Damn, my armour is paper-thin. I need a book and an armchair by a fireplace, Jack’s head in my lap as I?—
Stop.
“Come on, come on,” I murmur. “Give me something.”
My gaze darts around again, taking in the carnage I’ve left myself to fix. All the things that are worth enough, but I can’t strip without compromising the safety of the boat.
All the things that aren’t.
The battery locker catches my eye. Tucked beneath a bench, out of sight, out of mind.
I squat in front of it, hands trembling like it’s a box of grenades. And it’s no joke. The spare lithium battery I can get a pretty penny for is back-up for every system on the boat—motors, navigation, radios. Systems that fail as often as they don’t. Removing it is madness, especially in winter when the cold eats away at the primary battery, but I’m too dumb to see another way.
I’m so tired.
I flip the locker latch. Wrestle the terminal bolts, cringing as they scream in protest, a sure sign from the heart of theSironaI’m amputating something meant to stay put. “Sorry, girl. I’ll make it right, I swear.”
An empty promise. Even the seagulls know it. My body knows it as cold sweat drips down my neck and rattled goosebumps prickle my skin.
The battery comes loose.
I pry it free and sit it at my feet like a brick of shame while I cover the toothless gap left behind. It won’t fool Oscar forever, but as long as I do the power audits for however long it takes me to raise the cash to buy another battery?—
TheSironapitches hard, caught by a rough swell. It hides the tremor in my legs as I lift the battery and haul it above deck, but I’m distracted enough that I whack my shoulder on a bulkhead, a sharp impact that sends eye-stinging heat flooding down my arm.
I grind my teeth. Damn, that hurts. Throbs, actually, with stupidity and regret, but here we are. I stow the battery where it won’t polish off my day by rolling overboard and take the wheel as the horizon darkens with more bad weather, clouds a mottled bruise in the sky, wind rising, the chop as unforgiving as I wish I could be.
Rolling with it, I point theSironanorth, away from Porth Luck. Away from Oscar’s sharp eyes, and away from Jack. FromMal. From Skylar when he comes home from work at dinner time.
Tell them, the rational part of my brain urges.Let them help, or at least have your back while you fix this yourself.But I’ve let my friends help me before, and it doesn’t come free—not for them. They end up bleeding. From Jack paying my dad’s debts to Mal chasing a petrol bomb across Skylar’s bedroom floor, and I’m not letting them burn because of me ever again.
Setting my jaw, I shove the throttle forward. TheSironasurges into the gloom, towards a harbour where no one knows Oscar, where I can sell the battery before he knows I’m gone.
I yearn to be home.
But I don’t look back.
11JACK
Sol’s gone all day. It’s early evening when theSironadocks. But he only stays long enough for Oscar to jump aboard, then they’re gone again, and even though I know he won’t be back before dawn, I spend so much time looking for him, it’s almost funny.
Except, no one’s laughing. Mal’s too strung out from this morning, and Skylar doesn’t know what to do with either of us.
“Why are they here?” He jabs a thumb at the window, gesturing at the increased presence of bikers by the beach, showing face at the lifeguard station building site. “Did something happen?”
Mal’s staring into space. For once Skylar’s eaten dinner and he hasn’t.
Skylar comes back to the table, eyeing us both as he repeats himself. “Why are Saint and Folk here if they haven’t come to see you two or the dog?”
Fiadh. She had pups when Mal found her in a Devon forest. They stayed with the Rebel Kings and we kept her, but she gets to play with them on the beach sometimes.
I push my plate away, hoping Mal will answer Skylar’s question. Because I can’t. I have no idea why the bikers descended on Porth Luck this morning. Just that their presidentcorralled Sol on the jetty for long enough that I wanted to hurl him in the sea and I’m not sure why. Sol slept with Cam when we were teenagers—when I wasn’t even here. I’m thirty-fucking-five now. What’s it to me if they hug from time to time? If Cam O’Brian pulls Sol into his arms like he owns him?
That’s not what happened.
I see that now. I saw it then. But Christ, this morning, if Mal hadn’t been there to haul me back…
“…copper pipes from here and the site in Porth Ewan.”