Sea Wolf (A Compass Rose Novel, 2)

by Anna Burke

  Harper hissed occasionally as we shuffled forward. I wanted to ask her how badly she was hurt, but my tongue didn’t cooperate. To say each step was agony would have quantified it. Nothing about our journey was quantifiable. My ability to gauge anything fluctuated dizzyingly. The ringing in my ears and the harsh sound of our pained breathing drowned everything else out. I might have gotten sick again. I wasn’t sure. Harper kept us moving forward. It felt like a perpetual fall, and once she shouted at someone to back off, which I didn’t understand, since we were now floating in a thick fog of colors and the smell of lemons.

  Eventually, however, I registered a difference in my surroundings: sea air. I tried to orient myself instinctively. Nothing happened except that my head let out a new pulse of pain, and so I stopped and focused instead on putting one foot in front of the other, which I fancied I was getting slightly better at, though one of my feet drooped in a way I didn’t remember.

  “Please be careful with her,” Harper said.

  I was lifted and laid against something warm. It moved, and I moved with it. Another voice, this one not Harper’s, said my name in a deep rumble. The rumble came from beneath my ear, which made as little sense as anything else. The movement was punctuated with even beats that sent spikes through my temple.

  “She’s concussed; don’t touch her too much.” Harper again.

  “Put her down here.” Another voice. I knew that voice. I tried opening my good eye, but then the warm bulk lowered me, and I had to focus on not getting sick as everything spun and spun and spun and—

  ••••

  Light turned the backs of my eyelids red. I reached up to touch my head, which throbbed horribly, and my fingers encountered stiff bandaging and hot, puffy flesh where I was used to having an eye.

  “Easy on that.” I turned my good eye slowly toward the speaker. He came into focus with some squinting: Finn.

  “Ow.” It was not what I’d intended to say. I’d meant to ask several questions in quick succession—namely, what happened, is everyone okay, and is there still an eye beneath this mess, but being conscious was growing increasingly more uncomfortable with each passing second.

  “Oh, friend, don’t I know.” He smiled sympathetically, then added, “you might recall that I, too, have experience with head injuries and, if not, you will eventually. I wouldn’t try to do too much thinking right now.”

  “Miranda.”

  “There.”

  I slowly rolled my eye in the direction he’d indicated. Miranda sat slumped in a chair with her head tilted to one side, asleep.

  “I’ll wake her in a moment. This is the first time I’ve seen her sleep in days.”

  “Days? Oh. Right.” The past seventy-two hours came back to me. The attack, my capture, and the agonizing period that followed. Someone had cleaned the wound on my head with stinging iodine, and lights had been flashed in my eyes. Tests had been done to determine the extent of neurological damage. Eventually, I’d been ordered to sleep.

  “Relax, kid.”

  “My eye.”

  “Will be fine. You have a nasty cut above it, but the swelling is coming down.”

  “Harper.”

  “Also fine. Broken ribs, several stab wounds, nothing lethal or infected.”

  “That’s not fine.”

  “She’s alive and she kept you alive. I’m going to wake the captain now. You’re going to reassure her you’re alive, and then you’re going to rest again.”

  “Okay.”

  I closed my eye while Finn roused Miranda to give it a moment to recover from the strain of seeing. When I opened it next, Miranda leaned over me. She looked anguished and beautiful and ragged around every edge.

  “Mere.”

  “Hi.” She cupped my cheek and tried to smile. Her lower lip quivered.

  “I’m fine. Finn said so.”

  “Finn’s a liar.” The trembling in her lower lip worsened, and something hot and wet landed on my chin.

  “Finn wants to remind you that Rose needs to rest,” said Finn.

  “Everything’s all fuzzy,” I said to Miranda. “Our hull was breached, wasn’t it?”

  She smoothed my hair with a touch so light I almost didn’t feel it. “We patched it.”

  “Will you still love me with only one eye?”

  “Of course. And your eye is fine.”

