Midnight Sky (Dark Sky Book 2) (24 page)

We brought the Palisade back up, which thankfully was fully charged. We didn’t take our time with it. We pushed it to full power and sent out a huge bolt of lightning. The air in this other world was much more conductive. The lightning streaked through the sky, cutting through the clouds like cracks in the pavement. It reacted to anything it touched, stabbing bolts onto the monsters’ ship. The sound of their screams… I’ll never forget that sound for the rest of my life.

The marauders saw what was going on and retreated, the cowards. We stayed. The Sky Guard continued to open fire, blasting at all of their ships. The Palisade suddenly overloaded. The conductors broke and the central filament snapped. We blew both the generators. There simply wasn’t a way to keep that amount of power going. I don’t know if it can be fixed.

But by then the battle was over. The monster ships were crashing. The marauders were gone. So many lives were lost today, and we gained nothing. We’re sailing home tomorrow. I’m glad. I thought this would be a sign of something good to come. But it’s become a disaster. I don’t know why I was so thrilled about this. We never ever considered finding new life on this expedition. I never thought that Joel and I would be the ones to end so much of it.
 

How could we have been so blind?

Joel is sleeping right now. The entire day exhausted him. I need to be there with him. He’s my only anchor right now. I should have listened to his concerns before taking this job. I just hope Claire never finds out about this.
 

–––––––

Nov 1836

They came back. Have to be fast. Breach wasn’t closed. How stupid could we have been! We didn’t even think about it! Thought they were dead! Have to find a way to stop them. Have to protect Claire. My new baby. Abigail. Have to fix this. Have to fi

***

The journal felt heavy in my hands. I didn’t know what to do with it. Part of me knew I had the answers. The other part of me wanted to throw it across the room, and never look at it again.

“They started it,” Gemma whispered. “The explorers, the people on the
Meridian
, the marauders… They all started it. If they didn’t make that damn machine, they never would have found the Hellions.” She roared and pushed the metal toolboxes off the table. They clattered angrily on the floor and made me jump.

“It’s their fault! They couldn’t leave well enough alone!”

“The Hellions attacked them–” I tried.

“They tried to make them
leave!
” Gemma shouted back at me. “If they just left, the marauders never would have gone in! The Hellions would have left us alone!”

“There was no way anyone could have known what would happen,” Sawyer reasoned, though I heard the shake in his voice. I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or fear. “It wasn’t–”

“Don’t defend them!” she screamed. “Your father and brother came in guns blazing. They killed the Hellions, then ran when Claire’s parents finished the job.” She turned her angry gaze on me. “Damn good job they did, too. Two years later, the Hellions came back for revenge. And they got it.”

I dropped my head, blinking away the tears I didn’t want her to see. Ever since The Storm, I fought for my parents. I told everyone I knew that they had done no wrong, that it was the Hellions who ruined our lives, that the Discovery was an accident, but the humans were never the ones to blame.

A lie. All of it a lie.

“Gem,” Nash soothed, “calm down.”

She whirled on him. “Why? Why should I?”

“Because we’re trying to change it!” Sawyer yelled. “What the hell do you think we’ve been doing all this time? Our parents screwed up, and we have to fix it. Stop complaining about things that can’t be undone.”

Gemma’s balled fists shook at her sides. Nash stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders, either to comfort or restrain her. Sawyer glared right back, anger rippling from him in waves. I didn’t think he would ever hurt Gemma, but he was seconds away from snapping.

She shot me a black look. “Tell me you can do what they wanted. Tell me you can fix this.”

Every excuse I made died on my lips. I had been confident before, but now… Now I didn’t know. If I somehow installed the Volt into the Palisade, maybe it could recharge enough energy to power up again and reverse the process. But even if I could make the necessary repairs, even if I could bring the Palisade to the Breach and use an electric charge to close it, the chances of failure were high.
 

I didn’t know the Palisade had been used as a weapon. I didn’t know how its primary components worked yet. I didn’t even know if I would find the right materials to fix it.

“I’ll do my best,” I ended up saying.

