor.
Dani shot a sour glance at Blacktail before marching up the stairs, parting the girls with ease.
I avoided everyone’s gaze as I turned around and closed my trunk.
Blacktail shooed everyone up the stairs and followed in their wake, leaving Annith and me alone. I exhaled slowly and faced her again.
“I appreciate your concern for me,” I said, and I tried to sound earnest but my voice ended up in a monotone. “I really don’t want to join your crew.”
Annith nodded once, her jaw tight. I pushed past her and climbed the stairs.
My limbs vibrated, like they were still ready to deliver a swift blow to somebody’s cheek. After more than a decade of antagonizing me, Dani always knew exactly what to say to make me snap. And why didn’t Annith defend our dead crewmates? My dead brother? She’d deserted me. I couldn’t even trust her to take my side any more.
I hadn’t lost my temper like that in a long time. The training master had made sure of it. I recalled the main goal he’d drilled into my brain for five years: control your emotions. Somehow, though, that had leaked out my ears in the panic of real battle these last two weeks.
The stars twinkled in the cloudless sky, and I remembered my promise to meet Lysi that night. I breathed deeply as I strode to the helm. Shaena was there steering, despite the smooth water and dead breeze. She must have been putting off going to bed.
I hovered by the railing, pretending to scan the waves for threats. Finally, any remaining girls trickled below deck and Shaena followed, apparently deciding she’d stalled long enough. Only six girls stayed up, taking their places in a circle on the main deck.
After a few more minutes, I slipped behind the helm, sat down, and waited for Lysi.
A flicker of green in the black sky made me look up. A glowing curtain stretched above me, flapping softly beneath the stars. My throat tightened as I watched it dance.
I thought of Kade . . . and Eyrin, Shaani, Nati, Mannoh, Akirra, and Chadri. And I wondered if Nilus was watching over me. When I’d been a kid and he was still alive, he and I would sit under the lights and he’d tell me our grandparents were up there. It was hard to believe I could still miss him this much after so many years.
“Makes you feel calm, doesn’t it?”
Lysi poked her head up in front of me.
At the sight of her, I couldn’t help pressing my lips into a half-smile. “Serene. Yes.”
“Serene.” She repeated the word to herself a few times, adding it to her vocabulary.
“Makes me think of all the girls we’ve lost,” I said.
“Eriana legend says it’s the spirits dancing,” I said. I could almost see Kade’s bright green eyes as she jumped through the sky, finally free.
My eyes welled with tears and I looked down. Lysi was watching me sadly.
“What happens?” I whispered. “When a mermaid takes one of us into the ocean? Does she eat us?”
Lysi’s porcelain face seemed to whiten even more. “She usually kills, yes. The way she does it depends on the mermaid.”
I tried not to let my imagination run away with me, but my heart skipped a beat at the possibilities that flashed across my mind.
“She won’t always kill, though,” said Lysi, barely audible. “Sometimes she’ll change her victim.”
“Into a mermaid?”
She nodded. “A merman, usually.”
“How does she decide which victims to change?”
“Selfishly. If a mermaid falls in love with a sailor, she’ll do it to be with him. It’s frowned upon.”
“Like what happened—”
“—to Kayton, yes.”
We fell silent, and again I turned my face up to the curtain of lights. I was betraying my crewmates’ souls by talking to Lysi. I was betraying my people.
“You can’t come here anymore,” I said.
She looked at me sharply. I kept my eyes skywards, because they’d brimmed with tears and I was afraid they’d fall if I looked down.
“I can’t have you in my life if I’m going to fight for my people,” I said.
When she didn’t respond, I met her eyes. Her expression was cold.
“You don’t have to choose,” she said.
“Yes, I do. I can’t fight knowing at any moment, you might end up one of the corpses on the deck.”
I shook my head violently, like it would dislodge the vision.
A stupid urge overcame me, and the words flooded out. “Stop coming to battles. You don’t have to risk your life.”
She opened and closed her mouth. “I—no! You’re fighting for your people. Why should I stop fighting for mine?”
“I have no choice. I’m stuck on this ship. You have a choice. I want you to choose to stay alive.”
“Mee, we’re on opposite sides of a war. You’re asking me to surrender.”
“It’s not about the war. I’m asking you to save your own life!”
But I knew I was wrong as I said it. It was about the war. Everything was about the war. Her life and mine, her culture and mine, were dedicated to it.
She reached out and locked my hand in her icy fingers. “Let’s not talk about this.”
I held her gaze, breathing hard to push down the bubble of panic.
Lysi pressed her palm against mine and stretched her fingers skywards. I did the same, feeling our hands align perfectly—brown skin against white.
I stood before she could change my decision. I’d never forget Kade’s face as she was pulled into the water. Nobody else knew what that felt like, and nobody else could understand it.
“Our paths were never meant to cross.”
“I don’t care—”
“Do it for your people,” I said. “They need your loyalty, and my people need mine.”
She went quiet. I had to turn away from her sapphire eyes.
I opened my mouth, trying to dislodge the word goodbye.
“You’ve been here a while,” said Annith’s voice.
I started. Annith was standing an arm’s length from me. I whirled back around without thinking, but Lysi had vanished.
“Yeah, well, I can’t sleep,” I said, staring at the brightening horizon. I took a breath to calm my heart rate.
“It’s your turn.”