  It didn’t feel fine, but I decided not to mention that, as speaking ground the bones in my head together.

  I was aware of Finn standing and murmuring something to Miranda, but I kept my good eye fixed on her face. Of course, she’d said.

  “Stay with me?”

  In response, she lowered herself onto the bed beside me, and I turned into her, tangling my hand in her shirt and breathing in the fear sweat and the stress and the lingering hint of hibiscus that clung to her skin. My hair absorbed her tears.

  ••••

  I was allowed to remove the bandage two days later—or at least, I thought it was two days. Time stretched like melting plastic and I struggled to hold on to thoughts.

  “This might hurt a little. It’s adhered to your skin again.” Miranda sat cross-legged on the bed before me with clean cloths and a bottle of iodine. I closed my good eye and tensed as her fingers probed the edges of the bandage. I could tell whatever she found displeased her by the way she exhaled.

  The first few lengths of bandage unwound easily. They’d been carefully wrapped so as not to add pressure to my head, and I barely felt them save for the occasional pulled hair. The bandaging packed over the wound itself was a different matter. Miranda drizzled iodine over the cloth and picked at the edges, peeling them back with care. They must have changed the packing previously, but I blissfully had no memory of that, or else I would have known what was coming.

  “Brace yourself.”

  “Ow.” The bandage peeled away, and iodine ran into the wound and down my nose. Pain seared my vision as I squinted involuntarily, then tried to open the eye. Something had gummed it shut, but the light that snuck in through the cracks burned. Miranda slowly worked the gunk free, a process that involved equal parts holding damp cloths to my eye and glaring at the wound.

  “Infected?” I asked.

  “A little. I’m going to need to flush it.”

  “What does that—” I stopped speaking as my skin prickled and sweat sprang from every pore. My stomach clenched. She’d filled a syringe without me noticing, and cold, awful liquid flooded the inflamed skin and enraged it further. I would have cursed if I hadn’t been gagging. Something foul-smelling dripped onto my upper lip. Miranda wiped it away.

  “Again.”

  “No, please, I can’t—fuck.” It hurt even more the second time. I gagged, choked, and screamed in a simultaneous gurgle that spiked my headache.

  “Done.”

  I panted through the nausea and tried to muster up the strength to curse her out. All I managed was the breathing.

  “It’s going to be quite the scar.”

  “Show me.”

  She hesitated, but nodded. “You’ll have to stand.”

  “I can.”

  I couldn’t. The room spun the moment I stood, but with her help I made it to the private bathroom in her quarters and clung to the sink. Above it, small and clean and unfortunately clear, hung her mirror.

  Half of my reflection was familiar. Amber eye. Messy curls. Slightly pointed chin. The other half looked like it belonged to a sea slug. Greens and blues and purples and yellows mottled the swollen flesh around the gash in my forehead. It started an inch below my hairline and split my eyebrow. The only thing that had saved the eye itself was the bone around the socket, which hadn’t obviously broken, though it looked—and felt—as if it might have suffered a small fracture. My eye was an overripe tomato. The bruising continued into my cheek, and bloodshot whites surrounded the small slit of visible iris.

  “If you want to keep me in the brig, I’d understand,” I said, trying to joke.

  “C
an’t. The brig flooded and we’re still drying it out.”

  Something about her tone was too light, but I couldn’t focus on it. Not with my busted face oozing and the ship spinning. I reached for north to steady myself and came up empty. I tried again. Nothing.

  “Mere—”

  She grabbed me as I began to slide to the ground. Without north to cling to, the world felt unknowable and all too vast, like I’d fallen off the edge of the map. Long before other people had made much of my navigational abilities, long before anyone but my mother even knew something about me was different, I’d found solace in the cardinal points. The sea yawned to every horizon. Directions organized it into quadrants, and quadrants could be measured and therefore understood. Without that, I was little more than sargassum. What if the head blow had damaged my compass? What if I never recovered?

