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Roar jogged over and calmly picked up his knife, but he sheathed the blade with a vicious thrust. “That’s how you do a warning shot. ”
Perry watched them walk to the Dragonwing. Same direction, twenty paces between them. Then he carried Jupiter into the Belswan, setting him down in the pilot seat.
Aria had already boarded the ship. She t
ied a tourniquet around Jupiter’s leg. Then she wrapped a bandage around Brooke’s head as she relayed instructions to Brooke for treating Jupiter’s wound. Anticoagulant. Pressure. Pain medication. Everything was in the kit at her feet.
Jupiter rambled, asking over and over if he was going to die. The blood from his leg mixed with the rainwater on the floor of the craft. From what Perry could tell, the shot had only hit muscle, the bullet cutting through cleanly. As gunshot wounds went, it was a good one, but Jupiter blathered on until Aria put her hand over his mouth, silencing him.
“Pay attention,” she said. “You need to fly this Hover, Jupiter. Get back to the cave. Brooke knows the way. They’ll take care of you there. ”
“We’ll get there,” Brooke said, smiling. “Don’t worry about us. Go. And good luck. ”
“You too, Brooke,” Aria said. “Be safe. ” Then she darted out of the cockpit.
Perry caught her at the top of the ramp. A sheet of rain fell across the opening, blocking the outside like a waterfall. He grabbed her by the hips, afraid of hurting her arm—and that was the problem right there.
Four dead. Two injured.
And they hadn’t even reached the Komodo yet.
“Aria, that was too close—”
“I’m going with you, Perry,” she said, spinning to face him. “We’re getting Cinder back. We’re getting Hovers, and then we’re going to the Still Blue. We started this together. That’s how we’re going to finish it. ”
13
ARIA
With Soren piloting the Dragonwing, they sped through the lashing rain toward the Komodo, their breaths loud and ragged in the quiet of the cockpit. They were a quartet of pure stress, each of them fighting to regain focus.
Aria pressed her back into the seat. The ride was jarring, almost violent compared to the Belswan, as though this craft had to fight to reach its greater speeds. She felt every small jostle in her throbbing arm.
Soren and Roar sat in the two anterior seats, commander and pilot. She and Perry sat in the seats behind them.
Half an hour ago, four men had been in these same spots. Her seat still held the warmth one of them had left behind. It seeped through her clothes to her legs and her back. She was cold, trembling and soaked, but that warmth—the final echo of a man’s life—made her want to crawl out of her skin.
Was it her fault? She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but did that matter? Her eyes moved to Soren’s back. She had brought him to the Tides. She had trusted him.
Beside her, Perry sat rigidly. He was muddied, bloodied, and intent, his stillness contrasted by the rainwater dripping steadily from his hair. He’d been against Soren from the beginning, Aria thought. Should she have listened to him?
She turned her focus back to the windshield. Trees blurred past, the hills where the Komodo was stationed drawing closer at an astonishing rate.
“Five minutes out,” Soren said.
Five minutes until they reached the Komodo. They were heading right into the dragon’s lair—and there were two dragons.
She pictured Hess, who was so quick to disregard human life. Travel safely, Aria, he’d said, before he dumped her out to die. He’d done the same to the thousands of people he left in Reverie. He’d told them he was going to fix everything; then he’d abandoned them in a collapsing Pod.
If Hess was a killer, then Sable was a murderer. The act was personal with him; he’d looked into Liv’s eyes when he’d fired the crossbow at her.
Aria bit her lip, an ache building in her throat for Perry. For Roar and Talon and Brooke. She was stupid to think this way right now, but grief was like the mud that covered them. Messy. Quickly spreading everywhere, once it found a way in.
“I’m going to learn how to fly these too,” Perry said, his voice low and deep. “So I can race you. ”
His green eyes held a smile, a trace of good-natured competitiveness. Maybe he really did want to fly Hovers. Or maybe he knew exactly what to say to calm her down.
“You’re going to lose to her,” Roar said from the front seat.
