Beck coughs, sputtering blood onto the floor. I scrabble across the expanse to him, dirt cutting into my fingers. His face is smashed and swollen, his eyes dazed.
“Can you walk?” I ask, leveraging my body weight to pull him up to a sitting position. His head lolls as he nods, his pupils large and lazy, and my heart hammers during the long moment he lets his chin rest on his chest. But then he leans forward and pushes himself off the ground, rising awkwardly to his feet. I move alongside him, and it’s a good thing I do. He loses his balance and pitches to the side, catching himself against Potato Man’s desk. I wrap a sore arm around him, and he winces. He’s injured, badly. I have a feeling I can’t even see a number of his injuries, and I’m struck with a visceral fear that even after killing CJ, we won’t be able to get out of here. I need something to hide his visible injuries until we get to safety, and I prop him against the desk so I can search the room.
There’s a heavy black apron hanging on the wall to my left, and I use it to blot at the blood dribbling down the side of his cheek to his chin. It helps some, but he’s still been beaten half to hell. I wrap the apron around his head and tie the straps under his chin. He winces at the pressure, and I mumble a quick apology. He looks ridiculous, like a deranged milkmaid, but if he keeps his head low, nobody will see his battered face.
“You ready to do this?” I ask. He clears his throat and spits blood on the floor. Then he nods. I wind my arm beneath his, taking on as much of his weight as I can, and together, we move across the room.
I kick the door, and it swings open with a crack, revealing the other man from the shop. He stands there, holding a cigarette between shaky fingers. He looks surprised, but I don’t think it’s from all the blood.
“Are we gonna have a problem here?” I ask. He purses his lips.
“I’ve already been paid.” It takes everything in me not to spit in his face, but the last thing I need right now is one more enemy.
The streets are alive with the frenetic bustle of a new day. Fishmongers in waders shout at sturdy women who wear heavy aprons and knowing smirks. Merchants raise canvas awnings over their storefronts, and weather-worn seamen stomp along the gravel in rubber boots. Beck and I limp through the steady throng, matching pace with the drunks returning to their day jobs after a night spent lost between brothels and barrooms. Some stare, but nobody stops us, and I take that as a victory.
“I can walk,” Beck mumbles. He pushes off me, trying to stand a little straighter, but he wobbles, falling into me at an awkward angle, and I end up bearing more of his weight around my shoulders.
“Wha hap’end here?” A shrill busybody wearing a wicked scowl leans against a greasy storefront, pointing a bloodied fillet knife at us.
“Bar fight,” Beck whispers.
“Bar fight, ma’am,” I say. Beck lolls his head into the crook of my neck and moans loudly. I don’t have to fake the blush that rises into my cheeks.
“Keep ’im at ’ome next time then, eh? Give ’im wot ’e likes, nah?” Her heckle is nearly drowned out by her cackle, attracting the attention of onlookers with nothing better to do than pay attention to details they shouldn’t see. I push Beck faster, but it’s still too slow for so many spectators. I start up the hill toward the house, and he grunts something, tugging at my shoulders.
“What?” I ask.
“The ship.”
“Where’s the ship?”
“I dunno.” His mouth is so swollen, it comes out as one syllable.
“You don’t know?”
He shakes his head, the motion small and almost drunken. “I dunno.”
“Okay, so how about we go back to the house and see if the others know?”
“Not there.”
“Where are they?” I ask, but I know the answer before he reminds me.
“At the ship,” we say, our voices as twined together as our limbs. Great.
“So we just have to walk along the docks until we find it?”
“Can’t be seen. They’ll be after us.”
“Who will?”
“Port Guard.”
“Oh, right,” I say, moving through an alley between two shops and down toward the shore.
“Remember, I’m a bloodthirsty kidnapper and you’re a wily murderer.” His voice is breathy and strained, but I bite the smile off my bottom lip at his poor attempt at a joke.
“Save your wit for when we’re on your boat,” I say.
“Bet that job on my ship’s looking pretty good about now?” He chuckles, but it catches in his throat like a fish swallowing a hook, and he coughs so hard we have to stop for a moment. My stomach roils, and I have to turn my head away from him, get the metallic tang of his blood out of my nose.
“Deep breath,” I tell him. “I can’t take a job from a dead man.” He squints up at me, and wheezes a lingering chuckle.
“That you can’t,” he says, and with a more coherent nod, we continue on.
We limp down the narrow slope between crumbling buildings built into the hillside and come out at the loading dock. Murky water splashes up the dirt ramp in waves of green and brown that contradict everything I know about what it takes to sustain sea life. Moored along the ramshackle dock are about a dozen ships of varying size and condition, each christened with a cheeky, vaguely feminine name that sounds like it could belong to one of Maruña’s employees.
“See it anywhere?” I ask. He slowly turns his head from left to right, with too much effort to be considered casual.
“Not mine.”
“Great.” He tips his head to the right, in the direction of where the river meets the sea.
“That way,” he mumbles. We head south, passing each and every one of not-Beck’s-boats, and I switch back and forth between watching our clumsy steps, reading his face for any sign of recognition, and scanning the line of ships for the semi-familiar faces of his crew. We turn the corner and find about half as many boats, bobbing gently in the current.
“Everything okay, miss?” I turn around, and a Port Guard officer stands there, his hand on the baton looped through his belt. I suck on my cheeks as my heart races the current beside us.
“Uh . . .” is all I can say. My brain isn’t working, or at least, it’s not connected to my mouth. I swallow hard, pushing the bile back into my stomach.
“Are you okay, miss?” he repeats, leaning in, his eyes darting to my dark clothes, which thankfully mask the blood I’m sure I absorbed from CJ. Beck lets his head droop again and grumbles something unintelligible.