Gemma narrowed her eyes. “Not good enough.”

“That’s all I can give,” I told her. “If I do everything right, if we’re lucky, it will still take months. I’m not my parents. I might not be able to get all the materials they used. This could take years, Gemma.”

The answer repulsed her. I imagined she wanted to hit me instead of Sawyer now.
 

“Arguing over who did or didn’t do something isn’t going to get us anywhere,” said Riley. I’d been so distracted that I didn’t even notice how close he’d gotten to me. “Sawyer is right. We can’t change mistakes other people made. We have to deal with what we have now, and to do that, we need to help Claire.”

He turned to me and smiled, taking my hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. I slowly relaxed.

“You can fix this machine, Claire. I know you can.”

He was right. I had come too far, sacrificed too much, to give up now. If my parents had found a way to open the Breach, I could find a way to close it.

“What kind of materials do you need? Are we going to have to get the
Meridian
back in the air?”
 

I looked at Sawyer, who sounded like he had to grind the words out of his mouth.

“No. The Stray Dogs had pulley systems in the Crater.” I watched Sawyer rub at his temple, pieces of dried blood flaking off while he grimaced, likely thinking about the pulleys that lowered a Hellion in the Crater to attack him. “Once the Palisade is repaired, I’ll find a way to power it down and we can create some sort of rigging system.” I smiled weakly. “Or we can find some explosives and blow a hole in the side of the ship.”

Sawyer blinked, though he probably intended to roll his eyes first. “And you tell me not to call you Firecracker.”
 

I glared at him, which took some of the tension out of his eyes.
 

“I need tools,” I said. “Any and all that can be found. Generators, wires, anything that could be magnetized.” I glanced at the tungsten blue lights illuminating the room. “There must be some kind of electron-cell or external energy source that I can jerry-rig for more power. I’ll have to find a way to magnetize the electric beam. That might give me a better chance at controlling it and directing it to the Breach.”

I didn’t even know what I was saying. I was throwing ideas into the wind, concepts that could fail disastrously if I made a mistake. It was impossible to know what would happen until we got to the Breach, but we couldn’t do that until most of the repairs to the filaments, conductors, and generators were made and we found a way to transport the entire machine.
 

“Then let’s go scavenging.”

We trudged out of the room behind Sawyer. Even Gemma, who seemed to relax for now. I dragged my feet after them, slowing down when I felt Riley’s hand on my shoulder.
 

“It’s not your fault, Claire. It never was.”

“Then why does it hurt?” Why did my heart feel like lead?

He turned me so I was facing him, staring into kind blue eyes and a smile that warmed every inch of me.
 

“Because you care. You want to do the right thing.” His smile wavered. “But the right thing is never easy, and sometimes it doesn’t take the form you think it will.” He squeezed my shoulder, digging his fingers in. “Sometimes you have to make choices you think you’ll regret for the good of those you love.”

His words were wise and honest, but I didn’t understand them.

“What do you mean?”

He considered me with a strange look, one I’d never seen from him before. At first I thought it was sadness. Then I realized it was pity. Guilt, and not for me.

Before I could ask him what he was really thinking, I heard the scream. The terrible, piercing shriek of a Hellion.
 

I whirled around at the same time the human screams started. Thirty feet away, one of the Stray Dogs was being dragged into the shadows by one of the monsters. Three more pounced on the rest of the large men, tearing their backs to strips and ripping chunks of flesh from their necks. When the blood began to spray, they pushed their faces into it and drank their fill.

Sawyer, Nash, and Gemma started running back, shouting for the other Dogs to follow. One of them tripped over his feet. His crew left him behind. Sawyer took a single step toward the man, but a Hellion shot out of the shadows and grabbed his head. He lifted it up and twisted his neck. There was a horrible, crunching snap, and soon the man’s bone was poking out of his throat. Blood spewed out of his throat in a thick, dark red stream that the Hellion tried to catch and shove into its mouth.
 

“Run! Get back inside!” Sawyer shouted, drawing his flintlock and firing at any Hellions he could see. It was too dark for him to be completely accurate.

