by Amy Braun
I twisted my head awkwardly, trying to see her face better. “What do you mean?”
Abby quickly pulled her head away from my shoulder and brought her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them and looked at her feet, blocking her eyes from mine.
“Abby, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Abigail–”
“Please, Claire.” The fear in her voice stopped me. “Please don’t make me.”
When she sounded so heartsick and scared, how could I? Slowly shuffling over, I put my arm around her shoulders. “All right. I won’t. But you can tell me anything, Abby. You know that.”
She nodded. “I know.”
Abby took a breath to speak again, then changed her mind. We sat in silence—me waiting for her to tell me what was scaring her, and her saying nothing. After a long time, Abby said she wanted to walk around the ship. She needed sleep more than a walk, but I wasn’t about to deny her wish, especially when she was getting used to flying among the clouds.
The Dauntless Wanderer was currently the only airship over Westraven, but it wouldn’t be long before others joined it. For now, Sawyer was content with the isolation, moving back and forth among the clouds and watching for any Hellion ships or skiffs.
Being in the air at night was strange. Even before The Storm, my parents hadn’t allowed me to travel with them at night. Too dangerous, they said. I wondered what they would think. Not only was I flying on an airship at night, I was doing so with Abby in the company of marauders, one of whom was part of the Kendric family. I doubted they would approve, but I wasn’t sure I approved of their secrets either.
Pushing them from my thoughts, I watched Abby walk around the deck. She wandered around without a destination, until she saw Riley sitting on a crate near the mast. He was coiling some rope, stopping and smiling broadly when he saw Abby hurrying toward him.
Like my sister, Riley looked better now than he had when we found him. He was putting on more weight and beginning to look his age. He cut a handsome figure, and I couldn’t deny that I was becoming more attracted to him. He understood what Abby was going through, and looked after her when I needed to work or rest. If I couldn’t help my sister, I went to Riley for help. He was more than eager to give it.
“Hey, Abby,” he grinned. “Exploring with your sister again?”
“Kind of,” she muttered. “I had a nightmare and woke her up.”
“That’s okay,” chimed Riley. He looked at the clear sky. “It’s a beautiful night. Not the kind anyone should be sleeping through.”
We looked up, and I had to agree with him. Now that the Behemoth was gone, the clouds had dissipated and revealed a velvety night sky with stars sprinkling its length. The moon hung like a shining jewel, its light covering us in a cool caress.
“Can you show me more constellations?” Abby asked Riley.
He smiled at her. “Of course I can. Do you have your book?”
Abby gasped, embarrassed. “I forgot it! I’ll be right back!”
Without another word, she ran from to the cabin to find her journal. Riley chuckled as she ran, coiling the rope in his steady hands. I looked at him gratefully.
“Thank you, Riley,” I said. “Leaning constellations helps her relax.”
He shrugged, focusing on the ropes. “I figured I’d teach her what I knew. I remember my father teaching me when I was on his ship. It interested and challenged me when I was younger, and after The Storm…” his hands slowed, “after The Storm, it was a way to keep sane.”
Seeing the sudden tension growing in his shoulders, I sat down on the crate beside Riley. We were so close that our arms touched, and when he shifted to make room for me, he ended up getting closer.
“You have nightmares too, don’t you?”
Riley tried to loop the rope again, then sighed and gave up. He turned it in his hands absently. “It was horrible, Claire. The things they did to me, what they made me see…” He shook his head. “They were going to kill me before you showed up.”
“Why? What did you do for them?”
“Information,” Riley admitted bitterly. “I’m the son of a Sky Guard, so I know all of Westraven. They wanted to know where to attack, when, and how many people they would find.”
Riley looked at me pleadingly, as if he were sure I would reject him now. “I didn’t want to do it, Claire. I tried to resist, but they’re the masters of torture. They broke me, and I was scrambling to hold myself together…”
I clutched his hand, which had been twisting the rope. Riley stiffened, and I could feel his pulse racing under my touch.
“It’s not your fault, Riley. No one can blame you for what you did. No one should. The Hellions would have raided regardless, and no one is invincible.” I squeezed his hand, trying to concentrate on something other than the heat of his gaze. “But the Behemoth is gone. It’s over for now. There’s nothing else you need to tell them or us.”
I almost didn’t see it, the flash of anxiety in his eyes. Riley controlled his emotions better than Sawyer, but there was no mistaking it. Like everyone else on the Dauntless Wanderer, Riley was hiding a secret. I wasn’t going to ask him about it, not when he would make Abby happy, but I wouldn’t forget that look. Whatever he was hiding, I would need to know about it soon. Defeating the Behemoth was an enormous accomplishment, but the Hellions would have more than one trick up their sleeve with the Vesper.
