Frozen

The slaver held a bucket of acid over his head.

There was no time and no other way to find out.

Please, let this work. Please let them have been wrong about me.

Then she shot Wes through the heart.

46

CHAOS EXPLODED ON THE DECK OF THE Van Gogh. Avo Hubik stared at the fallen body of Ryan Wesson as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. The slavers looked stunned, and the pirate holding the bucket of acid dropped it on his own foot, causing more confusion.

Aboard the Alby, Nat collapsed to her knees, shaking, and the smallmen howled in grief. “What happened? What happened?” Shakes yelled.

“She shot him—Nat shot him—” Brendon whispered.

“WHAT?” Shakes turned white. “WHAT DID SHE DO?”

Farouk stood next to him, stunned. “Wes is dead?” he whispered.

“ICEHOLE!” Avo said, kicking Wes’s body overboard. “WHAT ARE YOU MORONS WAITING FOR—GET THEM!” he yelled, and the slavers reloaded their guns and resumed firing on Alby.

“Help me,” Nat said. Wes’s body was floating facedown in the water by their ship, and she leaned over to reach for him. The smallmen lent a hand, holding on to her as she pulled him out of the water.

“Got him?” Shakes yelled.

“Yes,” Nat said, cradling Wes in her arms. He was already cold and stiff. “Let’s go, Shakes!”

The team ducked for cover, and it looked like the slavers would take their boat, but Shakes finally got the engine running and they sped away.

When Alby was out of range the slavers’ gunfire stopped, and the Van Gogh headed back toward its course to the Blue. On the deck, Nat cradled Wes’s body in her arms. “Wes, wake up, wake up,” she whispered. “Wake up, come on, wake up!”

“Wake up? You shot him in the heart! He’s dead!” Farouk exclaimed.

“No,” she said. “No,” she whispered when Wes did not stir. He was so very cold. “This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.”

Liannan knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I think he’s gone,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

“NO!” Nat screamed. This was not the way it was supposed to end. No. Not like this. Not now. Not after everything they had done to survive. After everything they meant to each other.

“Let’s get out of here,” Liannan told Shakes. She looked sorrowfully at Nat. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“What’s going on?” Shakes asked.

Liannan shook her head. “I’ll explain later.”

Nat held Wes in her arms and continued to sob. She’d believed she could save him. She had thought she could save them all. She hadn’t meant for this to happen . . . She hadn’t meant to kill him . . . She had thought . . . she had thought she was saving him . . . that she was saving them all . . .

They were right about me, then, she thought dully.

Subject has no heart.

That’s what they told her at MacArthur.

She was only a weapon, a vessel for fire and pain. She had no heart. There was a cold, dead space where it was supposed to be. She was not human. She was marked. She was a monster.

Subject is unable to love. Unable to feel. Subject is perfect for our needs.

She had believed they were wrong. She had believed her feelings for him were real, that what she felt for Wes was true . . .

She had believed she could save him as he had saved her. When he had kissed her before the traders came, when he had saved her from the white priests.

But she was wrong.

Subject unable to love. She did not love him and so she could not save him.

Brendon handed her his handkerchief, and Roark put a hand on her shoulder. Both of them were crying quietly.

Nat felt numb.

She thought she had been so clever. She had gambled and lost.

And now Wes was dead.

A few minutes later Shakes walked out of the bridge and knelt by his friend. “I kept telling him he’d get himself killed one day.”

“Shakes—”

He brushed off her hand, too upset to even speak. Don’t worry, I’ve never lost him yet, he had told Nat in the Trash Pile. Her fault . . . this was all her fault . . . she was such a fool to think . . . to think that she was different . . . and to hope that she could . . .

They brought Wes down to the captain’s quarters and laid him out on his bed. His face was gray and the bullet she had put in his chest left a neat, round hole.

Shakes staggered out of the room, as if he had no more strength even to walk. The smallmen followed after him.

Liannan entered.

“I killed him,” Nat whispered. “This is my fault.”

“Better that you had, or the slavers would have killed him and his death would have been worse than a thousand agonies. Plus, if it’s any consolation, you saved the rest of us. Can you do this?” she asked. “Get him ready for burial?”

Nat nodded and wiped her eyes. Together, the two of them wound his body in a sheet, wrapping him and blessing his forehead with oil. She put a hand on his cold cheek. He was so handsome and so brave.

“We will keep him here for a little while, let everyone have a chance to say good-bye, before we give him back to the ocean,” the sylph said.

Nat nodded. She walked back out to the bridge. There was no more sign of either the Titan or the Van Gogh.

The lifeboats were bobbing in the sea, on their way to the port at New Crete.

She found Farouk at the helm, looking lost and confused, his eyes red-rimmed from crying.

“Where’s Shakes?” she asked.

“Dunno,” the young soldier sniffed. “He looked like he wanted to murder somebody.”

From below, they could hear Shakes pummeling the walls of the cabin. Liannan joined them on the bridge. “I think we need to leave him alone for now. He doesn’t blame you, Nat, but he’s angry. He’s angry that he couldn’t save his friend.”

Brendon and Roark huddled with them as well. “None of us blame you; you did a brave thing,” Roark said.

Her heart was broken, but Nat held herself together and fought the tears back. Getting away was only one part of the plan.

“What do we do now?” Farouk asked.

“The same thing we did when we set out from New Vegas,” she told him. “We need to get to the Blue. The RSA is heading there. We need to stop them from entering the doorway. Liannan, you know the way?”

The sylph nodded. “Yes. Brendon, help me—we need to plot a course.”

47