Once Stolen

by D. N. Bryn

  “Drops the fuck off?” I summarize.

  “Exactly.”

  I grab our chain, trying to heave her back as the current carries her deeper into the river. My motion tugs at the cuff around her ankle, though, dragging her head under the water. I stop short at the fast approaching buzz of a small boat fan. It heads straight for us.

  Just as Thais drags in a breath, I lunge at her, grabbing her by both shoulders. I shove her under the surface, forcing my body down after. She flails and digs her nails into my arm, but her motions quiet as the flat bottom of the boat careens by over our heads. She trembles. In a stream of bubbles, she swims back to the surface, breaking it with a gasp. I come up beside her.

  Through the mist, the fan boat slows and turns, its pitch-black form making a ghastly shadow in the fog. A spotlight cuts from its bow, blazing down on Thais and me. No cartel symbols mark the boat’s hull, but the bundles of nets and hooks and harpoon guns nestled along the deck give it more weight than Rubem’s fangs ever could.

  Lily stands at the wheel, the spots on her white skin hidden at this distance and her orange hair gone amber in the dim light. Her brother, his name signed like the word for wolf, carries her net launcher. He preps it, his boat zipping back toward us while the current zips us back toward him.

  He lifts it, and my skin tingles treacherously. I seize Thais, yanking her back down. The river pulls us along like a fruit caught in a flood wave. The boat passes over us once more, and Thais thrashes toward the surface, jerking the clamp around my arm. Pain pounds along my scales and through my shoulder.

  When I reach the air, the hammering in my head ridges bombards me with warning signals. It drowns out everything else, even the vibrations of Wolf’s and Lily’s voices as they shout, Lily jabbing her finger upriver while Wolf slaps the side of his net thrower.

  With a shake of her head, Lily turns the boat toward us. Toward the waterfall. Wolf levels his net thrower. I prepare to dodge for all I’m worth, but he only edges forward, his knees pressing to the railing as he aims. And re-aims. The pound of the cascade reverberates just behind us. With a final shout, Lily wheels the fan boat away. Wolf twists to argue, but the boat jolts against the current, and his legs buckle. He spills over the side, into the ravenous flow with us.

  I brace myself against the river’s drag, but the force of it plummeting over its worn edge tears through my straining muscles, towing Thais and me with it. The water engulfs us like a tomb. I pick apart its crashing vibrations for rocks, and when the current shoots us into the air, I twist us both an arm’s length to the left.

  We fly. Then we fall. The wind rushes over my scales, its muggy touch nearly cold for once. My stomach launches into my throat. I wrap myself around Thais, and she vibrates in a shrill scream.

  We hit the water like a bullet, the force of it spinning me out from around Thais. My head throbs, my bones too light and my muscles too heavy. The clamp tugs at my arm. Thais’s hands wrap around my wrist. I cough out bubbles and shake away the daze.

  Wolf comes over the falls after us. I just make out the tiny thud of his head against the rock I so gracefully avoided. His limp body follows us for a few tumbles and settles out in the steady drift of the nearly flat river, which meets back up with its much broader other half and glides peacefully toward the orange glow of the village.

  I swim for the surface, but Thais tugs me toward Wolf. My protests only earn me a harsher yank. I let her catch Wolf under the shoulders. She drags him with us as we crawl into the shallows. My whole body aches like a boat actually ran me over instead of narrowly missing me, and my stomach lurches from side to side, the remains of my last meal protesting almost as violently as it had when the small deer was alive.

  Thais lugs Wolf onto a little muddy beach. A caiman hisses at her from atop a log, but I slap my tail against the water, scaring it off. If anyone gets to eat Thais, it’ll be me. I deserve it after this wretched inconvenience.

  She tips Wolf on his side, and to my disappointment, he coughs, spewing up water. Between Wolf’s pathetic twitches and the way Thais checks his eyes, her lips moving as though soothing him, my blood boils. I snatch our chain, tugging her away from him.

  “What are you—Cacao!” She heaves right back.

  Instead of fighting, I burst toward her, teeth bared. “He’s a fisher, Thais!”

