Midnight Sky (Dark Sky Book 2) (6 page)

“He’s up to something. You heard him command Abby. I find it hard to understand why his voice, a stranger’s voice, could get through to her when yours couldn’t.”

I scoffed at that, not wanting to dwell on it and doubt Riley after he’d calmed Abby. “We need his help. He knows where the Breach is. He might even remember something about the Vesper. More than that, he’s part of this crew. We’re not going to abandon him.”

His eyes flashed hotly. “I might not throw him out yet, but don’t get attached, Claire. Not until we know what his purpose is.”

I took a breath to keep arguing, then stopped when Sawyer’s words finally registered. “Purpose?”

He nodded. “The real reason he’s here. He could have done what the other survivors did when they escaped the
Behemoth.
He could have started a new life. But he stayed here. He gave away crucial information on Hellions, without asking anything in return.”

I folded my arms over my chest and scowled at the pirate. “Not everyone is selfish and paranoid, you know. He could be doing this because he has nowhere to go, and he wants to be a part of something again.”

Sawyer shook his head sadly, like
I
was the naïve child in this conversation. “Everyone is selfish, Firecracker. It’s how we survived the Hellions for so long.”

I walked past him, going for the cabin door. I still felt Sawyer’s eyes on me, but he said nothing, and I refused to look back. I rapped on the door. Nash pulled it open and peered down at me. The scratches on his face were ugly, but didn’t seem very deep.
 

“How is she?” I muttered.

“Sleeping,” he replied cautiously. He frowned at my expression, glancing at his captain over my shoulder.
 

“You and Gemma can get some rest if you want. I’ll watch over her. I should have been doing that anyway.”

Nash’s frown deepened, and he looked at Sawyer again He was probably trying to figure out what Sawyer had said to upset me without actually asking and digging the knife deeper. I busied my mind, looking past Nash to Gemma, who was sitting by my sister’s bed with an even more bewildered expression.

The big marauder turned to his lover and held out his hand. Gemma, who had been watching the whole exchange with blatant confusion and curiosity, rose and curled her fingers around his. I turned away from the doorframe to give them room, then slipped in as soon as they were on the deck. As I reached for the door, I head Gemma fire an accusation at her captain.

“What did you do this time?”
 

I closed the door behind me before I could hear Sawyer’s reply. I flipped the lock and pressed my back to the door. That was when I realized how fast my heart was pounding.

To make matters worse, I was able to hear pieces of their conversation past the oak door.

“
That’s
what you’re thinking?” Gemma barked. “Are you insane? No, don’t answer that. I know you are.”

Sawyer’s reply was muffled, too distant for me to hear. Nash’s wasn’t.

“Then why hasn’t he done anything, Sawyer? You have no evidence that he’s been anything other than helpful. You’re the only person who can’t seem to trust him. We all like him, and he cares deeply about Claire…” I barely heard Nash’s next words. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? The way he looks at Claire when you’re trying not to.”

I pushed away from the door, determined not to hear the rest of
that
conversation. To think Sawyer’s animosity toward Riley stemmed from something as petty as jealousy…
 

I shook my head. I wouldn’t let Sawyer’s words get to me. I trusted Riley. He was kind and supportive, caring of Abby, and he brightened whenever I walked into the room. He was the son of a Sky Guard, the noblest, most loyal soldiers in all of Aon. Sawyer was a mistrusting, moody, stubborn man who prided himself on being right and having things done his way. His father was a ruthless pirate, and his older brother was a literal monster.
 

But damned if his words didn’t stick in my head. I believed Riley was telling the truth about the Vesper, but he never spoke of his time on the
Behemoth.
If he did, it was in snippets, fractions of information that reminded us how horrible the Hellions could be.
 

My chest constricted at the thought of what he’d gone through for those awful two years. Riley must have been ashamed of betraying those in Westraven by giving up key points of attack, but under the claws of someone as cruel as Davin Kendric, who was himself under orders of the Vesper, what choice would he have had?