So I faked a smile, clutched Riley’s hand, and bade him goodnight. I could feel him watching me as I walked away, smiling for real when my sister rushed past with the journal Gemma had found for her. Secrets or no, I didn’t think Riley would put us in danger. He wanted to be as far from the Hellions as he could be, and who was I to blame him? If my mother’s key weren’t directly related to the monsters, I certainly wouldn’t seek them out. Not even for revenge.
As I wandered to the stern, I found Nash and Gemma working together with some crates. Or rather, Nash was working again as Sawyer’s quartermaster and boatswain. Gemma was unable to do her duties as a rigger and master gunner, so she stood off to the side with her hands on her hips and argued with her lover.
“I’m not a dainty flower, Nash,” she huffed. “I can still do my job.”
Nash set down one of the crates and nodded to her cast. “Not while you have that on, you can’t. I’m not letting you risk damaging it again when it’s still healing, so you’re just gonna have to sit there and look pretty.”
Gemma scoffed and turned her head away, but I spotted the blush in her cheeks. So did Nash, who chuckled under his breath.
“Is there anything I need to do?” I asked.
Both marauders looked at me, relaxing and smiling warmly.
“Nah,” answered Nash, coming around to put his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and pull her close. “The Dauntless runs perfectly. Hardly any kinks or unreliable equipment, thanks to you. Couldn’t have asked for a better engineer, but right now we don’t have anything for you to do.”
His smile was a little nervous, and Gemma voiced why.
“Don’t leave,” she told me. “You’re part of this crew now. One of us. We don’t take in just anyone, you know.”
“And,” Nash said, “we owe you, Claire. We owe you a thousand times over. Sawyer will never admit it, but we’ve survived mostly on luck. But you’ve gone out of your way to save us from things we never would have lived through. The Junkers, the bomb in the substation, the Behemoth, all of it.” His arm tightened around Gemma, sincerity pooling in his dark eyes. “We’ll never be able to thank you enough. But thank you, Claire.”
Warmth filled my cheeks and heart. As much as I fought their trust in the beginning, as much as I told myself I was just using them to save my sister, I knew now that it was a lie. Nash, Gemma, Sawyer… they were more than a crew of marauders to me now. They were my friends.
I laughed a little. “I’m not planning on leaving,” I assured her. Then I thoug
ht about it, and added, “At least not yet. I don’t intend to make promises I can’t or won’t keep.”
Gemma frowned, all traces of humor gone. “You’re saying that because of Sawyer, aren’t you?”
I concentrated on her and Nash, everything but the man standing at the helm over our heads. “No, it’s not…”
But it was. If Abby and I left the Dauntless, it would be because of Sawyer. He had only grown more distant, speaking to me only when he had to. Davin never came up, but if I was going to work as his engineer, I had to know the truth. Secrets had gotten me into every mess I’d fought my way out of. If I kept going on like this, secrets would get me killed.
“We didn’t know about Davin,” Nash told me. “We didn’t know he was a Hellion, at least.”
I looked at him. “Why didn’t he tell you?”
Nash frowned, but he didn’t look uncertain. “I’m not the one you should ask. Sawyer has his reasons, and they belong to him. He might not have told me everything about his life, but I know him. He does his best with what he has. He’s not out for power or money, and he doesn’t want the people he saves to be afraid of him. Sawyer’s past doesn’t matter to me. He won my loyalty a long time ago.”
Nash didn’t elaborate, and I could see that he wasn’t going to. Gemma stood next to him, the same defiant look on her face. I recalled her story about Sawyer helping her after she’d betrayed him, and finally raised my head.
From this angle I couldn’t really see much, but I knew Sawyer was there. I liked being on the Dauntless, and so did Abby. I wanted to stay, but I needed to work on my trust with the young captain before I said something I regretted.
“Is he in a mood?” I asked, looking at Nash.
The large marauder grinned and shrugged one of his big shoulders. “Sawyer’s always in a mood. The gamble is figuring out which one.”
I frowned when Nash grinned, but walked away from the marauders. I trotted up the staircase to get to the helm, which Sawyer was standing behind vigilantly.
His coat had been patched up in exchange for some food, but it was still tattered around the seams. His bruises were gone, but the scar above his right eyebrow remained. His stood strong and confident, but there was a slump in his shoulders and a pain in his eyes that didn’t belong to the man who kidnapped me a month ago to save me.
