Soro took a step back, his heart beginning to hammer in his chest. Then gritted his teeth, and squared his shoulders. He hadn't come looking for a fight, and he had no idea what he'd do if one erupted, but he wasn't going to let some sensitive ex-boxer push him around.
Tigh stepped in between them, put a hand on Jack's shoulder, and his mouth near Jack's ear, talking fast and low. Jack tried to shove him aside, but Tigh held on in spite of the bigger man's obvious strength.
"I'm not gonna stomp the mouse," said Jack. "I'm just gonna hear him squeal."
Squiz reared on Soro's shoulder, and hissed at Jack.
"What the f- I thought that was a toy. What kind of weirdo are you? It doesn't matter. I'm gonna-"
The ship's horn sounded, a deep, mournful bellow that drowned out Jack's words, along with the chatter of the other contestants. Soro was kind of curious what Jack had been about to say, but he figured he wouldn't have to wait too long to find out.
A shudder ran through the ship, then a lurch, and then it began to pull away from the harbour.
"Hey!"
A girl's voice, high and frantic.
"Hey you!"
They turned to face the receding dock.
"Stop, you sons of albino goats!"
"No way," said Soro.
Standing at the edge of the dock, waving her hands and hopping up and down, he saw the girl with the jeep. Her black braids, pigtails and pink ribbons waved in the breeze, and her blue green eyes flashed with the sun's fire as she jumped up and down on the edge of the dock. She wore a neon blue jacket over a purple t-shirt that showed a storm of pink lightning. She had a short, black leather skirt over white leggings, and on her feet she wore a pair of heavy brown walking shoes. She also had a tiny green rucksack, and a hefty purse of tasselled white leather.
"By the nose of God," he shouted down to her. "Sakura! Is that you?"
"You!" She shook her fist at him. "You evil-brained sack of donkey testicles! You did it. It was you!"
His brow wrinkled. What was with this day? Everybody seemed mad at him for no reason.
"I'm gonna miss the contest because of you," she screamed.
Now that was simply unfair. He couldn't resist a parting jibe. "So jump, bitch!"
And she did.
***
The girl's caterwauling had drawn a clump of people from the gathered crowd, to watch her performance with, variously, surprise, amusement, and fear. A collective gasp rose from the group when they saw the girl run at the edge of the dock. Some shook their heads in disbelief. The crew had pulled in the gangplank. The ship was already some metres from the dock, and gaining speed. She had to stop short. She had to, or she'd plunge into the cold water of the harbour.
Soro grabbed the rail with both hands, knuckles white, breath trapped in his frozen lungs. He tried to shout, warn her off, tell her to stop before it was too late.
She couldn't make it.
Time seemed to slow, and events passed in beats, pulses of motion, like a series of frames on an old movie reel. In one, the girl stood a few paces from the edge of the dock, her face pinched, eyes tight and calculating. In the next, one arm shot forwards and one back, her legs bent and tense. In the next she was a blur of neon blue, black, and shimmering white. Then she stood over the edge of the dock, locked at an unnatural angle, her feet poised on the hard edge of the concrete, her legs folded under her like a pair of powerful springs.
No, he thought. You can't make it.
The next frame shone before his eyes, of the girl flying through the air, her body stretched out in a straight line from nose to toes, her arms thrust forwards, hands grasping at the receding ship.
He almost believed she would succeed.
She vanished.
Time returned, and it seemed to move faster than natural, as if it resented the intrusion of human forces. He heard a crash and a scream, and more screams from the crowd. He heard Jack swear, and saw a terrible look on Tigh's face, a grimace twisted between horror and excitement. Squizzle leapt off his shoulder and shot down towards the lower deck, and he had less than a second to take everything in and digest it, because then he saw it.
A hand. A small, pale hand, clasped on the edge of the lower deck.
He ran.
He raced down the narrow metal stairs, and they shook and clanged with his steps, raced down, and heard a pounding echo behind him, race down, and threw himself at the lip of the deck.
He crashed down on his chest, and the impact with the metal deck forced the breath out of his lungs, and made the world smash apart into tiny, dancing stars, but somehow he caught the girl's hand in both of his, and somehow he held on.
