Swift doesn’t bat an eye when she turns around and sees it. It’s probably not the worst thing cluttering her floor. Her gaze shifts to me. “You look like a deflated balloon,” she sniggers.

Maybe I’m at the end of my rope. Maybe this day has been too goddamn long and started with my favorite Reckoner getting her innards spilled into the NeoPacific. Maybe I’m stuck on a goddamn pirate ship with my life tied to raising a monster to do the exact opposite of everything I stand for. Maybe I’m done being quiet and small and underestimated.

Maybe that’s why I punch Swift.

She staggers backward, catching herself on the bed. My fist feels like it’s on fire, but it’s nothing compared to the sheer triumph that floods through my body. The imprint of my knuckles is rapidly fading from her cheek, but it’s there.

Of course she lunges, her hands slamming into my shoulders, throwing me against the half-open drawers. I wait for the next blow, but none comes. She hesitates, every part of her body held in tension, then crawls into bed and rolls over, facing the wall. Doesn’t pull the blanket up over her, doesn’t say anything. From a typhoon to stilled seas in the blink of an eye.

Adrenaline took me over for a second, but I’m getting my body back bit by bit, in bruises and aches that I can feel forming everywhere. Out of options, I sit on the edge of the bed, testing to see if she’ll snap at me. But Swift is drawing long, slow breaths now, the kind that bring you teetering over the edge of falling asleep. My gaze lands on her Minnow tattoo peeking out from behind her uneven blonde hair, on the ink that marks her loyalty and what it means to her.

All of a sudden it strikes me: I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Swift. I wouldn’t be alive if she hadn’t held me back when I was ready to tackle Santa Elena. If she hadn’t told the captain to bring me along. If she hadn’t caught me as the pill was on my lips. If it weren’t for her, one way or another I’d be another bloated corpse staining the NeoPacific.

So when I lie back and roll onto my side, I decide I’m not bunking back-to-back with the girl who kept me from sparing Durga or the girl who dragged me aboard the Minnow and threw me into a janitorial closet. She’s not the girl who slammed me into a wall a minute ago or the girl who called me a shoregirl like it was the height of insult.

I’m just going to sleep next to the girl who saved my life.

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