Shakes flashed two fingers to indicate he’d received it.
Next to him, Nat squeezed his hand. “Remember our deal,” she said. I would rather die at your hands than at theirs.
He shook his head. “It won’t come to that.”
Nat looked over the row of prisoners waiting to board the Van Gogh, and spied Liannan’s sleek blond head among them. Wes had gone over the plan with her the night before as well. Liannan looked as beautiful as ever. Her eyes sparkled. She had seen Shakes on the other ship, alive.
Brendon’s parents, Magda and Cadmael, were among the smallkind waiting to board. Magda had Brendon’s curly red hair and Cadmael shared Brendon’s shy smile. Nat hoped no harm would come to them.
The wind started to howl and the two ships rocked unsteadily as the ocean kicked up black waves. The two slave ships were only twenty feet apart, but the water was too rough to pull the vessels closer. If they were roped together, the two ships would bump each other, and neither seemed sturdy enough for that.
The Ear sent a smaller boat, two men on an outboard motor, from the Van Gogh to ferry the slaves from the Titan to his ship. When it arrived, Slob’s men threw a makeshift rope ladder down to the smaller craft. The slaves would have to climb down to the Ear’s ferry. Nat looked over the edge at the small metal boat as it bucked violently in the rough waters. This was not going to be an easy transfer.
She was right.
Hands bound, the first slave to attempt the ladder stumbled midway and then plunged headfirst into the dark waters. It took the two scavengers to pull him out and one nearly fell in. The Ear’s men called up to the Titan: “Unshackle them for the climb. If we don’t free their hands, we’ll lose half the slaves to the ocean.”
Wes nodded to Nat. This is our chance. He’d counted on a little improvisation to get through this, but now he knew exactly what to do. It was just as he’d hoped.
One of the brutes walked up to Nat, who was next in line, and removed her cuffs. As he turned the key, the slaver looked down at the ferryboat. “I’ll throw these shackles to you. As soon as she gets down there, we don’t want to leave these slaves unshack—”
He never finished the sentence. Hands still cuffed, Wes rammed the guard from behind, and the pirate tumbled off the deck, almost smashing into the motorboat as he plunged into the water.
The remaining slavers focused on Wes, drawing out their knives.
“Nat!” Wes yelled. “Now!”
45
WES SWUNG AGAINST THE PIRATE HOLDING him, and a crowd of slavers fell upon him. Nat screamed, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t break the iron bonds holding the rest of the slaves back. Useless. Useless. More slavers joined the fray—Wes was outnumbered—they would beat him until he was dead, make an example of it to the others.
She tried to focus, but she was dizzy with fear and hunger. A pirate fired his gun, and there were more screams, more confusion. Children crying . . .
The slavers were killing Wes . . . they were angry and would not stop until he stopped breathing . . .
If she did nothing, they would kill him . . . She struggled as the pirates held her . . . she was weak . . . she was powerless . . . She heard Wes cry out in pain, and it was his voice that echoed in her head now. I think you have to embrace it. You can’t fight it. Don’t resist it. You have to accept who you are, Nat. Once you do, you can do anything you want. Or maybe, to tap into your power, all you need to do is think of me.
She smiled at that for a moment.
With all her strength she smashed every iron cuff that held every prisoner.
In a moment, everything changed. Freed from their shackles, the slaves outnumbered their guards two to one.
Without planning or coordination, the freed slaves took up a collective war cry as they went to work on their former tormentors. The marked sent steel crates flying through the air. Tools and buckets became weapons they sent directly at their guards. Daggers were used to stab their owners. A slaver’s gun exploded in his face. Another found an iron cage smashing him against the mast. The mighty steel pole in the middle of the ship flexed with an awful groan. A marked family stood below it—eyes closed, the life pouring from their bodies—as they bent the mast at its base. Eighty feet of steel crashed to the deck. Cages were smashed, the deck was torn apart, and Titan listed in the water. The slaves fought hard—they had nothing to lose.
Their victory was short-lived. Bullets peppered the sky and Nat saw freed slaves stumble and cower as the scavengers aboard the Van Gogh began firing on the Titan. Smoke filled the air along with the sound of gunfire. A grenade exploded behind them, and the back half of the Titan roared into a mighty blaze.
“This way!” Wes cried, pulling Nat up from where she had fallen. Liannan was behind him. “Shakes has the boat!” she told them.
They ran toward the end of the deck. Wes stopped. Shakes, Roark, and Brendon were on board good old Alby with Farouk. Wes stopped short, glancing from Shakes to their former comrade.
“It’s all right,” Shakes told Wes as he boarded. “Farouk was the one who helped us out of our cages.”
There was no time for questions. Wes nodded to the boy and then turned to help Nat aboard.
“Donnie—your family is here!” she said as soon as she saw the smallmen.
“Where?” Brendon asked. “They’re alive?”
“Yes, they were in the line with us—”
“Come on!” Shakes was yelling, helping Liannan on board.
Wes was at the helm; he started the engines and pushed the throttle to its limit.
“We can’t just leave them!” Nat yelled, and she meant all of them, not just the Rimmels. The slavers had begun to retake control. They were running up and down the deck, executing prisoners one by one.
Wes swung past the Van Gogh as they headed for open sea. The way was clear. They were safe. He glanced back at the slave ship. Avo had made it to the Van Gogh and had taken charge of the revolt. “WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?” he screamed at the prisoners.
“BACK IN YER CAGES! BACK IN YER CAGES!” a fat pirate bellowed as he fired into the air.
“Wes!” Nat called.
“I know, I know.”
Wes turned the wheel hard and Alby groaned as it swung around in a tight arc to face the slave ship. The Titan was awash in fire, and its crew had followed Avo to the Van Gogh, where they now seemed to have the upper hand. Most of the pilgrims were in the Titan’s lifeboats, paddling or motoring as best they could to escape. The Ear’s scavengers, lined up along the bow, were taking shots at the unprotected lifeboats as they tried to escape.
Wes had grown attached to Alby, but as he powered toward the slavers, he realized it might be the last weapon in his arsenal. Wes told his crew to hold on and then rammed the Van Gogh.
There was enough smoke in the air that he caught most of the scavengers off guard when the two vessels collided. Wes just needed to buy time for the escaping slaves to get out beyond the range of the slavers’ guns. The ocean was thick with ice and trash—it wouldn’t take long for the small boats to find cover.