Chapter 7
7
Marcelis
I’m Toorin. And you have something that belongs to me .
I had his heart. My heart raced as the words sunk in. I started to struggle. My arm slammed into the wall instead of the abdomen of the man holding me. I’d wanted to find my donor, but not like this.
Not when he could take it back and leave me for dead.
Clearly, I hadn’t thought this through.
“Hold him,” Toorin said. “You’re going to wake everyone.”
“I’m trying,” the man holding me said, “he’s a lot stronger than he looks.”
Probably all thanks to my new heart. I had to admit it had served me well so far.
The girl rushed back and whisper-shouted, “If you don’t want all of the chancellor guard to rain down on us, you need to shut him up.”
I struggled harder. Keon wouldn’t kill me, but Toorin might.
One of the other men stepped over and pressed his fingers on either side of my neck. My vision starred at the periphery, and a familiar lethargy overcame my muscles, which had been the norm for me before the surgery. I didn’t know what else to do, so I continued to struggle, knowing I’d likely pass out.
I just didn’t know if I’d wake up again.
Toorin
I had Juniper and Lyric run point as Darwin hoisted an unconscious Toft across his shoulders and carried him to the wharf. I kept Bodie with me to do the whole knock-him-out-without-killing-him thing again if needed. Besides, I was not letting Toft out of sight now that I had him.
All the way down to the wharf, through the now quiet alleys and shifting shadows, I wondered why Toft was running from one of his sire’s men. It couldn’t be good, and it would be too dangerous to wait on land to find out. At least on the Lark, Toft’s shouts would unlikely be heard from the shore, and there were enough boats in port that it would take days to search them all.
Besides, we’d see them coming and could set sail if we had to.
The Lark wasn’t the fastest boat in the water, but I knew the chancellor didn’t have a fleet of boats ready to give chase.
At the water’s edge, Juniper jumped into the dinghy and sat at one of the pair of oars while Lyric held the dinghy in knee-deep water. Toft groaned on Darwin’s shoulder, but he was pretty out of it when Darwin dumped him at the bottom of the boat before we all climbed in.
Darwin took the other set of oars, and he and Juniper rowed for the Lark. Toft stirred, but I kept my eye on him. We were near the boat when Toft bolted upright as if Juniper had poked him in the ass with her blade.
He went from lying in a heap on the bottom of the dinghy to running.
Running right over the side of the dinghy.
“That’s not good,” Juniper said, dipping her oars in the water to slow our speed.
Toft sputtered and flailed on the surface, the churned water catching the moonlight.
Darwin jumped in after him, coming to the surface, coughing and sputtering. “I can’t… swim.”
Apparently, neither could Toft.
Moon and mars and the stars .
Lyric dove in after Darwin, which I totally understood. But that left Toft to sink below the surface. I left Darwin to Lyric, the dinghy with Juniper and Bodie, and dove in. I didn’t find the man who had my heart, only to let him sink to the bottom of the bay.
I hit the water in the exact spot where Toft had disappeared, kicking and kicking as the water pressure built against my eardrums. The whirring got louder than I’d ever heard it before. My lungs hitched, craving air, but I'd never find Toft if I didn’t keep going.
My lungs convulsed again, and I fought the burning need to take a breath. If I continued, I could drown. If I turned back, my faulty mechanical heart would kill me.
I kicked and kicked and kicked.
A hand.
I locked wrists with Toft’s limp arm and swam for the surface. In the darkness, I could barely tell which way was up. I saw a spot where the water wasn’t quite so dark and swam for it, my lungs convulsing the entire way.
My face punched through the surface, and I took in the biggest lungful of air I’d ever taken. I coughed up water as Bodie swam over, taking Toft’s arm and hauling him to the surface.
“Got him,” Bodie said. “He’s not breathing. Help me get him aboard.”
I tried to swim and help Bodie get Toft on the dinghy, but my arms and legs refused to respond, and all I could do was float there, catching my breath.
Someone grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and slapped a rope in my hand. “Hold on. We’ll come back for you.” It was Lyric.
I craned my neck to watch as Bodie handed Toft up to Darwin, who’d already climbed into the dinghy. Bodie and Lyric hauled themselves in next and pulled the dinghy up the side of the Lark as if pirates were on their tail.
I wrapped my wrist around the rope, the coarse strands biting my skin. I floated, the small waves rolling under me. I shivered, my body heat leaching out into the frigid water, sapping what little strength remained.
My eyes drifted closed.
Was Toft alive?
Or by kidnapping him, had I doomed myself to an early grave?
“Hold on,” came Bodie’s voice from above.
Overhead, the dinghy thumped against the side of the Lark. The reverberations traveled down through the hull, into the water, and into my body. The hoist pulleys squeaked. I needed to get some camel grease on them before they rusted away.
The dinghy hit the water, splashing me in the face. Hands reached over, locking wrists with mine. “Let go of the rope, Toor. Let go. I’ve got you.”
I let go, fully expecting to sink below the surface, but Bodie and Lyric had me and somehow dragged my limp body over the side without tipping us over. I was no help.
I collapsed to the bottom, hitting my head, but the pain was brief. After the whole left for dead thing with only three pain pills and a long trek back to what remained of civilization, it gave me a whole new perspective on what actually hurt.
“Is… is he breathing?” I was afraid to ask and more afraid of the answer.
“Darwin and Juniper are working on him,” Bodie said.
Though weakened, I noticed Bodie hadn’t answered my question.
Marcelis
“Wake up.” Someone patted my cheek, and I coughed and coughed. They rolled me to my side, and I coughed again, then vomited a stomach full of water.