“Yes . . . just trying to . . . this man, he fell. And he has a boat here, somewhere, but I’m not sure which is his.”
“He has a boat?” he asks, stepping closer, heavy skepticism in his voice. His icy blue eyes narrow, and his dark brown mustache twitches.
“Uh . . . no . . . works on a boat? That’s what they told me,” I say.
“Who told you?”
“I don’t know,” I say, looking over his shoulder. “There was a man?” My cheeks burn hot, and I know this officer doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
“There you are!” A booming voice rings out from behind the officer. Slick comes marching up, looking angry.
“You know this man?” the officer asks.
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry to say I do, and I take responsibility for him. What has he done?”
“Fallen, according to this girl.”
“Thank you, miss,” Slick says, sliding an arm under Beck’s other side. Beck leans on him, taking all his weight off of me, though he doesn’t remove his arm from my shoulders. The officer narrows his eyebrows at Slick, and then looks back at me.
“Of course, I’d be happy to give you something for your trouble,” Slick says to me. It takes me a moment to understand.
“Oh, that’s very kind of you.”
“Just this way, then,” Slick says, trudging slowly with Beck. “Unless you need something else, Officer?” The Port Guard stares through narrowed slits a moment longer, as if doing so might jog his memory.
“Just . . . keep him out of trouble,” he says, wagging a finger before he turns and walks away. We wait a moment, getting Beck better situated between the two of us, and then we walk back in the direction from which we came. Beck hangs haphazardly between us, stumbling more with every step. Once we turn the corner, Slick hoists Beck off the ground and breaks into a run. I limp behind him, struggling to keep up, my body sore and battered g. Beck’s head falls back, his face vacant and pale, save for the mottled bruises. Unless there’s a doctor on board that he’s never mentioned, I’m not sure he’ll be able to recover. Something gaping and hollow opens up inside my chest, but I don’t have time right now to think about what it means.
“Hurry,” Slick barks, and I pick up my pace. We jog all the way to the far end of the pier and hidden behind what turns out to be the second to last boat, is a smaller boat. It was once painted navy-blue, but over the years, the paint has chipped, revealing gashes of red and grayed wood. Two large mastheads spear into the sky, and no lifeboat can be seen. Slick hoists Beck onto the deck in one swing, letting him slump against the side of the ship. Then he reaches out to lift me. I push him aside and climb in on my own, tumbling over the rail to land on my hands and knees with an undignified thump. He lands gracefully next to me and gets to work shouting orders, untying the ropes tethering us to the pier.
“What happened?” Shel yells from inside the cabin.
“Fight,” Slick yells back. “Get us outta here. Likely to have Port Guard sniffing around soon.”
“Where to?” Perlman yells from a perch above the cabin.
“Where d’you think?” Slick barks, and Perlman, whose color has already improved since I saw him last, smiles.
“Port Guard!” Kern’s soft, round voice calls out from his position next to one of the sails. I turn and see the officer from a few minutes ago up the hill, standing between two shacks, next to the surviving man from the tattoo shop.
“Get down, girl!” Slick yells at me as the boat shifts, moving into the harbor. I squat next to Beck, who is just now blinking back to life.
“Are you okay?” I ask. He raises his eyebrows—or at least, he tries.
“Been better.” The cut on his cheek is still bleeding. It’ll need stitches. I press my sleeve to it, and he closes his eyes, leaning into my touch.
“I got you to your ship, didn’t I?” I say. He grins, or at least, the right side of his face does.
“You called it a ship,” he says, and I roll my eyes. We lurch again as Shel shouts more orders across the deck.
“Fezzering fuzzjunk . . .” he mumbles. I think. That’s what it sounds like, at least.
“Sorry, Cap’n,” Kern calls from somewhere behind me.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“We’re getting out of here. Everything’s fine.”
“Then why am I not sailing my own damn ship?”
“I rescued you,” I say, with a half shrug. “I can only do so much.” His bloodied lips part to reveal the whites of his teeth, a slanted black slot I don’t remember on the left side of his jaw, where CJ’s fists did the most damage.
“My hero,” he says, spitting blood on the ground next to my leg.
“Can I get some water?” I yell, to no one in particular, then I reach down and tear off half my pant leg.
“Yes, princess,” Shazblister says, dropping a bucket of murky, undrinkable water by my side. I’m almost afraid to use it, but until we clean his cuts, we don’t know what we’re dealing with. I dip the fabric in the water and wring it, then start with his forehead. He braces himself, but doesn’t seem to be in much pain.
“I can do this myself,” he says.
“But then who would be here to appreciate your cursing?” I dip the soaked fabric back into the water and squeeze the blood from it, then work my way around his right eye, cleaning up the dried blood around the deepest cut, and down his cheek, where he winces.
“Feckering skuzzjunk!” he says under his breath. I bite the smile from my lip at his subtle variation as I dab his jaw more gently, but still, he recoils.
“Sorry,” I say. The corner of his mouth twitches, like he wants to shoot back with something especially salty, but he says nothing, just stares at me with those deep sea-green eyes, the left one almost completely swollen shut.
The ship rocks as it pushes into the current, the chaos from the docks diluted by the crash of waves against the hull. I don’t dare look over the side to see what’s happening, or to draw attention to myself.
“Are we safe here?” I ask, blotting again at his jaw, revealing purplish-yellow pouches of raw skin that are probably not yet as painful as they’re going to be.
“No,” he says. “No such thing.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, suddenly aware of the weight of Declan’s compass in my pocket. I squeeze my fingers around the saturated wad of fabric to keep from reaching for it. He lets his head fall back against the side of the boat and looks up at the sky, squinting.
“Home.”