“I see her,” Vivian whispered as she stared down at the readouts on the dash.

  “Where is she?”

  “Not at the island, though, it looks as though that’s where she’s headed.”

  Jerry raised an eyebrow and glanced down. Ursula was either headed there or she was going back into harbor. Jerry had considered filing a complaint about Calluna being stolen but figured it wouldn’t work to her advantage in the long run. Stealing Calluna back was a much better way to resolve the issue.

  “I don’t want to kill the crew this time,” Jerry mumbled, not sure if she was talking to herself or to Vivian.

  She didn’t know if they’d been given a proper choice or not. They deserved the chance to tell Jerry whether they were with Ursula or against her, and whether they wanted to continue on a vessel Jerry now controlled. Rolling her shoulders, Jerry picked up her speed, impatience getting the best of her.

  Astilbe pulled ahead with her, leaving the Kauket vessel behind. Yafe would figure out quickly enough what was happening. Jerry didn’t want to get that close to the borders, especially if the authorities were already after her. She made a path straight for interception and prayed that Ursula wasn’t paying attention—which, she had learned since talking to more of the crew, wouldn’t be unlike her.

  Before she knew it, she could see Calluna in the distance, moving at a slow pace as though she was stuttering over the waters. Jerry shivered at the image, running through all the scenarios as to what could have been the cause of it. She picked up her speed even more, now that she knew she would be easily seen. The sun was high in the sky when she arrived, handing the vessel over to Vivian as she went onto the deck with her chosen crew.

  “Be prepared to board!” Jerry commanded as she gripped the rope she planned to swing in on.

  Calluna’s entire hull shuddered. The clinks and gurgling of the engines sounded awful. Jerry cringed at the noise as she took a board instead. Vivian settled Yarrow next to Calluna. It was far too simple. She shoved the board across, settling it on the railings so she could simply walk across them. Others followed her lead and soon enough there were four connecting boards and her crew on the deck. Astilbe arrived within another minute, doing the same on the opposite side of the ship.

  Jerry held her hand up to command both crews to stay put. If anyone was going to run into this ambush, it was going to be her. This was her battle to fight and her revenge to seek. She was going to get even.

  “Ursula!” Jerry called.

  It would be much easier if Ursula came out willingly, but Jerry had a feeling she was going to have to track her down. Something about the ship felt off. It was too quiet, minus the engines. The booms were loud, far too loud to be a ship that was running within capacity. She’d get Azar on that in an instant.

  Jerry took a tentative step forward, keeping her hand down and fist closed to indicate to her crew that they should stay put.

  “Ursula!” Jerry shouted, this time an edge of annoyance in her tone.

  She should control that better, but since the virus it was far more difficult to do. Even with the cirax in her bloodstream, she struggled to keep a tight rein on her emotions. The wheelhouse door was open. Jerry’s heart thumped wildly. She glanced to Azar and pointed to the dash, telling him without words what his task was.

  Stepping inside, Jerry looked around. It was abandoned. No one was there, which would explain why the ship was barely moving. Blinking, Jerry went to the door to the ladder, where she dipped below the main deck. She hated going down feet first with no idea what was below her.

  “Ursula!” She tried again, her voice reverberating through the wooden corridors. “Come out and deal with this like a true pirate.”

  As soon as her feet touched the deck boards, the lights flashed on, which meant Azar was in the wheelhouse taking control back. Jerry walked slowly, far more tentative than she had ever anticipated she would be when taking back Calluna. She thought this would be a battle to the end for both of them, not a horror show.

  Kicking open the first door, Jerry was greeted with nothing. The next door resulted in the same. She went cabin by cabin on that deck, finding no one. The rooms were all unkempt, fabric and items strewn about as if there had been a brawl in each of them, but no sign of blood. Jerry would have smelled that as soon as she stepped inside.

  “Ursula?” Jerry asked this time, hoping that would get some kind of response.

  The galley was filled with food packets, both empty and full, all over it. Some were half-eaten, but there was still no sign of the crew. She was at a complete loss.

  Down one more deck, with two of her crew following closely, Jerry went. She had to find out what was going on. By the time she got to this deck, she stopped calling out. Instead she walked silently through the corridors, finding no one there.

  It wasn’t until she reached the lower decks, the storerooms, that she saw Ursula. Her red hair was dull in the dim light. Jerry straightened her spine, Ursula’s chin dipped down as she stood stock still at the far end of the corridor.

  “I’m not surprised to see you here,” Ursula said as a taunt. “You never could leave well enough alone, could you?”

  “This is my ship. Did you think I would just leave her to you?” Jerry narrowed her gaze, trying to figure out what the game was, but she was at a complete loss. “You stole her from me.”

  “I took what was mine.”

  “Calluna isn’t yours.” Jerry stepped forward, judging to see what Ursula’s reaction time was. But Ursula made no move, remaining as still as possible. “Where’s the crew?”

  “Inside,” Ursula answered and nodded toward the storeroom behind her. “I couldn’t very well let them roam around.”

  “Are they alive?” Jerry’s stomach clenched at the thought of what she might find.

  Ursula didn’t answer her. Instead, she stepped forward, raising her chin and her gaze. Her eyes looked wild, dashing around Jerry’s face and behind her as if Ursula couldn’t find one single thing to focus on.

  “What’s going on?” Jerry asked this time, still inching her way forward in the thin corridor. If they were going to get into a fight there, it wouldn’t be to either of their advantage. There wasn’t space to move, and Jerry had a pretty good idea that they would both end up injured at the least, dead at the worst.