  Thais’s face pinches like a jaguar preparing to snarl. “That doesn’t mean I can just let him die.”

  “Can’t you?”

  Wolf coughs again, still on his side. My chest burns. Him, I can hurt. I lunge, sweeping my tail toward his neck, but Thais wrenches the chain, leaning against it with all her weight. The clamp digs through scales, biting into muscle and tweaking my arm painfully as it twists me back toward her.

  Her flurry of signs blur, and the chain still looped over one arm writhes with each sharp motion. “Understand this, you bitter pod of rotting cacao: you may be the most self-centered closed-up cruel piece of sewage to ever clog this river system, but I won’t let your filth rub off on me. I won’t stand by while anyone, human or boiuna or goddamn cartel leader, suffers undeservedly. So, you will let me do what’s right and get the fuck out of my way.”

  Her hands stop moving, and the rattling against my clamp lessens. But the damage is done. My raw flesh oozes beneath the metal, the scorch of something she doesn’t need to say burning through my chest.

  “Stop that. Look your elder in the eyes when they’re speaking to you. Rude, insolent, selfish. You never learn. You’re doing this on purpose. Greedy, worthless, cruel. We’ve had it with you—”

  I stare at her dirty cheeks, her stained scarf hanging lopsided over tense shoulders, her stance offensive, like she’s preparing to shoot. My mouth curls. “You think you’re some fucking hero.”

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I am.” She wipes a clump of mud off her face with the back of her hand, and her eyes bore into me, so full of fire that my scales crawl. But her aggression seems to fade, or maybe I just fail to read her for the millionth time today. When she steps closer to me, the soft tint of worry clouds my nose. “Is that blood? Let me see.”

  I wiggle away, baring my teeth. “Fuck off.” I want to say so much more, or maybe nothing at all, to instead coil up and let my pain bury me alive, but the harsh thrum of Lily’s fan boat comes through the fog behind me, and I can do neither. “We have to go. The fishers won’t let me live or you go free just because you saved one of them.”

  “But you’re hurt!” Her signs grow, like enough repetition will carve the accusation straight into my bones.

  I refuse to let it. The throbbing lessens the longer she watches me, as though the mere smell of her animosity triggers my body to collect itself and prepare for a fight. “My body is tougher than yours, and heals faster than yours, and feels less than yours.” I lift onto my tail, leering down at her. If she wants repetition, she can have it. “So. Fuck. Off.”

  She watches me, the air sweltering between us, muggy and hot. Her indecipherable expression twitches. When she stays silent, I shove past her, past the barely conscious Wolf, too, toward the light of the town. The orange halos in the grey beckons, cascading out from the shore a little farther down and arcing across the now expansive river, the human village alive and bright in the deep layer of mist attempting to weigh it down.

  After a moment, I feel Thais pick up the excess chain and loop it over her shoulder as she follows. We say nothing for the rest of the trek.

  THREE

  Flesh and Scales and Oh, Muck

  You know that feeling when someone surprises you

  so damn thoroughly

  that you just have to ignore it?

  Because if you don’t,

  it’ll ravage your world?

  Yeah. That.

  THE TOWN OF SQUARE houses and wooden pathways sits on stilts above the shallow riverbank, locked drainage gaps revealing the dark expanse of water beneath. We travel under the long eaves of the roofs, painted deep reds and blues on
their undersides. Lights dangle in clusters at their edges and drape from poles arching over crossroads. Every lamp glows a pure golden into the blackening fog.

  I wonder if they try so hard to shine light and life throughout the tightly packed buildings because they fear the mists of the Murk will eat them if they don’t. Dark things come from the Murk; everyone knows it. But dark things live in these villages, too, hanging boiuna pelts from their walls and wearing necklaces made of hoatzi bones. Their brilliant lights can’t hide that.

  I cling to the shadows like they’re ignits, pasting myself into every crack and crevice. The clatter of the humans clogs my ridges too much to form a clear picture of the world beyond my sight, but I’ve seen glimpses of this region before. The river here runs deep and wide, slipping beneath the village until even the larger boats draw easily into the docks on the far side. There’s no bank across the way, only the dense swamp of the Murk, but the water eventually twists southeast, turning through more jungle valleys and opening to an estuary of a hundred rivulets and wide bays that eventually meet the sea. But to the river’s north, the Murk stretches on and on, a dangerous mist-laden world the boat humans rightfully fear.