His vision cleared. He sucked air into his lungs, and prayed that the techno beat in his chest wasn't a sign of an impending heart attack. He gripped that hand with all the strength he had.
"I'm not gonna let you fall," he muttered. "I'm not gonna let you go."
He didn't let go. His hands didn't slip, in spite of the sweat that now began to course down them. His hands never slipped.
His body slipped.
The girl shrieked.
He mustered his breath, and shouted. "It's gonna be okay. Hold on, it's gonna be okay."
"I'm dangling over the Devil's blender," she screamed. "How is that okay?"
"Oh God," he said. "The propeller..."
He ground his teeth, willed strength into arms that grew weaker with every breath, and strained to lift the girl.
He heard a pounding, clanging racket that ran from the deck into his body, to shake his bones. Was the ship tearing apart? He saw shoes, and felt a tiny spot of relief. It wasn't the sound of metal being rent apart. It was the way footsteps sounded when you pressed your head against a metal floor.
He couldn't look up. It was all he could to breathe and hold the girl's hand, and it was getting harder to do both.
The newcomer crouched down, and Soro's heart sank. He saw, on the dim edge of vision, the strong, marred features of Jack Johnson.
"Hold on," said Jack.
"No, I think I'll let her fall," said Soro.
"Be that way, you snarky son of a bitch," said Jack.
"Don't you dare," yelled the girl.
Jack crouched at the edge, and braced himself against the railing. "Reach up, girl," he said.
"I can't!"
"Reach up your hand, or I'll leave you with monkey boy."
"Monkey boy?" muttered Soro.
There came a pause, and then the girl grunted. He couldn't imagine what effort it cost her, but Soro felt proud of her. She wasn't giving in. Her other hand rose over the edge of the deck, and Jack grabbed it.
"Together now," said Jack.
With Jack helping, Soro managed to get his legs under him, but the effort of holding on had drained him. He didn't want to say anything, for fear the girl would lose hope, but he shot Jack a look that said it all.
"We do this together," said Jack.
Soro's jaw sagged.
"I can't do this by myself," said Jack.
Soro understood. He set his jaw, took a deep breath, and together he and Jack heaved the girl up, up, up, over the rail, onto the deck.
She collapsed onto the deck, and Soro swayed, and slipped to one knee. Jack stood, upright and firm. Soro glanced up at him, and although the man did not smile, his eyes sparkled. Then he strode away, and disappeared into the depths of the ship.
***
"So you saved the yacht?" said the woman.
Tigh grinned. "If you can call it a yacht, with no mast, no rudder, a ruined upper deck, and a hull as watertight as a machine-gunned melon."
The group roared with laughter. Soro joined in, more out of politeness than amusement. It was amusing, the tale of how Tigh had earned his nickname. By then everyone had started calling him "Typhoon", and repeated the request to hear how his attempt to follow the course of Magellan's greatest voyage had come close to failure, to wreck and briny death when he'd been struck by not one or two, but
five sea storms, each one more terrible than the last.
Soro listened, and enjoyed the stories, although he gave no credit to Tigh's seeing a many limbed monster leap out of the water and take to the air off the shores of Peru.
He gave the man little credit, except for his skill at telling stories, because whenever he thought back to their leave taking, back to when the girl had thrown herself at the ship, he recalled how only Jack Johnson, anger issues Jack, had run to her aid.
And me, I suppose, he thought. But if Jack hadn't acted...
The cruise ship had a grand restaurant, serving a smorgasbord of delights. He'd sampled the caviar and the smoked salmon, the quail's eggs and the 'hard tack'; actually a delicious kind of oatcake made, if the waiters were to be believed, in the ship's own bakery. The chamber rang to a live violin concerto and garrulous chatter, the air tasted of roast pork and beef, of fresh sushi, of baked potato and steamed rice, of oregano and ginger, and more, of red wine and white, of good foaming beer, of sparkling champagne.