When I faced her again, her eyebrows were knitted together. I knew that expression. It was the same one she wore whenever she asked me, “What’d you do this time?”
All she said was, “You must be exhausted.”
I shrugged. Of course I was exhausted. We all were.
“Is it Kade?”
Hearing Kade’s name made my throat tighten, and I felt a burst of fury at Annith for bringing it up so casually.
“I’m fine, all right?” I said, pushing past her.
“I just thought you might need—”
“Well, I don’t need or want to relive it,” I said. “It was bad enough seeing it once.”
I felt Annith watching me as I strode over to take my place in the circle. When I turned around to face the water, I noticed she was squinting beyond the helm—at the very place Lysi had disappeared.
I felt like I’d just fallen asleep when I was awoken by a low, steady rumbling. I stared at the ceiling, perplexed. The noise was rhythmic—not frantic, as if we were being attacked.
Fern sat up and squinted straight ahead, her hair poking in every direction. Her stuffed cat fell on the floor. “Wha’zat?”
I grunted and stood to go investigate. Fern watched me put on my jacket and slouch over to the stairs, then I distinctly heard her flop back down in her bed.
The sun must have risen, but I could hardly tell. Dark clouds had moved in, smothering any rays of light. It wasn’t raining, but a downpour was imminent.
Dani and her crew had set up a dozen lanterns in a large circle, which cast a flickering glow across the deck. Standing between the lanterns, the girls formed a circle around Holly and Dani. They stomped their feet, sending an eerie thunder across the otherwise quiet waters.
I approached Blacktail, Sage, and Zarra, who looked on from beside the cabin door.
Dani had strung iron bolts together with fishing wire and slung them across her chest like a soldier. Her hair was slick and pulled back from her face—which she’d painted all over with kohl. The region around her eyes was black, like rectangular sunglasses. Thin lines sprouted from the rectangle to sweep down her cheeks. She’d also blackened the backs of her hands across the bones, making her appear even more skeletal than she already was.
“Are you aware, Holly,” she shouted over the stomping, “of the crimes you have committed against your captain, your crew, and the Bloodhound?”
“Yes,” said Holly in a high, loud voice.
“Prove it!”
“I cowered! My crew was fighting, and I cowered.”
“Exactly.” Dani turned to the rest of her crew. “This type of selfishness ought to be punished, don’t you agree?”
The girls in the circle turned their glares on Holly and made hissing noises.
“But the demon cornered me! I had to hide—”
“Quiet!” yelled Dani, and the way her voice carried across the empty water seemed to remind everyone how alone we were, because the circle fell into silence. A few girls glanced over their shoulders. Their stomping faded to a low rumble.
“You cowered, and you will be punished for it,” said Dani, more quietly now.
“Yes, Captain,” said Holly.
Where I stood, the four of us were stunned into silence. Zarra’s jaw had fallen open, stretching the scar across her cheek.
“This is ridiculous,” I said.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and marched towards the circle.
Dani stepped inside the ring, and Holly stood taller.
“How should we punish her?” shouted Dani.
The responses ranged from “lashings” and “keelhauling” all the way down to “double kitchen duty.”
“Oh, I like that one,” said Dani, pointing a finger at Blondie. “We’ll dunk her.”
“No you won’t,” I said, stopping behind Nora.
The stomping faded, and Dani turned with exaggerated slowness, eyeing me over her small, pointed nose like I was a humble servant. So I added snidely, “Sorry to interrupt, oh Queen of the Universe.”
Several girls drew a breath. I rolled my eyes.
“Last I checked,” said Dani, loudly enough to ensure everyone heard. “Holly was not part of your crew. She’s part of my crew. Isn’t that right, Holly?”
Holly nodded and made a small noise.
“Your crew,” I said, even louder, “is nothing but a sorry attempt at mutiny. I don’t care if you think you have authority over Holly, but I’m the rightful captain, and I say you aren’t dunking her.”
Dani’s eyes sparked in the flame of the lanterns, and for a moment I wanted to step back. Between the dark kohl painted across her face and the gauntness in her cheeks, she looked ghostly in the flickering light.
She ground her teeth together, then lifted a hand up by her ear and said, “Girls.”
I was too shocked to do more than gape as Blondie and Nora grabbed me by the arms.
“Are you serious?” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Dani and wrenching my arms away.
Dani said nothing, only crossed her arms and watched the girls grab me again. Texas stepped forwards to help, and I found myself being hauled backwards across the deck.
“This is insane,” I said, trying to sound calm despite the frustration boiling inside me. “You know we can’t afford to weaken our own crewmates!”
None of them looked at me. Texas said, “Subject will remain in exile until otherwise noted.”
They dumped me at the top of the stairs leading to the cabin and opened the door.
“Get down there,” said Texas through gritted teeth. “We don’t have time for your interruptions.”
“You’re all acting—”
Blondie and Nora stepped closer to me and hissed, and without consciously deciding to, I stepped back. I stood on the top stair, rendering me smaller than the rest of them. I felt like an insect beneath Texas’ towering figure.
I stared up at their determined faces, not recognising them behind their maniacal eyes. The door slammed, leaving me in blackness at the top of the stairs.
“Dunk her!” shouted Dani, and roars and stomping erupted again.
I turned and traipsed down the steps. As much as I wanted to get those girls away from Dani, they were all adults. They could make their own decisions.
Still, I hated feeling so powerless.