Pacifica

  “I do,” she said. “But it makes it worse. Shows you everything you can’t see. Just breathe. It’ll pass.”

  He’d never seen darkness like this. It seeped into his skin, filled his body. He felt the need to touch his arms and legs just to make sure they were still there.

  Marin’s hand settled between his shoulder blades. He struggled to push her back, but either he was too weak, or he didn’t really want her gone. Every quaking muscle flexed as he gripped the siding and kneeled on the bench, but she didn’t pull away.

  Wrung out, he rested his head on the cool plastic rim between his hands. She spread her fingers, just a tiny bit, but enough that Ross could feel.

  It was too quiet.

  “Say something,” he said.

  “I can tie twenty-seven kinds of knots, eyes closed,” she said. “Honest truth, right there.”

  He inhaled roughly.

  “My dad taught me,” she added.

  Something clunked against the side of the boat. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “He said I had my sea legs before I had my land legs.” She laughed quietly. “Once, he sailed straight into a hurricane just to outrun the Armament.”

  He squinted into the black, looking for any sign of civilization. He wouldn’t even be upset to see the Armament now, just so they wouldn’t be alone.

  She moved the heel of her hand a little, and he became more aware of heat from her skin, and her warm puffs of breath near his biceps. She was kneeling on the bench beside him.

  “Wind smashed his boat to pieces. They found him a hundred miles away on a piece of driftwood. He said a whale carried him there in its mouth.”

  He didn’t tell her this couldn’t be real. The sound of her voice was gritty and real and maybe he was the biggest idiot in the world, but when she talked, he wanted to hear more.

  “He sailed to all nine nations,” she continued. “Even Australia. Said it was so hot it burned a hole in the bottom of his boat.”

  Ross coughed, then laughed, then coughed again. He didn’t want to imagine holes in the bottom of anyone’s boat.

  “He saw ice once too,” she said. “Real ice. A chunk of it floating off the northern boundary of the Alliance.”

  He wondered what it would be like to see real ice, not in a glass or made into a sculpture at one of his father’s functions. Snow. Like in the old days.

  “What’d he do with it?” His voice sounded strange in the dark, or maybe he’d never really heard it without the distraction of sight. It was deeper than he’d thought, and so much more even and dull than hers.

  “Fished it out of the water,” she said. “Wrapped it in a blanket and brought it home to show me.”

  The pressure in Ross’s chest eased.

  “You saw it?”

  “I saw a sopping wet blanket,” she said with a snort. It was easy to picture for some reason. Easier than his own real memories of his father’s assistant delivering some special fruit or token from one of his trips.

  “Is he a pirate too?”

  Her hand slipped down his back, but he caught her wrist before she pulled away. He didn’t mean to say something wrong. He didn’t want her to go away.

  Her wrist turned in his loose grasp, and then he sat, and their fingers aligned on his thigh. Hers were small and slender, smooth calluses that gave way to the fragile bones of her knuckles.

  “He’s the pirate, terreno,” she said, her voice a little softer. “He’s the son of Finn Carey. Head of captain’s table. He makes the rules. He takes the tithes.”

  “What are those?” Her thumb trailed along the outside of his index finger, back and forth, like the motion of the waves. Her pinky hooked around his. It may have been only a small movement, but it anchored him, and slowed his thoughts.

  “What each person pays in order to stay on the island. Food, or metal, or fuel. Weapons. Whatever you can find. Like the rent money terrenos pay for their apartments.”

  “And if you don’t find anything to tithe?”

  “You’re sent away.” Her thumb went still, so he moved his, taking over where she had stopped, gently tracing the shape of her hand.

  “Forever?”

  “That’s right.”

  He thought of her again when he’d first seen her in the docks. She’d known her way around, known where to take them to find the healer. He’d assumed she was a Shoreling because she acted like she lived there.

  He might not have been wrong. If she’d been banished, she could have come to the docks for refuge.

  Resentment surged through him on her behalf. He couldn’t imagine a world where you got kicked out of your own home for not contributing.

  The boat was rocking steadily now, but the breeze was soft. He held his other hand in front of his face, but saw nothing.

  “So your father’s still on the island?”

  “Japanese recruited him to captain a big crew in Asian waters. Pretty dangerous stuff. Not exactly legal.”

  “Oh.”

  The boat tilted and rolled, in the same way it had earlier. She must have slowed down again, or maybe they had finally stopped.

  “Stupid guard back on that Armament ship stole the knife he gave me,” she said quietly.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he said, “I’m sorry,” and meant it.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said, and he could tell she meant it too.

  For a while they were both still, part of the silence, woven into the darkness. Was Adam out here in this same stretch of water? It seemed impossible he’d been gone a full day already.

  “He didn’t ask for this,” Ross said. “He didn’t ask to go to the riots that night. He didn’t ask to come to Central. He didn’t ask to get stuck with me, but he did. He’s the only real friend I’ve ever had, and now he’s gone, and it’s my fault.”