Soro had heaped his plate with delicious, aromatic food, but when he took his place at the sweeping oval table, the gleaming steel fork felt cold in his hand. He picked at his food, and felt no appetite, though he knew his body needed fuel and vital supplies. His back, chest, his arms from their roots in his shoulders down to their tips at his fingers, they were leaden and aching. He had to make slow, careful movements, or he'd reignite the fires of agony, and this left him feeling, and looking, like a much older man.
He couldn't join in the laughter, or the flowing conversation. He felt like an intruder, an imposter. These were serious professionals, here to compete for a world class prize. He was a young man, probably a kid in their eyes, and he cared nothing for their prize.
I shouldn't be here, he thought. Dammit, Sam, where are you?
He tried to eat, but after a few bites he felt heavy and full, almost nauseous. He felt exhausted.
He started up from the table, thought about clearing away his plate, and decided to leave it. He felt guilty, but the waiters could clean it up. They'd probably seen worse things at sea.
"Leaving so soon?" said Tigh.
"I'm all in," he said.
Tigh smiled at him, and again he looked like an amused death's head. "Shame. Wanted to hear your story. Suppose I'll have to get you later."
Soro shrugged, and went to find his cabin.
***
Tired as Sisyphus, he dragged himself back to his stateroom. As he came near, something made his neck hairs prick up, and gave him a creepy sensation in his gut. Something was off. When he got closer, he saw it.
The door was ajar.
Soro knew he hadn’t left it open. He patted his pocket, but the slim key card hadn’t left him; he felt the hard plastic rectangle through his jacket. Fear began to mingle with his fatigue.
He remembered Belle Stakker’s warning. One of the other contestants was behind Sam’s disappearance. Perhaps they hadn’t had their fill of kidnapping. Perhaps they had a quota to meet. Perhaps they had decided to skip the abduction, and go straight to mutilation and death.
His guts filled with chill, seething mercury.
He paused on the threshold, fatigue weighing him down, caution holding him back.
Is this it? He asked himself. Is this all I’ve got?
He felt the way he had when Jack Johnson had scowled down at him. He liked the memory. He used it. Picturing Jack’s scowl, he reversed the role, and saw himself as Jack, and painted the man’s fury on his own face.
Anger gave him strength. Not much, but enough to push through fear and fatigue. Enough to push open the door, and walk through it.
Just as he’d been surprised by the New Dawn’s grandeur, he’d been impressed by the chambers provided. He’d never reckoned his home too small, though his brother would insist on call it a hobbit hole, with a wink and a grin. His stateroom, however, made it seem a mouse hole.
It wasn’t that he had any more rooms; they’d given him a bedroom and an off-suite bathroom, but they’d made them huge. The starry patterned walls rose to a ceiling almost twice his height, and the bed, with cream silken sheets, could have supported four people without forcing uncomfortable intimacy upon them. If he took his boots off, he’d lose his toes in the red shag pile carpet. The mirror wasn’t full-length. He couldn’t have made it full-length without standing on his own shoulders, and jumping up and down.
He didn’t consider these things as he entered his room for the second time, and yet they acted on his psyche, reminding him, at a level below the threshold of awareness, of how small he was, and how vast could prove the forces ranged against him.
He entered the room, legs tense, ready to bolt. His jaws tensed hard enough for his teeth to squeak. His hands curled and uncurled, half raised, but unsure. He told himself he was ready for anything, but the sickly cold in his gut belied his thoughts.
When he saw what waited for him, he jumped. No matter how hard he’d tried, he would never have expected this.
The girl sat on the edge of his bed. She’d changed out of her pink, lightning-crossed t-shirt, her black leather skirt and her leggings. She wore an elegant black dress, low cut and strapless. It clung to her figure, suggesting, rather than displaying the curves beneath. Her hair was still a dark chaos of braids, pink ribbons and pigtails, and below she still wore heavy walking shoes, but in between, she made an appealing sight.
“Are you done?” she asked. “Would you like me to turn around for you?” Her voice, though laden with sarcasm, had a softer quality than before, and the corners of her mouth turned up. Squiz murmured with sleepy content, snuggled in her lap, her hands in his fur.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
She blinked several times, and colour rose in her cheeks. “Is that all you’re going to say? I come here and wait for you, and all I get is ‘what are you doing here?’”