We raced back to the engineering bay, Hellions screaming behind us. Gunshots rang through the metal halls, fierce howls chasing after us. The last two Dogs–Poacher and a man whose name I didn’t know–turned across the hall to hide in another room. Sawyer tried to call them back, but they refused to listen. As we passed through the doors, Sawyer and Nash shoved away the boxes holding the doors back.

They didn’t close.
 

Riley took the sword off his belt and stood in the doorway, slashing at the Hellions that tried to approach while Gemma and I helped close the doors. They still didn’t move, and Sawyer and Nash eventually gave up to fight the Hellions.

“Get inside, Claire!” Sawyer shouted.

But I wasn’t listening to him.

I ran straight into the fray of Hellions, taking the Volt and pushing the button ever so slightly.

“
Move!
” I screamed.

I hoped it was enough warning, because every Hellion turned its bloody eyes on me. I punched out, slapping the Volt on the chest of the Hellion across from me, magnetizing it to the buttons on its jumpsuit. Claws raked along my upper shoulder, but I dropped and covered my head. The Hellions screeched as the electricity zapped out at them, boiling their blood and frying their nerves.
 

I stayed low as the other noises came over me. Shrieks were cut short, replaced by the meaty, chopping sound of metal slicing through flesh. The Volt’s
whirr
stopped, and someone hissed angrily. That same angry person grabbed my uninjured arm and hauled me to my feet.

“Are you insane?” Sawyer shouted at me. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“Yeah, she could have,” a new voice mocked. “So try not to do it again, darling.”

Sawyer dragged me behind him and raised his bloodstained cutlass. I cowered behind him, dreading the voice approaching from the shadows.
 

He walked into sight with a smile on his face. The same smile he wore just before he tried to kidnap me. The smile that froze my very heart.
 

Davin stood tall and proud, a dark, twisted version of the younger brother who was protecting me. He wore the same black jumpsuit as the other Hellions, but carried pistols, knives, and a sword across his back.
 

Behind Davin, more Hellions emerged. They were hunched over and salivating, staring at us with wild, bloodshot eyes.
 

“Down in front, brother,” Davin called. “I can’t see my bounty. And I finally found the means to persuade her.”

Another shadow began to take shape in the distance. I recognized the smug grin of Ryland, but that wasn’t what drove the icepick into my heart.
 

Ryland wrenched a little girl into view. His fingers dug into her frail shoulders until she whimpered. She blinked, confused and scared, then stopped when she saw me.

“Claire!”
 

My world crumbled.

Abby
. They had taken Abby.

Chapter 14

I pushed Sawyer’s shoulder, knocking him off balance to run for my sister. Riley replaced him, wrapping his arms around my stomach and pulling me back.

“Abby!” I screamed.

“Claire!” she wailed back. “Claire, they killed Moira!”

Hearing the words from my little sister’s lips made the pain in my chest so much worse. She cried them out, tears streaking and raw grief contorting her face.

I imagined my face was similar right then. Beside me, Sawyer cursed and shoved the heels of his palms into his eyes, gripping his hair with the tips of his fingers. Nash stared out the door in horror while Gemma screamed beside him.
 

Riley did nothing.
 

“You bastard!” Gemma howled. “You goddamn
bastard!
”
 

“Temper, temper,” taunted Davin. “I have to say, the old bird put up a hell of a fight. She was an animal, all claws and snarls. Kept shouting, ‘Don’t take her, not again, don’t take my Molly.’” He snorted with disgust. “Don’t know who Molly is, but I bet she tasted just as sweet as her mommy.”

When I squeezed my eyes shut, I saw Moira’s face. The gentle, motherly smile, the grey streaks in her hair, the haunted eyes that always offered kindness and love. I tried to remember the way her hands moved when she tucked Claire in or sewed Sawyer’s shirt, but the memory was tainted with the grief digging into my heart.
 

Had I thanked her for sewing up the wound on my throat? For taking care of Abby when I couldn’t? Did she understand how much she meant to us?