by Amy Braun
I looked at everyone in turn. “Davin has the Palisade’s design plans, but he didn’t get my mother’s journal. I don’t know how useful it will be, but now we have a starting point. We need to find the Capital Meridian and see what’s inside it.”
“You realize there could be nothing,” Nash pointed out. “Your parents might only have gotten as far as planning it. If they didn’t put anything together, we’ll need to get the scrap, the parts, the electricity, and who knows what else. It could take months to put together.”
No one argued or added to his statement, but it was likely we were thinking the same thing.
We didn’t have months. If Gemma was right and the Hellion skiffs were returning, we might not even have weeks.
“Then it’s a good thing I woke up when I did,” I told them.
Given how my friends nervously glanced at each other, it was clear that my answer didn’t seem to please anyone. But I was beyond caring. My gaze went up, stopping at the Dauntless Wanderer’s cabin.
“Abby’s okay, Claire,” Riley assured. “Moira is up there now.”
“She said Abby was getting worse.” My hopes seemed to shrink by just speaking those words.
Riley walked toward me with pity in his eyes. “We’ve all looked after her. It doesn’t seem like the Vesper is in her mind anymore.”
Relief coursed through me, though it was short-lived and sour. It didn’t escape my notice that Riley didn’t offer me false hope by denying what Gemma had told me.
“Can other Hellions get into human minds?” Gemma asked Riley, breaking his focus on me.
He shook his head. “Only one I know capable of that is the Vesper. As far as I can tell, his mental control commands all the Hellions.” He looked at me. “You really damaged him when you crashed the Behemoth.
“Forgive me for not shedding any tears,” I grumbled.
Riley smirked for a moment, the spark in his eyes fading almost instantly. “One of two things can happen now. The Vesper will order a massive search for you, or,” he held his breath, “he’ll pull back and wait for you to come to him.”
“How would he do that? He’s already breaking me with Abby.”
“I’m not sure, but it won’t be long before Davin tells him what happened at your home. He’s basically the Vesper’s personal soldier. The Vesper will think you’re in reach, and he’ll have Davin trap you as soon as he can.”
“Interesting how much you know about him,” accused Sawyer, “considering you said the Vesper’s rotting away on the other side of the Breach.” He kept the bite in his words, but I could see the rings of fatigue under his eyes. Eyes that were studiously avoiding mine.
To my surprise, Riley didn’t start another fight with Sawyer. He didn’t even look at the pirate. Instead, he sighed and shuffled back to the crates. He leaned against them and folded his arms over his chest. He looked defeated, at the end of his rope, even.
“I met him once.”
We all stared at him, not daring to breathe.
“A few days after they captured me, the Hellions brought me through the Breach to see the Vesper. He got into my head and stayed there for three days, pulling out slivers of my mind. It was like being a fly in the hands of a cruel child. He tore off my wings, slowly, carefully, making sure he got what he wanted, regardless of my pain.”
Riley’s eyes had become so distant that not even Sawyer bothered to argue with him. Then he blinked and returned to us.
“When the Vesper gets into your head, you can see into his as well. He controls himself, but I could still understand him. Or his motives, at least.”
“What did you see?” Gemma asked.
He tightened his arms around his chest. “Flashes. Things that didn’t make sense. But I understood the emotion well enough.” He looked at all of us in turn. “Rage. Complete, unfiltered hatred. I’ve never felt anything so strong in my life. The Vesper won’t stop until he takes revenge on every human he can get his hands on. Starting with you, Claire.”
“Because of my parents?” I asked tentatively.
Riley sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know. Like I said, when I met him, it was just emotions I was getting. Not ideas or actual thoughts. I barely understood him when he said your parents’ names. I can’t tell you what he’s planning, or what he wants. But if he’s sending Davin after you and using Abby, it’s crucial.” He paused, then added, “If I had to guess, he wants you to do something to your parents machine.”
“Why would he want that?” questioned Gemma. “It’s supposed to close the Breach, isn’t it?”
“Claire told me the machine was a conductor that used a lot of electric energy.” Sawyer’s tawny eyes looked at mine gravely. “That kind of energy could be weaponized, couldn’t it?”
The horror of his suggestion sank in. I imagined the dais perched on top of another ship like the Behemoth, electricity cracking through the clouds like lighting in a storm. But instead of the bolts dancing harmlessly in the sky, they would whip down onto Westraven, turning stone to dust and bones to ash. Cannon fire would force the survivors from their homes until they were dying or weakened. Then the Hellions would descend. They would leap from their skiffs, hunt anyone they could find, and butcher them on the spot until fresh blood stained the streets. Not everyone would become food, though. Some of them, like the children, would be captured. Drawn back up to a man-o’-war and stabbed with dozens of needles, each one draining their blood with agonizing slowness, shattering their minds before finally robbing them of their lives.