  I’m glad to be free of the wretched swamp. I’ve only kept so close to the Murk because this happens to be the home of such a prosperous cartel. My staying here has nothing to do with its nearness. Nothing at all.

  A group of humans turns down the corner toward us, their forms still a blur in the fog. I rear onto my tail, and Thais’s gaze snaps to mine. I look down to her flying hands.

  “You will not attack them!”

  Annoyance grates through me, but I only hesitate a moment before climbing onto the nearest roof, leaning down to pull her up after me. “It would be too much work anyway,” I reply.

  Thais’s lips bunch, but she goes still. We wait for the humans to pass beneath us, and I drop her back down, a little harder than necessary. Her feet smack the wood. She watches me as I land beside her.

  One of the humans in the departing group stops. They turn so suddenly I’ve no time to lean into the shadows, much less run. Their eyes lock with mine, and fear shudders its way through me. Their mouth opens.

  Thais grabs our chain, and we rush around the corner. She drags me across the path, down a much smaller lane, and stops at what must be the back of a shop. “These are the mechanic’s attached living quarters.” She hesitates. “I think.”

  “You better be right.” I coil my tail to keep it out of the walkway. Somewhere in the fog behind us come the overlapping vibrations of shouts. My scales crawl.

  Thais rattles the shop’s window, but the latch refuses to budge. I wedge her out of the way. Unwrapping the strongest stone in my necklace, I hurl it at the window. The clank of the rock and the crack of the glass thrum through my ridges, and the stone recoils, knocking me square in the forehead. It drops through a grate and into the river below. Sparks run through my vision as I try to blink away the pain. It only settles into a rough ache.

  Thais waves her hands, one elbow holding open the shop’s back entrance. Her face twists. “Cacao! It’s unlocked.”

  I slide carefully into the building, sitting on top of my tail as she closes the door behind us. My head still pounds too hard to feel the street, but someone talks at a rapid pace from the story above us, their vibrations coming in so fast they feel like a buzz in the back of my head. I don’t move, surveying the room for signs of life.

  It holds a number of furnishings: a counter with a pump and sink, a huge thrumming ice chest, a table of deep-red wood, two boxy sofas, and a scattering of baggage, gadgets, and papers. The room is just as filled as any boiuna’s den but far more chaotic. A human lies on one of the sofas, their booted feet propped up. A wide-brimmed hat sporting a massive red feather lies over their face, blocking out the light of the ceiling lamp.

  Thais darts to the window to pull the curtain over it, but not before jabbing a finger at the crack I left in the glass. “You silt-stunted moron, you might have woken her!”

  “Yeah, well. I didn’t.” I hone my frustration onto the loss of the stone instead of my own stupidity. My head feels like an overripe fruit where the damn thing hit me. My speech to Thais may have been half a lie: boiuna certainly injure less and recover faster than humans, but that hardly negates the pain in the meantime.

  Thais moves toward a hallway. She moves a step too far, and the chain goes taut between us, digging like a knife into my arm. Flicking my tongue, I follow after her. I attempt to move things out of my way as I go, but my tail still shoves into an overstuffed bag of clothes. My attention jerks to the sleeping human. Though they don’t budge, I keep watch until we’re out of the room. The voices grow stronger as we pass a stairwell.

  “What are they saying?” I ask.

  “They’re talking about mechanic’s stuff, I think. One of them has an accent from the siren seas.” After a pause, she adds, “We should hurry,” and continues to the shop’s front room.

  Longer than the rest of the house combined, the room is filled with tables and shelves. Pipes, cogs, wires, and screws litter every free space, tools of all shapes and sizes hanging on wall hooks and lying beside half-finished projects. Completed works sit orderly on a counter along the wide front window overlooking a fog-cloaked main street. Each has a groove for an ignit, but to my great sorrow, I spot none of the stones themselves.