Moon and mars and the stars . What happened?
“He’s alive,” the same voice said. It wasn’t Toorin. I would never mistake that man’s voice for any other. It had seared itself into my brain. An indelible mark, or a scar, maybe.
I didn’t feel very alive. My body shivered, and I don’t remember ever being so cold, which included late winter storms with the winds battering my room in the tower.
My arms and legs were as bendy as rubber, and I struggled to open my eyes, only for water to dribble into them. What the—
The toe of a boot tapped the bottom of my foot, and I don’t know how I knew it was Toorin, but I did.
I glanced up to see Toorin, completely soaking wet and dripping on the floor, but… wait… why could I see the moon? I rose on an elbow, the floor swaying beneath me. No, not a floor. A deck. A deck of a boat.
“Where am I?”
“The TigerLark,” Toorin said. “You tried to walk on water. Surprise, you can’t.”
I coughed, and more water came up.
“And apparently, you can’t swim either. You almost drowned.” Toorin added it as if it would be a surprise to me.
“I didn’t get much of a chance at the residence.” I rolled onto my knees. My lungs ached, and I had a rattle at the bottom of them as if all the water hadn’t cleared. Raising my head, I locked eyes with Toorin. “You say that like I should thank you for saving my life when you’re the one who knocked me out and threw me on a boat.”
“It was a dinghy. And Bodie was the one who knocked you out. Not me.”
“Same difference.” Backtalk like that in front of my sire would have had Toorin permanently banned from the settlement. But clearly, we weren’t in the settlement anymore. And I wasn’t my sire. I managed to pull myself to my feet using the side of the boat for support. “What do you want from me?”
Toorin stepped close and pressed a finger to the center of my chest. Then tapped it, hitting the scar that ran the length of my sternum. “I thought I made that clear. I want my heart back.”
The girl behind him had her hand on the hilt of her blade as if she were ready to use it to carve his heart out of my chest if only he’d give her the word. But that’s not how these things worked. If he wanted to survive, he needed me. And a doctor. A very special kind of doctor.
And I might be the only one who could get him to one.
My eyes shifted to the girl and Toorin’s men, who were all as wet and shivering as he and I were. “And how do you think you will make that happen?”
Toorin opened his mouth, but no words came out. He glanced at the girl. Juniper? I think. She raised her hands. “Don’t look at me.”
“Take him down to a cabin,” Toorin said. Two of his men took me by the arms, not that I had any fight left in me to make the job any harder. Plus, I was on a boat in the middle of the bay. As I had already proven, I couldn’t swim. So it wasn’t like I could make a run for it.
They dumped me in a dark room, or whatever you called it, on a boat. The distinct sound of a bar dropping in front of the door told me I couldn’t escape. At least not that way. I couldn’t drum up the energy to explore. I lay there on the floor, curled around myself, shivering.
I fell in and out of sleep or consciousness. I wasn’t too sure which. My chattering teeth woke me before footsteps at the door alerted me that I wasn’t alone. Then came the scraping sounds as the bar across the door lifted, and the door opened.
A simple camel-fat lantern blinded me to who stood behind it. I wasn’t scared that they’d kill me anytime soon. They wouldn’t have saved me from drowning if they’d wanted me dead.
Besides, I had something their captain desperately wanted, and all I had to do was find a way to stay alive long enough to escape.
Escape and go where? You set out looking for Toorin. Now you found him. Or he found you . Now, what are you going to do about it?
Good question. I didn’t have an answer.
A soft thud hit the deck boards beside me. “Dry clothes. Put them on before you freeze.”
It was Toorin. I hadn’t expected him to tend to me himself. Water didn’t drip from him, so he must have changed into dry clothes.
I boosted myself up and leaned against what I could now see was the side of a raised bed. I tugged and pulled on my heavy, water-soaked clothes but couldn’t pull my shirt over my head.
Toorin grumbled under his breath, setting the lantern out of reach and taking the hem of my shirt in hand. Now that my clothes were wet, they smelled worse than when Thyle handed them to me.
Toorin gagged as he pulled it off. “Don’t you believe in washing clothes in the settlement?”
“My cart boy bought them off a beggar. He thought they’d help me blend in.”
Toorin retched again. “What were you running from?”
“I wasn’t running from as much as I was running to .”
Should I tell him the real reason I’d run from Toonu? I didn’t know if it would help my case or hurt it. In the end, I decided to be honest. “I came to find you.”
Toorin pulled my shirt over my head as if he hadn’t heard me. Or maybe he didn’t care.
He already had me.
In his book, that was probably all that mattered.
Instead of replying to that revelation, he said, “Can you get your trousers off?”
I hooked my thumbs in the waistband, my arms shaking and gooseflesh colonizing every inch of my skin. But I had no strength to raise my hips and push them down. After several attempts, I had to admit defeat. “No.”
Toorin crouched beside me. The lantern sat behind him, casting him mostly in shadows. But that close, I couldn’t help getting a good look at him. Despite what had been taken from him and his threats, it didn’t overshadow the compassion I saw in his eyes as he stared at the long scar running up my chest.
He raised the hem of his shirt, the oblique light hitting the peaks of the rough scar, leaving the valleys in stark shadows. I reached out, my hand shaking. I didn’t know I intended to touch him until I did. I ran the tip of my finger down the long scar, the dips and puckers a sharp contrast to my smooth scar.
He sucked in a breath but didn’t flinch.
I had no words, so I didn’t say anything. My finger dropped away at the bottom, and whatever spell had fallen between us broke.