Chapter 300: Blow it up

The first sound was a crack, flat and dry, like a plank snapping over a knee. Then came another. Then came a whole string of them, popping across the water, and the ship shuddered under their feet.

Viktor’s hand tightened on hers. He did not open the door. He stood very still with his head tilted, listening, and Sienna felt the whole cabin go quiet around them.

"Gunshots," he said.

She was already moving.

She crossed the small floor and pressed her face to the round window. The glass was cold and beaded with salt. The sea outside was gray and rough, and the mist had thinned. A shape sat on the water beside them, long and dark and low.

A ship.

It was close. Much closer than anything should be. She could see the rust on its hull and the white wake curling from its bow. Men ran along its deck in dark coats, and they carried long things in their arms. Ropes flew across the gap between the two ships. Hooks bit into the rail with a clang she felt in her teeth.

They were trying to come aboard. Voices carried over the water.

They were rough and fast, in a language she did not speak well. She had picked up pieces of it years ago, from a neighbor, from a book, from a long winter of listening. She understood it perfectly now, as if her mind had opened a door she did not know was there.

"She is not here!" a man shouted. It came from the other deck. It was angry and breathless. Footsteps pounded.

"Check the lower cabins!"

"We checked! There is nothing!" A pause. Then a second voice, colder, lower, the voice of a man who gave orders and did not repeat them.

"Then blow it up." Sienna’s hand flew to her mouth.

She turned from the window. Her face had gone the color of chalk. Viktor was watching her, and she saw him read her face before she could speak.

"They are going to blow the ship up," she said. It came out as a whisper. "Viktor. They are going to blow it up."

Her heart was racing.

She felt it first in her throat, a hard, wild flutter. Then in her wrists, then in her ears. It was not beating anymore. It was running, stumbling, falling over its own feet. Black spots drifted across the edge of her sight.

She pressed two fingers against her wrist, out of habit, and almost laughed.

The needles. The little silver doors she had opened an hour ago, one by one. They had worked. They had kept her on her feet. But they were made for a tired heart, not a frightened one. They were a small bridge over a river, and the river had just risen over the banks.

It’s useless now.

She could not work her heart right now. She could not slow it, or steady it, or coax it to hold. Not with fear pouring through her like cold water. Fear was a strong thing, and it was far too expensive for her. It would burn through whatever strength she had left. It could kill her before the sickness in her blood ever got the chance.

Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. Breathe. It did not help.

Viktor did not waste a second. He checked the pistol, the one with the silencer, and swore softly. He had three bullets left. "Stay with me," he said.

"Where do we go?" He looked at the round window.

The sea was gray and enormous. It stretched in every direction with nothing on it but waves. There was no coast and no island. There was no boat but the two that were about to tear each other apart.

They could jump. They could slip over the rail, down into that heaving water, and swim. It was the only way off the ship that did not run through a line of guns. But the water was cold, and the waves were tall, and the nearest land was a hundred miles away, at least.

They would freeze. Or they would drown. Or, if they were very unlucky, something would find them in the dark below, with a mouth full of teeth. Both of them thought it. Neither said it.

"Up," Viktor said. "We go up." He pushed the door open.

The noise hit them like a wall. It was a roar of shouting and steel, and over it all, the endless crack of guns. The corridor was dim and narrow, and the air smelled of smoke and oil. Somebody ran past the far end with a rifle. A shout echoed. A bullet sang off the metal wall and went whining into the dark.

Viktor took her hand and ran.

She ran beside him. Her feet felt strange in the borrowed shoes, and her knees were water. Her chest burned. Every step was a small struggle. She kept her eyes on his back and her mind on the next step, the way she had in the lab, the way she always did.

One. Two. Three.

They reached the iron stairs. They climbed.

The steps rang under their shoes. Halfway up, Sienna’s foot slipped, and Viktor caught her around the waist and swung her up beside him without a word. They went on. A square of gray sky opened above, and the roar grew louder.

They came out on deck into the middle of a war. It was chaos.

The deck of the old ship was wet and slippery, and half covered with coiled rope and stacked crates. The wind tore at her hair. Spray flew across the rail in cold sheets. And everywhere, men ran and shouted and fired.

Marcus was near the bow.

He was crouched behind a stack of barrels with a gun in each hand. His jacket was torn. A bright line of blood ran down the side of his face. He fired over the barrels, fast and steady, and with each shot a man on the far ship ducked or fell.

Behind him, the Gallon boys held the rail. There were nine of them, big and rough, with their sleeves rolled and their guns hot. They did not talk. They fought with the steady fury of men who had been born for it, and who were glad, almost, to finally have the chance.

And beside them, to Sienna’s shock, stood Elena.