Chapter 10 #3
“Max?” I called out, but my voice was small against so much noise.
I ventured deeper into the underbelly of the ship, stepping up onto the small platform where the engine stood.
He wasn’t there, either, and apparently, he couldn’t hear me calling.
His coat and shirt, however, draped the handrail by the stairwell. He was down here somewhere.
The platform led to another set of steps, leading to the rear of the room. A wide pipe stretched behind the platform, disappearing behind a bunker for coal.
There, shoveling coal into a boiler making up part of the wall, Max worked with his back to me. If he knew I was behind him, he didn’t acknowledge me.
He threw another shovelful into the mouth of the raging fire burning inside the boiler and shut the hatch, taking a moment to catch his breath.
The smoke still blurred the details of him, but I could make out the outline of his shoulders tapering to his waist. He was exquisitely built.
Utterly different from most of the men I knew in the Fissures of Valveron.
Matthieu was an unlucky fisherman, but even after long days out on the volatile sea, he wasn’t as lean as the man before me. Now that the boiler was shut, the smoke dissipated, and I saw a different perspective of him than I had in the surgery.
Thick muscles bunched with each laborious breath. He ran a hand through his silver hair, separating the strands as they curled slightly from the nape of his neck. I was about to call his name again, but just as I parted my lips, the rest of the smoke cleared—and I could only gape.
His entire back was mangled, as if he’d been mauled by a wild beast at some point in his life.
I’d treated all kinds of abused bodies in my time, but his scars were unlike anything I’d seen before.
Thick, raised lines formed ridges that both ran parallel with his spine and cut across it.
As though he’d been torn apart and lazily stitched back together by a crude, unskilled hand.
My heart stumbled, and I retreated from the steps leading to the boiler. I’d crossed a line, seen something I shouldn’t have. And I’d dehumanized him, called him a beast, not knowing he’d been mutilated.
But as soon as my pulse filled my ears, his body froze. His shoulders fell, chin turned slightly to the side as if listening to the race of my heartbeat. I blinked—and he was gone.
I gasped and stumbled back to the ladder, but a blur of movement intercepted my path.
The incredible speed of a Cursed meant I didn’t see him until his hand wrapped around the nape of my neck from behind, fingers tugging at my hairline.
His free hand went to my forearm, pulling it back so that my shoulder was pinned against the heaving plane of his chest.
The plate in my hands fell and shattered across the metal platform.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” The question was sharp, almost panicked.
“I… I just brought you dinner!” A pause. His fingers loosened in my hair. “I owed you, remember?”
He hummed a deep sound before replying. “Dinner?” He kicked a piece of the porcelain with his boot. “Or did you just want a better look at me? Something else you can laugh at with your old man?”
“I’m sorry, I would never…” A sharp pain in my elbow stole the rest of my words. It was only a pinch, but it was a reminder of the strength he kept on a loose leash. “Max, you’re hurting me.”
“Keep away from me next time. If you ever sneak up on me again, I’ll show you hurt.”
His hold on me fell away, but I didn’t turn to face him. Instead, I kept my eyes toward the exit, bracing a hand against a pipe running across the inner belly of the ship.
“I am Cursed, Nina. You’ve seen what we can do to each other—what I can do.
I’m little more than the monster you think me to be.
” I looked over my shoulder in time to see him pulling his shirt over his head, tugging it down to his narrow hips and over the lines he’d meant to keep concealed.
Steam plumed from the vents in the floor, clouding my view of him.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I told him.
He scrubbed his sweating face with one hand, spreading coal across his cheek. “Your heart says otherwise.”
My heart was unconditioned for this, for whatever he was doing to me.
Even now, it felt like it would barrel through my ribs, and I pressed my palm against the tremble in my chest. Though my head tried to convince the rest of me that this was safe, that he wouldn’t hurt me, there was a thrill in my bones that wouldn’t surrender to logic alone.
His stare fell to the broken plate at my feet. “I’ll clean this up. Get out of here.”
“Max…”
“Just go, for hell’s sake.” The command came out ragged and worn. He moved slowly now that his back was covered, turning away and returning to the boiler.
I should have left it there and climbed the ladder, but my soft heart forced me to linger. I followed him into the boiler room.
“I’m sorry I startled you, but…” I debated if I should keep going, if he cared about a word that came out of my mouth, but it was important. If not for him, then to absolve myself of the horrible things I’d said before. “I hope whoever did that to you got what they deserved.”
I left quickly, before I could see his face again or hear the laugh he used to mock me. Thankfully, he let me go in peace. Maurice shouted my name from the back of the ship as I climbed the ladder, and I sent him a half wave to ward off his concerns.
It wasn’t until I returned to the cabin, replaying the interaction over and over, that I realized something I hadn’t at first glance. I knew those scar patterns. I’d seen them before, many times, though never so crude as they were on Max.
Older surgical techniques left heavy scars on many patients, though most people requiring such a major intervention were older than Max.
Those ladderlike scars were seen with frequent thoracic surgeries.
In Max’s case, it appeared as if he’d received large skin grafts as well, concealing the pattern.
It really did seem like he’d been torn apart and poorly stitched back together.
But why would a Cursed, with their exceptional healing and abilities, require anything like that? Whatever it was, he hadn’t wanted me to see, hadn’t wanted me to know. Maxence was ashamed of what had been done to him. And burning with rage.
Did the body trade have some connection to his scars? He’d said that his interest was personal.
Perhaps this wasn’t about answers at all. Perhaps we were more aligned than I’d first assumed. Perhaps we were fighting for the same goal.
Vengeance.