  “Stop it.” Miranda’s hands squeezed mine. I gazed at her through bleary eyes and tried to calm my thoughts.

  “I need to lie down.”

  “Easy.” She lowered me to the pillow and covered me with a light sheet. The painting of the Portuguese man o’ war framed her as she sat at my side, still bearing the hole she’d punched through the canvas. She gazed down at me like she wished she knew how to put my broken pieces back together.

  I wished I knew, too.

  ••••

  The knock on the door roused me from the state of perpetual half-sleep now dominating my existence.

  “I’m coming in.”

  Sounds from the corridor pounced on my bruised brain as Harper let herself into my quarters. Her shuffling movements confused me until Orca came into view with Harper leaning on her arm. A crutch supported Harper’s other side, and sweat slicked her face.

  “Sit,” I said, sitting up myself too quickly in my haste to see her off her feet. I was used to the room spinning by now, and counted out a long exhale while I waited for Harper and Orca to come back into focus.

  Orca appeared unharmed. Harper, however, had clearly been beaten badly. Bruising mottled most of her exposed skin, and I remembered Finn telling me about her broken ribs as she wheezed. He’d said something about stab wounds, too.

  “You look like hell,” I said.

  “You’re not looking too sweet yourself.”

  “Why can’t you walk?”

  “Fuckers got me in the leg. I’d show you, but I’m not supposed to take the bandage off, according to this squid shit.”

  Orca ignored the insult aimed in her direction and looked me over. “Finn says you’re concussed pretty bad.”

  “Thought I’d let you feel like you were smarter than me for a bit.” I was proud of my comeback, but hoped I didn’t need to try for more repartee anytime soon. Carrying on a conversation was like trying to hold water in my hands.

  “Didn’t knock any sense into you, though, did it?” said Harper. Her expression sobered. “I thought they’d killed you.”

  “When?”

  “They dragged you in with the rest of the hostages. Your face was covered in blood, and you weren’t moving and—”

  Orca put an arm around Harper’s shoulders. Taking another wheezing breath, Harper continued.

  “I got them to leave you with me.”

  “How?”

  “You don’t want to know, and I’m not telling you. You could have died, Rose.”

  “Says the woman with multiple stab wounds.” Another comeback. I gave myself a point.

  “Stabs, schmabs. Speaking of bitches with knives, tell the captain I’m mad at her for not letting me see you until now.”

  “She wouldn’t let you in?”

  “You know she would have been here otherwise. Miranda’s been . . .” Orca trailed off.

  “What?”

  “A nightmare. Listen, Rose.” Orca leaned in and stared intently into my face. “She’s neglecting her ship. I’m covering as much as I can, but she needs—”

  “You promised not to stress her out,” said Harper.

  “This is important.”

  “What’s important?” I asked.

  “She needs to be more present. To deal with this shit.”

  “What shit?”

  “Orca,” said Harper, giving her a meaningful look.

  “Just the usual. Plus, we’re fucked if we don’t get new supplies soon. It will take weeks for our stocks to grow back. The crew needs to know their captain cares more about them than just you. No offense.”

  “None taken.” The thought of Miranda neglecting her crew in a time of crisis to care for me eased the pain in my head, even as I scolded myself for being selfish. This wasn’t the proof of her affection I needed. I knew she loved me. I just didn’t think she knew how to be what I needed. A problem for a time when my head didn’t feel like an unlanced boil. “What are we going to do about supplies?”

  “We’re not telling you anything. You’ll start plotting courses or whatever and then your brain won’t recover,” said Harper.

  “Just tell Miranda you don’t need her by you twenty-four hours a day.”

  I nodded carefully. “Who’s navigating?”

  “Reya and the rest.”

  “You’re starting to think about it. No. Not allowed.”

  I didn’t know how to tell Harper that no matter how I strained, the cardinal points eluded me. In their place was a yawning abyss so dark and deep it took years for light to filter through the water if it ever managed to do so at all.

  “But you’re going to be okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Nothing’s seriously infected, and it hurts like salt water up your ass, but I’ll live.”

