Nailer stared at the girl. A few days ago, he would have cut her. He would have apologized to those desperate eyes, and put the knife in her neck. He would have made it a fast kill so she wouldn’t suffer-he wouldn’t hurt her the way his dad liked to hurt people-but still he would have cut her dead, and then he would have stripped that gold off her waterlogged corpse and walked away. He would have felt sorry, sure, would even have put an offering on the Scavenge God’s scale to help her get on to whatever afterlife she believed in. But she would have been dead and he would have called himself lucky.
Now, though, the dark reek of the oil room filled his mind-the memory of being up to his neck in warm death staring up at Sloth high above him, her little LED paint mark glowing-salvation if only he could convince her, if only he could reach out and touch that part of her that cared for something other than herself, knowing that there was a lever inside her somewhere, and if only he could pull it, she would go for help and he would be saved and everything would be fine.
He’d been so desperate to get Sloth to care.
But he hadn’t been able to find the lever. Or maybe the lever hadn’t been there after all. Some people couldn’t see any farther than themselves. People like Sloth.
People like his dad.
Richard Lopez wouldn’t hesitate. He’d slash the rich girl’s throat and take the rings and shake the blood off them and laugh. A week ago, Nailer knew for a fact that he could have done the same. This swank girl wasn’t crew. He didn’t owe her anything. But now, after his time in the oil room, all he could think of was how much he’d wanted Sloth to believe that his life was just as important as hers.
The gold on the drowned girl’s fingers glittered.
What was wrong with him? Nailer wanted to punch a wall. Why couldn’t he just be smart? Why couldn’t he just crew up and cut the girl and take the scavenge? Nailer could almost hear his father laughing at him. Mocking him for his stupidity. But as Nailer stared into the drowned girl’s pleading eyes, they might as well have been his own.
“I’m sorry, Pima,” he said. “I can’t do it. We got to help her.”
Pima slumped. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Hell.” Pima wiped her eyes. “I should pigstick her anyway. You’d thank me later.”
“Don’t. Please. We both know it’s not right.”
“Right? What’s right? Look at all that gold.”
“Don’t cut her throat.”
Pima grimaced, but she withdrew her knife. “Maybe she’ll let us keep the silverware.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Already he was regretting the choice, watching his hopes for a different future fall away. Tomorrow he and Pima would be ship breaking again, and this girl would either live and walk away, or she’d alert the rest of the Bright Sands ship breakers to the scavenge, and either way, he was out of luck. He’d been lucky, and now he was throwing it away.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and he wasn’t sure if it was Pima he was sorry for, or himself, or the girl who blinked at him with wide black eyes, and who, if he was very lucky indeed, might not make it through the night. “I’m sorry.”
“Tide’s coming in,” Pima said. “If you’re going to be a hero rescuer, you’d better do it quick.”
The girl was stuck under all sorts of junk, a wealth of sea chests and the big four-poster bed. It took them almost an hour to pull all the stuff free. The girl didn’t say anything more as they worked. Once she gasped as they shifted a chest off her, and Nailer worried that they’d perhaps crushed her in the shifting wreckage, but when they finally pulled her body free, soaked and shivering in the failing light, she seemed whole. Her skin was bloody and her clothes were torn and sopping, but she was alive.
Pima inspected her body. “Damn, Nailer, she’s almost as lucky as you.” And then she made a face of disgust when she realized that with Nailer’s bad arm, Pima was going to be the rescuer after all.
“She’s not going to kiss you for a thank-you if you don’t crew up.” She smirked.
“Shut up,” Nailer muttered, but he was suddenly aware of the girl’s slim form under her wet clothes, the curve of her body, the flash of thigh and throat that showed in the torn fabric of her skirt and blouse.
Pima just laughed. She levered the drowned girl out of the cabin and down through the canted corridors of the ship until they spilled out the hole in the hull. The girl was heavy, barely able to walk or help in any way. She might as well have been a corpse, Pima commented as she grunted and dragged the girl out. It took both of them to lower her over the side and into the lapping waters of the tide, Nailer awkwardly holding her and lowering her down into Pima’s upstretched arms, and then both of them staggering and stumbling in the increasing surf.
“Get the damn silver,” Pima grunted. “At least get that sack off. If anyone else finds the ship, we want that hidden.”
Nailer clambered back through the ship, collecting. When he stood again at the edge of the hull’s cracked hollow, Pima was standing alone in the water, foam up to her thighs. For a moment he thought she’d drowned the girl, but then he saw a flash of pale clothing on the rocks at the base of the island.
Pima grinned. “You thought I pigstuck her, didn’t you?”
“No.”
Pima just laughed. Waves sloshed around her, splashing up her dark legs, soaking her shorts. The ship creaked in the roll of the waves. “Tide’s coming,” Pima said. “Let’s get going.”
Nailer looked across the bay to where the ship-breaking yards shone in the fading sun. “We’re never going to get her back over the sand in time.”
“You want me to run for a boat?” Pima asked.
“No. I’m beat. Let’s hold here on the island and cross in the morning. Maybe we can think of some way to deal with the rest of the scavenge by then.”
Pima glanced back at the girl where she lay balled up and shivering. “Yeah, okay. She won’t care, one way or the other.” She pointed back into the ship. “But if we’re staying, let’s find what we can in there. There’s food. Plenty of other stuff. We’ll camp on the island and bring her over tomorrow.”
Nailer gave her a mock salute. “Good idea.”
He headed back to the pantry, hunting. He found muffins waterlogged with salt. Bruised mangoes and bananas and pomegranates, all scattered through the galley. Saltbeef that was still good and seemed to have barely been touched. A cured ham. There was so much meat he couldn’t believe it. Against his will, he was already salivating.
He dragged everything back to where the hull was cracked. He climbed down carefully, cradling everything in a net bag he found in the galley. The water was getting deeper, all right. It tugged and drew at him as he slogged out of the surf, keeping the food high. After ferrying everything from the ship, he noticed their rescued girl shivering and went back to the ship again. It was almost dark inside now. He found blankets of rich wool, damp but still warm, and dragged them out with the rest of the scavenge.
He crossed with waves at his waist, yanked about by frothing surf, holding the blankets over his head. He stumbled up on shore and dumped his load of blankets. He glanced at where the girl was shivering. “You still didn’t kill her, huh?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.” Pima jerked her head toward the shivering girl. “You got stuff for a fire?”
Nailer shrugged. “Nah.”
“Come on, Nailer!” Pima made a face of exasperation. “She’ll need a fire if you want her to live.” She headed back into the wreck, slogging through the rush of the darkening waves.
“See if there’s fresh water in there, too!” Nailer called after her.
He picked up the load of blankets and started hauling them to higher ground, hunting for something on the hillside that had a semblance of being flat. Eventually he found an area beside the roots of a cypress tree that wasn’t so bad. He started clearing space amongst the rocks and kudzu vines.