My speculations about Sawyer and Riley vanished when I looked at the bed, where Abby lay in a cocoon of blankets. She held the sheets with a white-knuckle grip, her little body shivering. Her eyes were pinched tight, her breathing labored. I crossed the room and knelt by her head, gently smoothing blonde curls from her forehead. Abby whimpered, but didn’t wake.

I stayed there until I felt satisfied that she would sleep until morning. Perhaps not sleep well, but enough. I got up from my crouch and padded quietly to a chair that was pushed against the table. I sat on it and placed a small wooden trunk under my feet. As comfortable as I could be, I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, hoping the exhaustion of the night would draw me into sleep.

It didn’t.

With everything that happened, my brain refused to shut down. I found myself reaching for the skeleton key, drawing it from under my collar and turning it in my fingers. The token from my mother used to bring me comfort. On cold lonely nights in the underground, I would lie on my cot, close my eyes, and hold the key close to my heart. I would remember sneaking into my mother and father’s shop in the basement of the house, watching them work in perfect synchronization to create gadgets and repair equipment. At times they would seem like a machine themselves, working silently together. Then I would see my father’s eyes light up when my mother passed him a tool, and the glowing smile on her face when his fingers lingered on her hand.

I would think about how my mother never forgot to make me breakfast in the mornings. She would be wearing her dirty coveralls, washing her hands at the sink, looking over her shoulder and smiling when I came downstairs.
 

I would play her last words to me over and over again, wishing I understood what they meant.
 

One day you’ll use that key, and you’ll save us all.

But how was I going to know when that day came? I still didn’t know what the key was for, or what it could possibly do to save the few survivors that remained. Even if we found the machine to close the Breach, would it be enough to stop the Hellions from cutting open the sky again?

Would I go through all of these trials only to have them make no difference in the end?

The Vesper was up to something. I had no doubts about that, and not just because he was hurting my sister to get to me. But if he was as devious as Riley claimed, then he would have another agenda. Something far worse than another invasion.
 

What happened over there? What could the marauders and explorers have possibly done to the Hellions to bring them to Aon?

An old memory drifted out of my mind, unfolding like a piece of crumpled paper. It hadn’t meant anything to me before, but thinking about the Vesper, trying to understand what he wanted me for, had changed everything…

I tiptoed out of my bed, padding to the door and pressing my ear against it. I couldn’t see through the keyhole, but my parents’ voices were loud enough. They probably had no idea they’d woken me.

“It won’t make a difference, Deanna. We don’t have time to make a prototype, and there’s no guarantee it will even work. This isn’t the kind of job we can rush. We should just take Claire and go.”

I imagined my mother whirling around, her sharp green eyes flaring with intensity as she faced my father.

“And where are we going to go? Tell me, where in all of Aon do you think we’ll be safe from him?”

“He made it clear that Westraven is his target, nowhere else. Maybe that monster will attack other cities, but we can’t worry about that right now. We just need to keep on the move, stay alive until–”

“The Vesper won’t stop at Westraven! He’ll destroy every inch of Aon after what we did! Our neighbors don’t deserve that. The Sky Guard doesn’t. Thousands of children don’t. Our little girl doesn’t. I won’t run and leave them to that creature, Joel. I won’t do it. There has to be a way to close the Breach, and I
will
find it.”

There was a long pause, and I wondered if my mom turned away from my dad. Her voice was shaky, barely audible when she added, “I understand if you want to take Claire and leave. I won’t stop you, but I can’t turn my back on hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Not when we’re part of the reason they’re about to be destroyed in the first place.”

The next silence was longer still, and my heart began to race.
Dad won’t leave, will he? He loves mom. He loves me. He can’t go, he can’t–

“It’s the smart thing to do,” he said. “You know that, Dee. There’s a chance we’ll fail at this, too. If we’re both killed, what will happen to Claire then?”

Mom didn’t reply. Dad sighed heavily. I heard some shuffling.

“It’s the smart thing to do,” he repeated, “but not what I’m going to do. I can’t believe you even suggested it. The thought of taking our daughter and leaving you here… I wouldn’t forgive myself for that.”

