“That’s why your friend—Mrs. A—tried to get you out of the country, wasn’t it? Because you were marked.”
Nat raised her green-gold eyes to his dark ones. “I was three years old when I understood people were afraid of me.” She told Wes about playing in the neighbor’s apartment that day; Mrs. Allen sometimes left her there when she went to work. Nat didn’t like the boy she was meant to play with—he was older and mean, pinching her when no one was looking, making sure she never got the cookie she wanted, telling her she had to stand in the corner for a myriad of trivial infractions. She was scared of him, and one day he told his mother a bald-faced lie, that she had been the one who had thrown the ball through the window and let the cold in. Then when his mother left the room Nat pushed him. She hadn’t laid a hand on him, but she had pushed him with her mind—slammed him across the room, so that he hit his head on the wall and he crumpled to the carpet, wailing.
“She did it! She did it!” he’d screamed.
“I didn’t touch him!” she’d yelled in her defense.
“Did she push you?” his mother demanded.
“No,” David had said. “But she did it.” He’d looked at her with those mean black eyes. “She’s one of them.”
After that, Nat was no longer welcome in their home, and when Mrs. Allen found out what had happened, the old lady began planning their escape.
“They sent you to MacArthur, didn’t they? When they caught you at the border?” Wes asked, lifting her chin with his fingers and softly wiping away the tear on her cheek. His skin was rough against her smooth face, but she found comfort in his gentleness. “That’s where you’re from. You broke out.”
“Yeah.”
He whistled. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t put me in there.”
“So that’s why we couldn’t find anything on you,” he said. “Farouk’s pretty good on the nets; I thought it was strange you didn’t have an online profile.”
“They keep us off it. It’s easier to disappear someone if they’ve never existed,” she said.
“MacArthur’s a military hospital. You were part of the gifted program?”
She looked up at him, startled. “You knew about that?”
He grimaced. “Yeah. I ran one of the first teams.”
“We might have worked together, then,” she said.
“Is that why I look familiar?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She hesitated. “I was under Bradley. My commander.”
Now it was Wes’s turn to look unnerved. “He was mine, too.” He knitted his brows. “What kind of work did you do for him?”
“If only I could remember,” she said. “They mess us up, you know, to keep things confidential, to make us forget . . . they used to put us in ice baths, to freeze our memories somehow. I don’t even know who I am, what my real name is,” she said bitterly.
“I like ‘Nat,’” he said with a smile. “It’s as good a name as any.”
“So, now you know what I am for sure, what are you going to do about it?” she asked.
“Take you where you want to go. You’re headed for the Blue, aren’t you? You can admit it now.”
She exhaled. “Yes.”
“Well then, that’s where we’re headed. I’ll take you there or die trying. Okay?”
“Okay. I’m fine, you can go now.”
“You’re sure?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“So you keep reminding me.” He sighed. “Listen, maybe it’s best if you get out of the crew cabin—you can bunk with me in the captain’s if you’d like.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she found herself giving him an awkward hug, surprising them both. She pressed her cheek against his chest. This was not like the other day, when she was toying with him. She wanted to hug him because being close to him made her feel better. She never realized how tall he was; she only came up to his chin, and she could hear his heart beating underneath the many layers he wore.
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said, patting her back somewhat stiffly. “I’m taking your credits,” he joked.
“So you keep reminding me,” she said quietly.
They stood in the middle of the room, simply holding on to each other, and she found solace in the warmth of his embrace. “You knew from the beginning, didn’t you?” she whispered. “That I was marked?”
“If I did, does it matter?” he asked. “You don’t have to hide anymore. Not on my ship, at least. Besides, it would be a shame to cover up your eyes.”
She felt his breath on her cheek. “Why?”
“Because they’re beautiful,” he said. Their faces were inches apart, and she trembled in his arms. He leaned in and she closed her eyes . . .
Then the ship lurched to the port side again, throwing them against the far wall. They heard an unbearable sound—like a scratch on a chalkboard—a high-pitched whine of discord and then a grinding crash, as they parted from each other.
“Go,” she said, pushing him away. “Go!”
Wes shook his head and cursed as he ran out of the room to see what had happened to his ship.
25
THE SOUND GREW LOUDER AND MORE unbearable. Wes held his hands to his ears as he ran up the deck toward the bridge. He hesitated for a moment, paralyzed, when he saw what had happened. It was worse than he’d thought. Towering above him were two floating mountains of junk, twin trashbergs composed of rusted machinery. Souvenirs from a dead civilization and a different way of life—leather luggage with gold lettering, chromed espresso machines with complex levers and dials, soap bottles with French labels, and designer sunglasses—things Wes had heard about, but never seen. It was all junk now. The metal rusted, the leather faded, the paper rotted with mildew, even the plastic that was meant to never degrade had now cracked and melted. It all blended to make a new kind of landscape, a mountain of floating refuse.
First Daran and now this—could his day get any worse? Or was he just irritated that he’d lost another opportunity to kiss her? He’d meant what he said, but he was surprised at the depth of his feelings for her. He’d been worried when he hadn’t seen her reading on the upper deck—and the lack of the Slaine boys disturbed him as well—and when he’d heard the screams he feared the worst—and to see her like that, her jacket torn off her shoulders . . . he could have pounded Daran’s head against the floor until he was still. Wes felt sick and ashamed of his crew, and wondered if he’d made the right call to take on those boys.
Farouk stood by the navigation system and looked up nervously as Wes approached. “They weren’t on the radar—I swear it—they came out of nowhere,” he said.
“How bad is it?” Wes asked, directing his question to Shakes, who was at the helm.
Shakes couldn’t answer, as he was throwing his full weight to pull the wheel starboard with the help of Daran and Zedric on either side, the three of them fighting to steer the ship as the trashbergs squeezed Alby between them, the piles of broken steel and shattered glass digging a long ugly gash along the ship’s hull, biting into the thick metal.
“Move!” Wes yelled as he took the helm. “You can’t steer your way out of this!” He pulled on the gearshift levers. The two engines and their propellers were side by side, and he figured if he threw one into reverse and the other forward, they would force the boat to pivot.