“I’d have come down to that deck with a gun, you moron,” Swift spits through her teeth, and her fists clench as if she’s thinking of giving him a new bruise to match the old ones.

“God, can you really blame me, Swift? Like Captain would’ve picked a nav as her replacement.”

“So you decided to try to knock out the gunner kid, because you felt the most threatened by me?” she says. “That’s sweet. Really, I’m flattered. But it was stupid, Code. You deserve this.”

“What does he deserve?” the captain prompts.

“Whatever you see fit, boss.”

My heart sinks, my chest feeling like it’s shattered again as Santa Elena smiles, showing enough teeth to put a shark to shame. “Cassandra, weren’t you just telling me yesterday that Bao’s not ready to fight—that he hasn’t got any aggressive impulses because he hasn’t been trained?”

This leads nowhere good, nowhere I want to tread. I swallow the knot of fear in my throat and nod.

“I’ve had this theory about Reckoners for a while, you see. About most beasts, really. Everything fights to survive. Everything’s got a base instinct locked away inside it. You and yours train the beasts to release it, but I think you guys give yourselves too much credit. I think he can do it on his own.”

No. She can’t do this. She can’t—

Swift gives me a worried glance.

Code’s shaking, but Santa Elena’s grip on his shoulder is as strong and true as ever. “Cassandra,” the captain says. “Call your beast.”

She’ll shoot me if I don’t. I can see it in the way her hand drifts right to the gun at her hip. She probably wouldn’t kill me outright, but if I don’t start moving for the homing beacon now, there’s a world of pain in my future. Still, I’m rooted to the deck beneath my feet, and I feel like my skin will tear away if I take that step forward.

And then a gentle hand presses into the small of my back, and it’s as if my stomach’s sunk to the depths. Swift pushes me forward, urging me until I can’t resist, until I stumble. I pad over to where I left the beacon last night, feeling as forty pairs of eyes bore into the back of my head and probably other places as well, since the wetsuit I wear leaves little to the imagination. I close my hands around the beacon’s handle and lug it toward the open doors, toward the rolling sea sparkling in the morning sun.