It would be The Storm all over again. Aon would never survive a second attack like that, and Westraven would be wiped from the map.
You need to survive, Claire. You can save us. Not just your sister, but everyone.
My mother’s words always seemed like a burden to me. Now that I knew what I had to do, that burden had become a motivation.
“We need to find the Capital Meridian,” I announced casually. “Once we do that, we can go from there. We have to trust that Davin won’t know where it is.”
“And if he does?” Sawyer countered, slowly dragging his eyes to mine. “He hasn’t been sitting on his ass twiddling his thumbs these last few months. Either he was watching us, or he was doing his own search for your parents’ ship. He was there during the Discovery, remember? He knew what their ship looked like.” Unease filled Sawyer’s eyes. “He knew what your mother looked like.”
I lowered my head quickly, my hand automatically going to my neck, a phantom burn creeping over my skin. I wondered how many nightmares I would have of him, how little I would sleep because I was afraid of seeing his face when I closed my eyes.
My eyes went to my mother’s journal, still clutched in my hands. I opened the book and flipped to the end, looking for a late entry that would hopefully hint at what my parents were doing in the last days of The Storm. I stopped at one of the last entries and skimmed through. My mother’s cursive script was rough and sharper than usual, the way it usually looked when she was under duress.
“ ‘Ship’s taken on too much damage. Need to land soon. Captain Arturo says we’re going to Dovercourt. Lots of open space. Hope he lands safely. Need to find Joel.’”
Lifting my eyes from the journal, I looked at the crew in turn. Almost all of them had the same blank, confused expression I had. Nash was the only one staring at his feet.
“Where the hell’s Dovercourt?” Gemma blurted. “Never heard of it.”
“I have,” Nash grimly admitted. When the rest of us looked at him, he explained. “Dovercourt’s called the Barren now.”
I cringed. The Barren was the one place in all of Westraven that I hadn’t visited since The Storm. It was a place where survivors would venture and never return, and not because of any Hellion threats. Even my former employer and tyrant Garnet, who fancied himself a king in the underground, stayed away from the Barren.
“How do you know?” Riley asked suspiciously.
Nash didn’t look up from the floor. “
I used to live there.”
My jaw dropped. Sawyer and Gemma looked at each other nervously, as though they wanted to avoid this conversation.
“I thought the Barren was empty,” I said. “Uninhabitable.”
Nash shook his head. “Marauders took it over. It was still Dovercourt, until the riots started.”
I gulped, remembering the towers of smoke chugging from Westraven’s upper east corner. I was still ten years old at the time, struggling to keep my baby sister alive. I didn’t know what was happening in Dovercourt, and chose not to find out. A few months later, the area I watched burn became known as the Barren.
“The marauders thought they hit the jackpot,” Nash continued. “It was a militarized area. More advanced than the drafter district. After they raided it, they turned on each other. It was a bloody fight, and it drew the Hellions. After about a year, the surviving marauders divided into groups, stayed underground anywhere they wanted, and waited for the chance to strike out and kill each other. The Barren’s the heart of Clan life in Westraven. They’re still in a rivalry war against any marauder they come across, and won’t stop until every other marauder is dead.”
“How did you escape?” I asked once I found my voice again.
Nash looked at Sawyer. Unspoken words and understanding seemed to cross the distance between them.
“I had some help.” Nash turned to us. “I still know the layout and the Clans. They won’t give up their territory unless it’s taken by force. The Stray Dogs took me in when I was thirteen. They’re the biggest Clan in Westraven now. If the Meridian is in the Barren, they’ll be the ones looking after it.”
My eyes flicked down to the tattoo on the length of Nash’s right forearm. The dog inked to his skin snarled furiously back at me. I couldn’t look at it for very long.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Riley insisted. “If the marauders in the Barren recognize Sawyer as a Kendric, they’ll rip us to shreds,” he turned to regard Gemma and me, “and I don’t even want to think about what they would do to the women.”
I shifted on both my feet, but Gemma puffed out her chest and put her hands on her hips. Her fingers played along the edges of the knives and flintlocks on her belt.
“Any man that wants to lay a hand on me is welcome to try. He just won’t be leaving with that hand attached.”
