15 AURORA #2
“A minute is all we need,” Tally nods, apparently mapping out the timeline in his head.
“London, you and Francois take the dinghy. We drop it from our stern a quarter-mile out. You use the oars—no engine noise—and slip right under the starboard exhaust where their radar can’t track the wood hull.
Francois cuts the wire, and you get Sky. ”
“And what are the rest of us doing?” I ask, looking at Tally's frowning face.
“Me and you are the loud part, Rory,” Tally says, a fierce lethality in his eyes. “We take the jet boat, have the music blaring, make them think we’re drunk, partying idiots. We draw every guard and every gun to the port side of the ship.”
“And if they open fire on us?” I ask, trying not to let any nervousness be heard in my voice. But truthfully, it sounds like we’ll be sitting ducks.
“They can fire, but they’ll have a job to hit us,” Tally growls, his hand slipping around my waist possessively. “This boat is fast, and the fog is thick.”
“I’ll go with grandad and weirdo,” Basil says, trying to stand up on his wrapped foot before immediately wincing and sinking back down. “I know where everything is and you twats don’t have the first idea.”
Tally looks at him. “You think your ankle is ready for that? Seems like a stretch.”
“Fucking fuck,” Basil grumbles, slamming a fist against the vinyl bench. “Can you at least get me a proper gun or a knife while you’re in there?”
“Will do, Fuckwad,” London agrees. “The stabbiest one I can find.”
Gods. Is this going to work? The plan is tenuous at best, based on guesses.
At least we have Francois’s Basilisk, and Tally’s wolf jaws.
“We can do this,” I say, more to myself than anyone else. “Sky needs us.”
Basil turns his face toward the dark water. I feel terrible for the kid. Here we are doing everything we can to rescue our friend, but is anyone searching for him?
“We’ll be approaching The Carnivàle in about fifty minutes,” Francois tells us, his voice cutting through my thoughts. “So start brainstorming all the possible permutations of this excursion. As Baudelaire said, ‘nothing can be done except little by little.’”
Basil pokes me hard in the arm. “Are we really taking advice from a French douche-bag who looks too posh to own an asshole?”
“Yes, Basil, we are.”
He huffs down into his oversized life jacket.
Gods, he could have easily been taken to the superyacht with the others—and we would have rescued Sky and left Basil behind.
A cold, heavy weight settles right into the center of my stomach.
“We have to save them all,” I say. “Sky and any other kid on there.” My voice tightens as I look between Tally and Francois. “We can’t leave them to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. No way.”
Tally’s jaw clenches so hard a muscle leaps in his cheek.
“Rory… look at the size of this craft. Look at the dinghy.
We're five people, one of them with a busted ankle.
If we try to load thirty or forty drugged, panicking kids into a pleasure boat in the middle of a probable gun-battle, we'll get everyone killed. Including Sky.”
“He is right,” Francois agrees, his voice the tone of bleak realism. “Logistically, an evacuation of that scale requires a vessel we do not possess. We cannot save them all. Not today.”
“So we just let them go?” I demand. It’s so wrong. “We're no better than the traffickers if we just turn our backs.”
“Yeah, she’s fucking right,” Basil curses. “But whatever, who cares about slum kids? No one.”
My heart twists. I want to tell him that I care. That he is absolutely invaluable. That he’s smart and brave and we will never abandon him.
But I don’t.
He won’t believe me. The boy needs actions, not words, to make him trust us.
I glance at Tally, his brow is furrowed. It’s the look he gets when he’s thinking fiercely. “You’ve an idea?” I ask.
He nods. “We don't need to carry them off the boat to stop the auction. We just got to keep the boat from moving away. So we destroy the engine, then they're stranded. As soon as we hit the shore, we call the authorities.”
Basil nods, his expression still wary. “Better than nothing I guess. Those douches can wreck the fuel lines or smash the main drive shaft before they grab your friend."
A slow, dangerous grin spreads across London’s face, his green eyes flashing with beautiful, chaotic malice. “Oh, young Fuckwad, there are so many ways to sabotage that big shiny tub. I’ll leave it like a sitting duck that can’t swim or fly.”
“And the cops will find a crippled slave-ship floating right in the middle of a crime scene,” Tally grunts, satisfaction entering his tone.
I let out a long, shaky breath, the suffocating guilt in my chest loosening just a tiny bit. We won’t be able to make sure each kid gets to safety, but at least this plan gives them a fighting chance.
“Alright,” I say, nodding sharply as I lock eyes with Francois then London. “Extract Sky, wreck the engines, and get out.”
London starts up singing a sea shanty, adjusting the throttle as the jet boat cuts deeper into the deep, dark water, spraying a fine mist of freezing brine over us all.
Soon.
Soon we’ll be putting our lives on the line for a girl who is worth every risk—and a ship full of kids who all deserve to be rescued too. I slump back against the bench, as a wave of emotion hits me so hard it takes my breath away.
For seventeen years, my life has been a lesson in isolation and survival. I was the princess, hidden away behind high walls and ironclad expectations. The only person I could truly trust was myself.
Until I went to Quo, I hadn’t even imagined another way.
I’d yearned to be away from my father, and Thomas Crankshawe, but my escape fantasies always ended with me living by myself in a fortress where no one could get to me. The doors would remain locked from the inside.
I didn't need friends, family, lovers or whatever.
When I imagined myself in that private penthouse fortress, the highlight was always being able to do whatever I chose. Watching movies. Reading books. Eat a cake.
Alone, alone, alone.
No conversations. I had no desire to learn other people’s stories. I didn’t want any arms wrapped around me. I didn’t want to forsake my liberty for anything.
And I certainly didn’t want a ragtag group of misfits and dangerous men muscling-in on freedom.
But look at me now.
The dream ahead is renting a tumbledown apartment and squeezing all the misfits in with me. It will be loud, chaotic, messy.
And I’d welcome being embraced.
Loved.
For the first time in my entire existence, I feel truly, fiercely, devastatingly alive. My thoughts spin, tumbling through the chaotic, breathless sequence of the last couple of months.
Steak knives in guts, London, Quo, Gleb, Tally, Layla, the North Gym, Sky, Francois.
Tally’s bruising kisses, desperate alpha hunger that promised to tear the world apart just to keep me breathing.
London’s beautiful sweetness that made me want to laugh and weep all at once.
And finally, Francois—the beautiful, cold, arrogant Frenchman whose sudden passion brought me to my knees.
Those three men have demolished every last piece of wall around my heart, releasing a rushing, roaring torrent of heat that is currently flooding every single vein in my body. My magic spark might still be sluggish, but my heart?
My heart is wide awake.
And now I’ve stopped fighting it, I know Francois is made for me, just as London and Tally are. Those weird threads inside me sing with happiness to have the three of them around me.
I’ll never be alone again, and I don’t want to be.
Fuck, I want the same for Sky so badly—this plan has to succeed.
But we’re running on stolen fuel, a twelve-year-old’s street-smarts, and determination. Is that going to be enough?
As I look at the mismatched, beautiful team surrounding me, the fear completely vanishes, replaced by a cold, hard, lethal determination.
Let them bring their guns. Let them bring their ‘peacekeepers’.
We're coming for Sky, and Gods help anyone who stands in our way.