My heart swelled with relief. I almost yanked open the door and ran to them, until I heard Mom cry.
 

“I’m sorry, Joel, I just… I can’t let someone else pay for my mistake. I can’t…”

Dad’s voice became muffled, as though he was whispering or holding her and speaking into her hair. I stepped back from the door and padded to my bed. I crawled under the covers and drew them up to my chin, staring at the ceiling. The darkness stretched across it, so thick I couldn’t see the corners of the walls.

At the time, I didn’t know what they were talking about, or what a Vesper was, but I wasn’t scared. I knew my mom and dad could do anything. They’d built incredible machines on limited time frames before. They could do it, they could save everyone…

Coming out of the memory, I tucked the key under my shirt again and glanced at Abby to make sure she was still asleep. She continued to moan and stir, but her eyes remained closed. I hated that I would have to leave her again tomorrow, especially since her illness was getting worse. But she couldn’t come with us. If anyone saw what she was becoming, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. And if Davin or the Hellions decided to return…

I shivered, wrapping my arms around my middle.
 

Not for the first time, I wish I had pushed myself harder. When my parents returned from the Breach, just before the Hellions began The Storm, they had been different. They didn’t smile often, and when they did, there was no joy in it. It was a lie to give me the illusion of safety. I would ask what was wrong, if I could help, and my mother would gently stroke my hair and whisper with defeat, “There’s nothing you can do.”

How long did she think that before she gave me a baby sister and a key I didn’t know how to use? Did she believe in me so much that she didn’t think to leave me her journals or notes on what I was supposed to be creating in her stead? Was it before she realized that she had failed, and Westraven was destroyed? Was it after my father died?

I sighed. Her reasons didn’t matter. I had to look at the key as the piece of a puzzle that was never finished. I couldn’t think of the secrets it held or what kind of past the Vesper had with my parents. It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t return parents to orphans, or husbands to wives, or sisters to brothers.
 

I didn’t know what I could do, if I would make things better or worse for everyone. If I would even live long enough to see this machine completed. If it even existed. Garnet Dayton, the Electrician who all but press-ganged me into his service, had worked with my parents during the Discovery and saw no reason to lie when he told me about their hopes for shutting the Breach. But neither did my mother, who told me nothing.

Yet I wouldn’t accept defeat just because the obstacles in my path were continuing to get steeper. I wouldn’t abandon hope that I could find a purpose for this key, and I wouldn’t believe that Riley was some kind of traitor when all he had done was help. I wouldn’t leave my sister to the fate of a beast too cowardly to face his enemies.

Maybe I was selfish after all.

Chapter 4

“Well, finding your house should be easy. Everything in the district is a pile of rubble.”

I glared at Sawyer’s callous sarcasm, though he wasn’t wrong.

Before The Storm, the drafter district was renowned throughout Aon as the most beautiful part of Westraven. Mostly occupied by engineers, architects, and Electricians, the buildings of the district were constructed of towering, whitewashed stones. Gleaming windows would reflect the sun and warm the pale grey cobblestone roads. Silver lampposts stood like slim trees on the shop corners, their bulbs shining like clear moons and lighting the entire block. The fountain depicting a dancing woman with a drooping scroll was placed in the Drafting Square, where monthly competitions used to be held for the best designed statue, the most effective electric current, and the quickest repair. Crowds would come in droves to watch the competitions. My parents always participated in the repairs, and would often win rewards of fancy dinners or free clothes from the wealthiest shops and restaurants in the market, and once even a trip to Meridia, the tropical, southern-most province of Aon.

Now, ten years later, I stood on the bow of a Hellion skiff, looking at the crumbled shops and apartments. White stone had become black with soot. Glass glittered under wind-swept dust, hiding most of the dark, crimson-stained cobblestones. The lampposts were tarnished and warped, some even knocked onto the street to block the roads. The fountain was shattered in heavy pieces, the dancing woman now a broken doll that would never be put back together again.