Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,44
hands were twisted in the apron tied around her waist and her bottom lip was trapped between her teeth. Her tortured expression was all Sledge needed to understand who she’d lost, whose name she was desperate for him to speak.
One look at Sledge’s face told them all what they didn’t want to know.
“I’m sorry, Princelet,” Sledge said. “Amina’s not here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Reports arrived long into the night. In the galley of the Luminous Wake, Caledonia and Pisces received representatives from the thirteen crews who’d made it safely to the Bone Mouth. While Far served fresh teaco to every new visitor, the rest of the crew had been tasked with getting some rest before their work began anew in the morning.
With each new report, Caledonia’s understanding of the evacuation gained detail, and the tally of individual survivors grew to four hundred and nine. Last to arrive was Ennick. He strode into the room with a grim nod of thanks to Far for the teaco. Pisces shifted in her seat, catching Caledonia’s eye with a wary expression.
“It’s good to see you, Captain.” There was no hesitation to his words, no suggestion of guilt or wrongdoing. He met Caledonia’s gaze straight on. “We are all relieved to have you back with us.”
“It’s a relief to see so many survivors,” Caledonia answered, searching his expression for some sign of deceit. Had he betrayed them and let the bombs into Cloudbreak? Not long ago, she’d have believed it instantly. Now, though, her reactions were tempered, cautious, even trusting. “How did you escape?”
Ennick set his teaco aside and folded his hands together, bracing his forearms against his knees as he began to tell his story. “Most of my crew was asleep when the bombs went off, but several made it to the lifts before they went down. We thought we were preparing for a seaborne attack.” He paused to shake his head, eyes focusing on the recent past. “By the time I was on deck, the boulders were falling. We got out with a handful of others and sailed directly here.”
It was one of two stories they’d been hearing all night. One set of ships made it out just before the boulders fell, the others were all Red Fleet and had been docked in the northern canals. If anyone made it out after the stronghold crumbled, they weren’t here yet.
“And before that,” Pisces began, taking the lead on the interrogation so Caledonia didn’t have to. “Were you at the intake station when Amina and Hime took a crew into custody?”
“I was.” Ennick’s eyes darted swiftly from Caledonia to Pisces. “Were those two involved?”
“There were others as well.” The note of accusation in Pisces’s voice was unmistakable.
“Already inside the city?” Ennick’s eyebrows arched in alarm, then crashed again almost as quickly. “And you want to know if I was responsible for letting them in.”
“We do,” Pisces confirmed, and for the first time her discomfort left her steely demeanor frayed around the edges.
The man nodded as though the question were unsurprising even if it was disappointing. He studied the floor as he collected his thoughts, then drew himself up as though resolved to something unpleasant and spoke again. “Intake was my team, and if that’s how the bombs got in, then it was my fault.”
“Do you know what a pulse bomb is?” Pisces asked.
“Pulse bombs? I—” Ennick’s expression grew slack as he reconciled what he’d seen with what he knew of the bombs that destroyed Cloudbreak. The evidence was there on his face: he knew what pulse bombs were, and now he knew that he’d let their components pass through unhindered. “Hell. It was my fault,” he said, defeated.
“You did see them?” Caledonia asked.
“I know what those parts look like. I should have recognized them, but I didn’t,” he said, voice heavy with regret. He raised his head and cast a slow gaze from Pisces to Caledonia. “I left that life behind long ago, but if my ignorance led us here, then I will accept your punishment.”
He made no attempt to defend himself, but his response also revealed a ready well of remorse. And remorse suggested loyalty. In the deepest pockets of Caledonia’s mind, her mistrust of Bullets argued that this was all a ploy to win her trust and convince her to keep the traitor in her midst. It would be so easy to let that voice win, especially right now when they’d been defeated so painfully.
But the world she was fighting for was a world in which