Sawyer didn’t turn to look at me, instead holding the spokes of the helm’s wheel even though we were moving straight ahead. But he knew I was there. I stood beside him, trying to get his attention. He stared straight ahead, into the blackest part of the night.
I sighed. “It’s out there, isn’t it? The Breach.”
“Somewhere,” grunted Sawyer.
“Do you think it’s far?”
“I don’t know. Never wanted to know.”
I held my tongue, not wanting to say anything to push him into anger. Sawyer had been on a tightrope since the crash, when we realized that things had changed between us, and not for the better. Yes, I worked for him. Yes, I considered him an ally and even a friend. But I wasn’t sure if he would be more than that, and it saddened me.
“Davin wanted to go to the Breach,” Sawyer said abruptly. I looked at him. “Soon as he found out where it was, he took off with some of his friends to find it. The explorers were already there. Your parents.”
I turned my head away, remembering Davin’s words when he recognized me.
“Father left me with Micah to go after him, but they had no idea what they’d be bringing back. Davin probably did something to the Hellions. Made some kind of deal to become… what he is.”
“Did you see Davin again when he came through the Breach as… one of them?”
Sawyer shook his head. “No. But when I saw him at the Junkyard, I knew it was him. I couldn’t believe it, still can’t, but that doesn’t change anything.”
Sawyer let go of the helm and sighed. “I should have killed him. When I had my chances at the Junkyard and the tunnels, I should have killed him. I didn’t know he was after you, but it shouldn’t have mattered either way. He always was a bastard, but now he’s a true monster.”
It took me a moment to figure out why he sounded so grieved. “You want to save him.”
Sawyer turned and glared at me. “No. He can’t be saved. If I tried, he would stab me in the back and kill everyone I cared about in front of me. Davin can’t be saved. He never wanted to be.”
His words were venomous and aggressive, but I saw the torment in Sawyer’s eyes.
“He’s your brother,” I reminded softly.
Sawyer grimaced and looked away. “That doesn’t matter. I’ll face him again, and he’ll push me. I’m not going to have a choice.”
That I did believe, but I also knew that Sawyer wouldn’t be able to do it. Nash was right– Sawyer was a man with a good heart, doing the best he could in a world that would ruin him for simply being the son of a criminal. I couldn’t fault him for it.
“Maybe,” I agreed, “but don’t worry about it.”
Sawyer glanced at me skeptically. “You think it’s easy?”
“Of course not. But Davin isn’t here right now, Sawyer. We’re not in danger. This won’t last,” I said, looking past the railing to the deck where my friends and sister were. “We should enjoy what we have.”
The marauder fell silent beside me, his eyes piercing through mine.
“Why did you stay, Claire?” Sawyer asked.
My body was still. My heart was not.
“You could have left at any time. Our deal is over. We don’t owe each other anything. I need an engineer and am not going to complain that you’re working for me, but I can’t pay you. All my allies and friends are on this ship. Anyone else will be happy to take my head off my body. So why are you staying?”
I tried to smile playfully. It felt wrong on my face, especially given how intensely he was looking at me. “Is it so strange if I said I wanted to be on the ship? That I want to be around Gemma and Nash? That I want to be with you?”
Sawyer flinched. Emotions blurred through his eyes, too fast for me to see. His shoulders finally slumped.
“Yes, Claire. It is.”
His rejection was like a punch in the stomach. It twisted my heart, but I clenched my fists and fought the tears building in my eyes. Sawyer’s face softened, and he took a step closer to me.
“You know who I am now,” he said quietly. “You know who my father was and what my brother has become. It won’t be long until someone else finds out. The moment they do, they’re going to come for the people I care about. Davin saw how I reacted when he had you. If he doesn’t come after you himself, he’ll spread the word. Other marauders will set traps that I might not be able to protect you from. You’ll fall into them, and I’ll fall in after you. I won’t even care that I could die.”
He stopped in front of me, heart in his eyes. I could see through him, the fear he was trying to hold back. The longing.
Sawyer lifted his hand. His fingers brushed the side of my skin as he curled a strand of hair behind my ear. The touch was ghostly, so close and still so far away. It was all I could do not to grab Sawyer’s hand and know that what he was feeling was real.
By then, it was too late. His hand dropped. Then his eyes, and with them, his heart.
“You make me weak, Claire. And I can’t be. Not now. Never again.”
Pressure built in my chest, like my heart was shrinking, straining the valves as it retreated into itself. I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That he wasn’t weak, that he didn’t need to fight whatever was between us. I even thought to tell him that I wasn’t mad about who his father and brother were. The secret was a terrible one, but it didn’t change my feelings. Robertson and Davin Kendric were monsters.