  Thais yanks the curtains over the window, and I survey a row of tools. How easy it would be to skin a boiuna with some of these terrors. My scales prickle and my gaze darts to Thais. She searches a box of the mechanic’s things across from me and pulls out a long thin piece of metal and a rod. She props her ankle awkwardly and finagles them both into her cuff.

  “Help,” she manages, the motion half-formed as she refuses to let go of the tools entirely.

  “Take off my clamp, then I’ll help,” I retort.

  A bang from the street shoots through my nerves like thunder. I grip my necklace. No matter how determined Thais seemed when she claimed she wouldn’t let anyone here kill me, I’m still just a greedy worthless piece of trash to her. My heart pounds at every twist of her tools, and the jiggling of the chain shoots pain through my arm scales. If she attacks me like this, can I fight her, or will she be the one who strangles me?

  Another tremor bursts from outside, followed by such an onslaught of vibrations that I can’t pick out boots from shouts from whatever else might be intermingling.

  Two boat humans appear in the hallway, flooding the room with the scents of oil and salt and sweat. The once sleeping woman wears her feathered hat crookedly. Tan blotches stretch across her dark, wrinkled skin, much like my patterned back, her eyes so thin and curved they seem not to be there at all. Most of her hair has gone grey in the way of aging humans, but she seems no weaker for it. Her companion holds a long pipe in a scarred brown hand, their hair cropped around their chin. Their jaw trembles once. They shout something.

  The vibration fires through me like an electric shock, terror and anger boiling together. I rear back, coiling over my tail. My hand shoots to my necklace in a dismal attempt to soothe the pounding in the back of my skull. I am a predator—I will eat them before they eat me. I will not die here. Not here, with the Murk so close and so far.

  I lunge toward the hallway, but the clamp around my arm snaps tight. A rush of pain shoots through my shoulder. I jerk back, slamming into the table. The metal atop it flies to the ground. I shake, but I manage to focus on the other end of my chain. Thais holds the cuff that is no longer bound to her ankle but clutched between her fingers, pulling me back, her free hand rubbing her chest in a motion for sorry.

  I bare my teeth, my whole body shaking, but the ache in my chest hurts more than the sting of the metal. I wanted to trust Thais. Even after everything the Murk did to me and every unlovable thing that I am, I wanted to.

  The pipe-wielding human rushes at me, their weapon raised. I tell my limbs to move, but they refuse, fan blades held in place;
the moment the obstruction gives way, the fan springs back into motion. I flinch like that loosed blade, jerking back from the human so hard I knock into the shelves behind me. A bundle of netting topples out of it, unwinding across the floor. Panic careens along my bones, flinging me away from the net, toward the human once more, and the pipe they swing at my head ridges.

  A long metal tool stops it, bursting forth such a tremor that my whole skull seems to quake. Thais holds the end. She knocks the other human’s weapon away and shouts a series of useless vibrations. My brain fills the gaps: Wait, he’ll eat you if he’s attacked head on, or maybe We can’t sell his pelt for as much if his skull is caved in.

  The pipe-welding human replies, and the woman with the feathery hat hisses something, her gaze on the front entrance. Thais and the pipe human continue arguing, softer now, their voices almost drowned by the commotion outside.

  I have to get out of here. Clamp or not, I won’t stay and be eaten.

  I scoot back, but my tail slides over the netting, and it feels like a hoard of spiders tear along the undersides of my muscles, spinning webs in my spine. My thumb rubs instinctively across my favorite plain energy-lacking stone, but it’s not enough. I need an ignit.

  Through my pain-smeared vision, another well-wrinkled human charges into the room, dyed red curls aflame atop near-black skin and faded designs running up one of their arms. My need turns visceral. I spring at the person, knocking them to the ground. They wail something, but I wrap my tail around them, squeezing them silent as I dig my fingers into their fists. I tear for the stones within.

  Get the ignits and leave. Get the ignits and leave. Get ignits and leave.

  The brush of my fingertips against the thrumming stones dissipates some of the pain the net caused—just enough for me to sense the rush of a fist just before it slams into the back of my head. The world darkens and sways. Someone shoves me onto my side, but I roll, bringing the human with me. I slam into the hat woman and the pipe bearer. They leap out of the way.