He stiffened. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
She bit her lip, and watched him.
He shook his head. He felt as if he’d run ten marathons, climbed ten mountains. His fear fled, but in its place came anger, fury, hate for Gell Shield, for turning his home into a trap, hate for Belle Stakker, who’d forced him to board this ship to Wherethehell, hate for the people who’d taken his brother. “I shouldn’t bother with dumb questions. You’ve come to continue your infiltration, and turn my life into an unremitting nightmare.”
She flinched, and her cheeks flushed dark red. “You- You-”
“Yes, I know,” he said in a deadpan voice, leaving the door ajar, and walking into the room. He rubbed his face. “I’m a monster, a beast. I screw up all of your plans. I show up where I’m not supposed to be, all to torment you, because I exist to cause you pain.”
He stopped in the middle of the room, and shame rushed on him. He hadn’t meant to say those things. He hadn’t meant to be so mean. He wanted to pour his wrath on the nameless men who’d done…whatever they’d done to Sam. But she was there, and it was so easy to be angry.
She clutched the edge of the bed, clawing at the pristine duvet. “You’re so horrible! I don’t know why I came.”
He sank into a chair and bowed his head. “I’m… What does it matter?” She was better off hating him, he thought. The people closest to him were doomed to suffer.
She stood up, dislodging Squizzle, who muttered in sleepy annoyance, slid down, and clung to her ankle. “Maybe it doesn’t matter to you,” she said. “Maybe nothing matters to Mister Perfect Picture. But some of us are decent folks. I came here to thank you. What d’you say to that?”
He flicked his eyes up at her. “Thank me?” he said.
“Yes!”
“You?”
If she’d been red before, she was now moving into infra red. If she went further, she was liable to leave the visible spectrum, and become an invisible girl, a floating black dress wreathed in steam. Perhaps her blue green eyes would remain, to float and glare. “You son of a brinky muncle!”
> She tried to head for the door, but Squizzle clung on. She tried to shake him free, but he refused to budge, so she marched to the door with him weighing on her ankle, his tail curled around her leg.
“If you want to thank someone,” he said to her retreating back, “you should go to Jack.”
She didn’t look at him. “Who?”
He sat up. “Jack Johnson. He pulled you onto the deck. He’s the man you should thank.”
She paused at the door, her head cocked. She stood there for a long, awkward moment, and then she turned around. She looked at him from the doorway, and her eyes shimmered with tears. “He did that,” she said. “And I will thank him. But… Oh! You’re so mean, you’re making this so hard. I’m going to thank him second, because if it hadn’t been for you…”
He leaned on his knees and looked up at her, a confused frown on his face.
“If it hadn’t been for you… When I leapt, I thought I was going to die.”
“You caught the edge,” he said. “You almost made it.”
Humour flashed across her face, and then she hid it. “Almost. But I couldn’t hold on, one hand slipped, and I felt the other one going.” She gazed at him, her eyes no longer hot, but warm. “You caught me. You saved my life. So I came here…to say thank you.”
His heart kicked, and he had to swallow. “Hey… It wasn’t so far down.”
“Yeah, but...” She looked at her feet. “I can’t swim.”
He gaped at her. He couldn’t find the words, but his attitude toward her underwent a comprehensive, if split second re-evaluation. She’d leapt at the New Dawn, knowing that one mistake would likely mean her death.
In a way, she’d leapt at New Verity, too.
He rose, and started towards her, framing the words, but before he could reach her, before he could say what he needed to say, she turned and ran. Her swift, darting movements surprised Squizzle, who fell on his back, and faced the ceiling, his big golden brown eyes blinking in puzzlement. Soro checked he was okay, and then shot out into the hallway.
Left and he saw nothing, right and he caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark figure shooting around a corner. He ran after her, surprised at his own concern. He couldn’t leave it that way, not after the things he’d said.
He turned the corner, and came onto a central landing, with four corridors coming off it, and stairs going up and down. He jerked his head around, and strained his ears, but he caught neither sight nor sound.