  The increased frequency of her cursing suggested it hurt far worse than a seawater enema. I didn’t contradict her.

  “I’ll talk to Miranda,” I promised.

  ••••

  I didn’t have to wait long to make good on my word.

  “That’s enough,” Miranda snapped at Harper and Orca as she shut the door behind her.

  “You can’t—”

  “I damn well can. Out.”

  Harper’s eyes flashed, and her lips curled in a snarl as she prepared to argue.

  “Sure thing, Captain,” said Orca. Her hand closed over Harper’s wrist in a clear warning.

  “No. She’s not your prisoner, Miranda. I have just as much right—”

  “Out.”

  I’d witnessed Harper Comita back down from a fight three times in my life. Two of those instances were with her mother, who, as admiral, was the embodiment of the law. I’d written the third off as an anomaly. I prayed, for all our sakes, this would become the fourth. Harper glowered at Miranda from beneath black brows. Her full lips had thinned to a gash, and the tendons in her neck stood out from her skin, shiny with sweat. She looked every inch a warrior. The moment stretched as their gazes locked. Harper was injured, but I knew from experience that wouldn’t stop her. I didn’t think it would stop Miranda, either.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Really, Mere. It was nice to see them.”

  “I gave you an order, Comita.”

  “With all due respect, Captain,” Harper spat, “I’m not in the habit of obeying stupid orders.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” I said. “You’re hurting my head.”

  As I’d hoped, they swung to fix me with concerned expressions, temporarily avoiding bloodshed. I took advantage of it. “Miranda, please. You have a ship to run. Harper can stay with me, since she’s . . .” I couldn’t think of the right word and gestured at Harper’s battered body.

  “I can spell you, too,” offered Orca.

  “Like hell you will. I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

  “Miranda, stop.” The pleading in my voice arrested her. She seated herself on the foot of the bed and put a hand on my leg in contrition. Steel remained in her gaze.

  “Harper can stay with you tomorrow if she gets the fuck out of here right now.”

  We weren’t going to get a better deal. Orca knew it, even if Harper did not, and she
half hauled Harper out of the room without looking at the captain. Miranda buried her face in her hands when the door clicked shut behind them.

  “You can’t do that, Mere.”

  “I can,” she said into her fingers.

  “And Orca—”

  “I don’t want to hear about Orca.”

  I gave up. My head throbbed and the room spun. Focusing on anything else took too much effort. After a while, she murmured, “I’m sorry.”

  I kept my eyes shut and did not acknowledge I’d heard.

  ••••

  The lemons, small and irregular shaped as some of them were, didn’t lend themselves to stacking. My tower collapsed again. Prepared this time, Seamus lunged as the fruits rolled across the floor of the receiving room and toward the edge of the carpet.

  “You’ll regret it,” I warned him as he pounced and sank his teeth into a yellow peel. Letting him puncture the fruit was wasteful. I promised myself I’d eat it, along with the other damaged specimens before it had time to turn.

  Seamus sneezed, squinted his eyes, and backed away from the offending zest.

  “Told you so.”

  The scent of citrus filled the air. My nose struggled to detect it, which didn’t make any sense, since it smelled lemons when there were none. Its failure to register the real thing was another reminder nothing about my brain functioned the way I’d depended on it to function my entire life. I rolled the rind across my upper lip.

  Behind me, the door clicked open. Miranda’s footsteps fell lightly on the braided rug, then stopped. I didn’t look up at her.

  “Lemons?”

  “Seamus hates them.” I held the fruit out toward the cat. He humped his back and twitched his tail in displeasure.

  Miranda sprawled on the couch and took a sip from her flask. “Bored?”

  “No.”

  “Right. Because you’re playing with lemons. My mistake.”

  “Watch.” I piled them on top of each other, getting a stack of six before my work disintegrated. Seamus watched one roll toward him and, though his flattened ears suggested he thought it unwise, batted it with his paw.