Across from us, the anxiety lifted from Nash’s face. He stared at Gemma with warm, dark eyes, a steady smile raising the corners of his lips. His shoulders relaxed, as if heavy weights had been pulled off of them. Nash looked at Gemma like she was the only light in his world. The single ray of hope that kept him from drowning in his past.
“I’m sure I’ll kick myself for this later,” Sawyer announced miserably, “but I agree with Nash. We need to check out the Barren and see if the Meridian and the machine are there.” His mood darkened when he looked at me. “And we need Claire to come with us.”
Riley glowered at Sawyer. “You were just complaining about how you don’t think I can look out for her. You think it will be easier in the Barren?”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I snapped. Riley turned his angry stare on me. Sawyer just seemed tired.
“This is my mission, and in case you forgot,” I pulled the skeleton key out from under my shirt collar, “I’m the only engineer you have. You’d get to the machine, have no idea how to operate or fix it, and be forced to come back. Assuming the other marauders don’t find you and trap you first. And did you forget about Davin? If he were to take any one of you, do you think I’d sit back and let him?”
No one argued with me. Riley’s concern betrayed his discontent.
“I’m going,” I stated. “If we have any chance of getting ahead of the Hellions and the Vesper, you need me there.”
I locked eyes with Sawyer, daring him to contradict me. There was stiffness in his tawny eyes, but he soon turned his bright gaze over my shoulder to Gemma.
“Make sure the skiff is fueled. Help Nash stock it with as many weapons as we can spare. Then check the alarms and locks and make sure the hangar will be secure when we’re gone. First thing in the morning, we leave.”
“What’s your plan once we get there?” Gemma suddenly asked. Her dark eyes blazed with growing challenge.
Sawyer watched her cautiously. “We’ll decide on one when we get to the outside of the Barren. It will depend if there are guards outside or not.”
I could at least appreciate his honesty, but it was the wrong thing to say to Gemma.
“So you’re just going to have us play it by ear in a place where other marauders could kill us, where they will kill Nash if they find out he’s there?”
Her lover sighed. “Gem–”
If she heard the plea in his voice, she ignored it. She stabbed a finger at Sawyer’s chest. “There’s another way to find the Meridian, and you know it.”
“Enlighten me,” challenged Sawyer.
Gemma lowered her hand, balling it into a fist. “Take the Dauntless to the Barren.”
Silence collapsed over our heads. We barely breathed, watching Sawyer, unsure about how he would react. His temper sparked behind his eyes.
“No.”
“Why not? The only times you’ve taken her out of the ports is for a short flight to make sure she still flies, and even then it’s just at night or when there’s some kind of fog. You’re scared to bring her out in daylight where everyone can see her.” Gemma suddenly lowered her voice. “Are you so afraid of being seen on the Dauntless–”
Sawyer was nose to nose with her in an instant. She backed up, and for a moment I was terrified he might try to hit her. Subconsciously, I knew he would never do that–and if he did, Nash would smash him into the floor–but the last time I’d seen Sawyer this angry, he’d punched Riley.
“Fuel the skiff. Stock our weapons. Check the alarms and locks.” His voice was an icy lake. Flat and dead and bitterly cold.
Gemma hesitated, then raised her chin. “No. Not until we have another plan.”
A muscle in Sawyer’s jaw twitched. He was barely controlling himself from doing or saying something that he would regret. Gemma was brave for standing up to her captain, but I worried that she’d finally pushed him too far.
I don’t know what would have happened next if Nash hadn’t sighed and placed his big dark hands on her shoulders.
“I agree with him, Gem.”
She whirled around. “What? How could you?”
His sad dark eyes drifted over her face. I saw how deeply it hurt him to disappoint her. “I know them. The moment they see the Dauntless, they’ll set a trap for us. We won’t be able to escape it.” He glanced down. “We can go through the tunnels. Not all the passages are guarded, and we’ll be able to find a map we can use to show us which ones are. The Dogs will have all of the Barren laid out, so if the Meridian is there, it’ll be on the map. It’ll be riskier, but–”
“Then we shouldn’t do it!” she cried, shoving his chest.
Nash curled his hands around her forearms, keeping her close to him. “Gemma. Please. I need you to trust me. I’ll keep you safe–”
“I don’t care about my safety–”
“But I do. I know you don’t want to go to the Barren anymore than I do, but if this helps us finally have a safe future, then we need to take the chance.”
Gemma stared at him like she couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth. She let out a strangled noise, something between a snarl and a sob, then pushed Nash aside and stormed away. He turned and watched her go, his big shoulders slumping with defeat.