  Ross hadn’t said it out loud until that moment, and doing so felt like blowing out a breath he’d been holding too long. His shoulders sagged as he reheard every time someone at school had called Adam trawler. He remembered how Pruitt and the others had harassed him. How people had refused to sit by him after the riots had started, and how he’d taken speech lessons, and changed the way he’d dressed, just to blend in.

  He’d never blended in. And he shouldn’t have had to try.

  “We’ll find him,” she said.

  “I’ll get you the money,” he told her.

  He was squeezing her hand—he hadn’t even noticed until right then. She squeezed back, though, so maybe it was okay.

  For a long time they sat in silence, barely moving. Both clinging to promises he wasn’t sure they could keep.

  “Look,” she said. He wasn’t sure where she’d meant until she grabbed his face, and tilted his chin back.

  There, straight above them, was a patch of clear sky no bigger than his fist. Contained within it were stars, shockingly white and pulsing with life. They were more brilliant than anything he’d ever seen in photographs, or in the rare glimpses of the sky from the brightly lit city.

  It was only a small piece of a bigger picture, but it felt like a promise. He didn’t have to see the rest to know it was there.

  Her hand had fallen to his shoulder, and rested there, and for a short time he cleared his mind of everything but the stars in the sky and the warmth of her fingertips.

  CHAPTER 19

  MARIN TOLD herself the reason she was so handsy with the president’s son had everything to do with keeping him from going overboard again and nothing to do with the lightness she felt in her chest whenever they touched.

  Nothing about him made sense to her. This crazy quest for his friend. The way he’d busted her out of the cell on the Armament ship. She respected that kind of reckless bravery more than she cared to admit, but she didn’t expect it from someone like him.

  Maybe she should have.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “What do you have?”

  “If you’re asking that, you’re not all that hu
ngry.” She felt her way toward the red blinking light of the GPS, to the cabinet beneath the steering console. There, she pulled on the magnetic latch until it released, and felt through the compartment for a folded net. She’d made it herself—knotted twine and rope and plastic strips she’d pulled from the waves just like her father had taught her.

  “It doesn’t bother you?” His voice floated through the darkness. “Being out here at night, I mean.”

  Net in hand, she crossed back in his direction, reaching out to find his knee. His muscles stiffened beneath her touch.

  “Sometimes it does,” she admitted. “Look over there. In the water.”

  Over the siding was a school of fish, none larger than her hand, and all glowing a pale green.

  “What are those?” he asked, as if they might jump aboard and strangle him.

  “Moonfish,” she said. “They only come to the surface on clear nights.”

  “Why are they that color?” he asked. “They look radioactive.”

  “Maybe that’s why I have webbed toes.”

  He was silent.

  “That was a joke, terreno.”

  The noise he made was disbelieving at best.

  “What does that mean?” he asked as she pulled back the net. “Terreno.”

  She felt her lips perk up in a smile. “Dirt-born. Land-loving. Fat and rich and scared of the water.” Not born in the trash, like her.

  “I’m not fat,” he said, and she laughed before she caught herself.

  It was easy enough netting them; she pulled up five on her first swipe. What came after was harder. Without a knife to clean them, she ended up killing them with the heel of her boot, skewering them on a clean oil rod, and then broiling them on the Bunsen burner in the galley.

  “Hold out your hand,” she said. He bumped into her forearm, and she passed him a flaky chunk of warm fish. “They’re better with salt.”

  He didn’t complain.

  Her eyes roamed the horizon for lights, any sign of an Armament ship on their tail. When she saw only blackness, she rose, and got him some rainwater she’d caught in a cup. It tasted faintly acidic, but it wouldn’t kill them.

  She could hear him crunching, and told him to watch out for the bones.

  “My dad brought me out on a night like this once,” she said. “We spent hours looking for that space shuttle Asia sent up.” She remembered how excited he’d been when he’d come back from the mainland with the news. The way he kept telling her he’d spotted it. How she’d strained her eyes and searched the clouds until she’d convinced herself she could see that tiny bright speck in the sky too.

  “They lost contact with it,” said Ross. “It was supposed to set up a colony on Mars, but they didn’t hear back after the first month. No one had the funds to send up a rescue mission.”

  She stared at where she thought he was. “Are you always so cheerful?”

  “Only when I’m on the verge of certain death,” he said.

  She thought maybe he was the one joking now. Whatever the case, she peered into the distance again for any unwanted visitors—not just the Armament. They were entering corsario waters. The closer they got to the gyre, the closer they came to Careytown, and without the money she’d get from this job, she had nothing to barter her own life—or his—with.

  They would search the outskirts of the gyre for this place, but they would not enter those swirling currents. If they were pulled in too far, they’d find themselves at the center, at her island, and certain death might be more accurate than he thought.

  “I’d like to see the stars,” he said, pulling her back. “I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid.”

  It was kind of a disappointment to think that colony had never started. That night with her dad, they’d talked about what it would have been like to move to another planet. He’d told her there were lakes on Mars where she could sail. She’d liked the thought of that. Sailing on another world.

