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Back The Abyss Surrounds Us Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Dedication
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. Acknowledgments
  37. About the Author

I don’t have anything left to say to her after that. I scoop some of the spoils onto a tray and carry it with me down into the bowels of the ship. Since I’m still locked out of the trainer deck, I find the closet full of cleaning supplies where I spent my first hours on this ship. I close the hatch behind me and feel around for the switch. When I flip it, a bare bulb flickers on, filling the closet with a dim, sickly light.

In the thick of the fighting, I thought I’d be too nauseous to eat the food we took today, but the dead aren’t using it, and my stomach is growling. I eat with my hands, running my fingers over the tray until I’ve scooped up every last bite. The meal sits heavy in my stomach, but not on my conscience.

It should horrify me. It doesn’t.

16

16

I get used to sleeping on the trainer deck again. Santa Elena’s liable to burst in at any time, but it’s the closest thing I have to a space to call my own on the ship, and with a few extra pieces of bedding ferreted out of Swift’s laundry carpet, I make the counter comfortable enough that I no longer wake up sore.

Autumn deepens, and in bits and snatches of conversation that I catch from the crew in the mess, I discover that it’s the last week of September already. If all had gone right, if the Nereid had continued her voyage, I’d be back in school now. I’d be a high school senior, trying to convince my parents that I don’t need to go to college, that I can be a trainer full time, that my future is in the industry.

Given the circumstances, I think that future’s been dragged out back and shot.

But I’ve fallen into the Minnow’s rhythm so easily. I sleep with the trainer deck doors wide open, listening to the sea against the ship’s hull as I drift off and rising when the sun crests over the horizon to glare murderously into my eyes. In the hours before Swift comes to drag me to the galley, I hop into the sea with Bao and give him a once-over, and it’s in that moment each day that I let myself pretend all of this isn’t happening. In the cradle of the NeoPacific, with the Minnow to my back, I imagine that I never left home, that this massive, round baby is just one of the new additions to our stock and I’ve been assigned primary care on him.