  Their knees were touching. Neither of them backed away. Even if it wasn’t true, right then they felt like the only two people in the whole ocean.

  “I’d like to see snow,” she said. “Or a peacock. I’ve never seen a peacock.”

  “A peacock? Like the bird?”

  “Yeah, like the bird. I saw a picture of one once.” She’d wanted to make a sail as beautiful as the tail feathers. Stupid. She’d probably be laughed off the water.

  He gave a short hum. “I saw one once. In a preservation near Calgary.”

  “What’s a preservation?” she asked.

  He crunched for another moment. “A place where they keep animals that are almost extinct.”

  “They don’t eat each other?”

  “They’re in separate cages.”

  “Do you eat them?”

  “No,” he said. “No, you just … look at them.”

  “So it’s jail for animals?”

  “Sort of,” he said. “It’s for their protection.”

  “Is that why you’re getting rid of the Shorelings?” she asked. “For their protection?”

  He was quiet for another long while. So quiet she could practically hear him thinking.

  He shifted. “No one’s forcing anyone to go. Anyway, it’s supposed to be nice there.”

  “Then why aren’t people on your side of the cliffline lining up to get a ticket?”

  “We don’t have the same problems.” When she groaned, he added, “The power blackouts and broken pipes, I mean. They’re being moved so they can have a better life.”

  In the light she would have laughed—people only got exiled when someone was trying to get rid of them—but the dark had stripped away her rough edges, and all she could think of was Hiro telling her they deserved better.

  “Do the peacocks have a better life?”

  She doubted it if they were stuck in cages.

  “I’m not sure anyone asked them,” he answered.

  She crossed her arms, leaning back against the siding and feeling proud of herself.

  “Well, I never heard of a preservation before,” she said, thinking about all the things he’d probably done and seen that she had only dreamed about. Hating that she sort of wanted to see his stupid preservation, even if the peacock was in a cage.

  “I’ve never been on a sailboat before,” he said.

  “You don’t say.”

  He snorted.

  The water lapped against the side of the boat. Five years since she’d been out this far, and it felt like she’d never been gone.

  Her shoulders relaxed. “I’ve never eaten a real orange. Just the canned stuff.”

  “I’ve never eaten a radioactive moonfish.”

  “You’re already glowing a little.” She smirked when he choked. “I’ve never been busted from an Armament brig before.”

  Her cheeks warmed.

  “I’ve never rescued anyone before,” he said. “I guess we’re both amateurs. Maybe we should consult a handbook.”

  “Like that would help,” she said, giving him a light shove. “I could sail us halfway across the world before you got through the first page.”

  He fell quiet. Maybe it was dark and she couldn’t see him looking, but he was, and that stare burned hot as coals.

  “What does that mean?” He laughed, the way people did when something wasn’t even a little funny. “I can read, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “It’s not that big a deal,” she said. “I know lots of guys who can’t.” Most of the corsarios, actually. Even her mom could only recognize a dozen or so words, and they all pertained to stolen crates hauled into her kitchen.

  “Yeah, but they’re…”

  “They’re what?”

  She felt the air fill her chest and hold. Whatever game they’d been playing was over.

  “I go to Center Academy,” he said. “It’s the best in the nation.”

  “Well, look at you,” she said. “I go to Center.” She mimicked his voice again, and he groaned. “Tell me, Mr. Pr
esident’s son, is it hard having everything?”

  “A little,” he admitted.

  “Is that why you went to the riots? To feel better about yourself? Play poor for a night?”

  That shut him up. But for some reason, she regretted saying it.

  “I just wanted to be someone else for a little while, you know?” he finally said. “Being Roosevelt Torres gets old.”

  She snorted. “Your name is Roosevelt?”

  Now he chuckled.

  “After this old president my dad idolized.”

  One hand covered her mouth, but the laughter slipped through. “If that was my name, I’d want to be somebody else too.”

  “Thanks.”

  Their laughter built, swelled, ebbed.

  Normally she didn’t mind the quiet, but now a strange longing pulled at her to keep talking. She wanted to hear more about the things he’d never done, and maybe the things he had done too. It felt like she was a child again, staring up at the night sky, imagining a world beyond the stars.

  He passed her the cup. She took a sip.

  “It’s not that I can’t read.” His voice was quieter, like he was facing the other way. “I just mix up the letters. It’s not like you have to read now anyway. Everything has audio adaptation.”

  “Except for the directions on the wall of the Armament ship. And the label on the dirty water below deck.” Her father had spent hours teaching her each letter, and the sounds they made when they fit together. How much she had practiced when he went away, just so she could show him her progress when he came back.

  “Except for those.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve never told anybody that before. I guess Adam probably knows, but he’s never said anything.”

  She was glad it was dark then, because she never would have been able to live down the look on her face. No one had ever trusted her with something like that before. It felt like she was glowing from the inside. Like she was holding something worth defending, and it made her fierce, and sad, and proud, that her corsario father gave her something even the richest man in the Alliance couldn’t give his son.

  “So what’s your secret?” he asked.