  “Did you know I met Blaise three years ago?” Ursula pointed her finger at Jerry. “He’s quite a gentleman.”

  “What do you mean you met him?” Jerry’s mouth went dry.

  “Oh, I met him. I was a whore on his ship while you were in Joab. Didn’t last too long, though. He liked me too much.”

  Jerry was so tense. She could barely feel her muscles moving as she walked forward, ready to grip her sword at any moment. “So you fucked him. Then what?”

  “He released me.”

  Snorting, Jerry shook her head. “Blaise doesn’t strike me as someone who just releases slaves.”

  “You’re right about that.” Ursula’s eyes glittered mischievously. “He doesn’t.”

  “What did you give him in exchange for your freedom?” Jerry was only a few paces away from her, and she slowed her advance even more, not wanting to frighten Ursula into acting before she had all the information.

  “Who said I was free?”

  “So you sold us out to him?”

  “I did.”

  “You bitch.” Jerry dove forward, anger driving her into action.

  Jerry wrapped her hands around Ursula’s neck and pushed her into the wall. Ursula clawed at Jerry’s wrists, trying to get her to break the grasp, but Jerry refused to let up. She had nearly killed them all, and now it made sense why she had been surprised when Jerry had shown back up.

  “Did you tell him we survived, too?” Jerry leaned in closer, her lips nearly against Ursula’s as she pushed in harder, cutting off more of Ursula’s air supply.

  She knew she wasn’t going to get an answer, and when Ursula’s body collapsed to the floor, Jerry held on until she knew Ursula was dead—well, as dead as she could be. Jerking her head in the direction of the storage area, she silently told her crew to break down the door. They kicked against the locked door until it snapped and then pushed open the door, instantly covering their mouths and stepping away.

  Jerry didn’t have to wait any longer to know what the scent was. She held her hand up to stop anyone else from entering. “Grab me a light.”

  Before she got a light, Jerry put herself into the doorway, a hand on either side, as she scanned the inside. There were bodies upon bodies strewn one on top of the other. The scent of old blood was overwhelming, and Jerry knew any of their crew who were more newly infected were going to struggle with being in the vicinity.

  A light was passed to her, and Jerry flicked it to the highest setting before raising the square lantern above her head. Her stomach roiled at the thought of what had happened in there. Blood was everywhere. She walked through the storeroom, checking as many of the crew as she could. Not all of them were dead—that was the worst part. Though once infected, they were hard to kill permanently.

  Jerry made it back to the door and sent Azar inside to deal with the living. He touched her shoulder lightly. “She’s coming back around.”

  “Of course, she is.” Jerry clenched her jaw tightly.

  Ursula’s fingers twitched first, then her hands and wrists moved as she wriggled around on the deck. As soon as her eyes popped open, Jerry grabbed Ursula and dragged her to her feet. She shoved her forward and to the main door to Calluna. She hit her hand against the sensor so the inner door opened, then the outer one.

  Her crew followed her, choosing to witness her folly. Or perhaps it was because they knew what lay behind that door and this one was still a mystery. Jerry shoved Ursula out to the edge of the door as it hung over the waters. She reached to the holster on her hip and pulled out the gun she had saved from Yarrow.

  “What did he promise you?”

  “Life,” Ursula answered. “A solution to this damnable virus.”

  “There is no solution. There is no cure!” Jerry shouted at her. “You fell for lies.”

  “He said there was a new drug.”

  “Yeah, one that works half as well. It’s no savior. It’s a stop gap.” Jerry stepped closer. “And what about the crew? What did they do to you?”

  Ursula shook her head, pushing her lips together hard. Jerry knew again that she wasn’t going to get an answer. Shaking her head slowly, Jerry stepped even closer, cocking the pistol as she raised it up and put it directly in the center of Ursula’s forehead.

  “You know what? No answer is going to be satisfactory. We’re done here.”

  Pulling the trigger, Jerry fired. The bullet shot straight through Ursula’s head, forcing her body backward. She fell, the plop into the poisoned waters below exactly what Jerry had expected. Standing on the edge of the door, Jerry watched as Ursula’s body slipped below the sea as the poison ate away at her skin, giving her the ultimate death that Jerry hadn’t managed to. At least this way she wouldn’t feel the pain, though Jerry hated how merciful she was being.

  Jerry stayed there until Ursula was gone. As she stepped back into Calluna, she closed and locked the doors. The crew that had watched her stood astounded, with wide eyes and parted lips. They wouldn’t know what to say or how to react. Not that she expected them to. By all accounts, she had gone off her rocker, pushing her limits beyond what she’d ever imagined possible.

  “Go help Azar figure out how many are left alive. I want to save as many of them as possible.”

  “Yes, Cap,” several crew members answered. Others still kept their silence, but they did as they were told.

  Jerry climbed her way back to the wheelhouse, ready to put the last half year behind her. It was time to move on and start again. She had her ships, she had her crew, and now all she needed was Arloa.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Why won’t the engine kick on?” Jerry muttered as she leaned over the dash and glared at both Vivian and Azar who had their heads under it. She wanted to kick and scream at the stupidity of it all.

  Once again, they were cleaning up a vessel. Jerry would be glad to never see another mop if she could manage it, at least not one that was filled with blood from the aftermath of a battle. Though for Calluna it looked far more like a slaughter than a battle.

  The ship’s systems were in bad shape, and Azar, Vivian, and she had spent the better part of the last day figuring out how to get her back to port. They’d had to stay put because Calluna wouldn’t move more than a few kilometers an hour, although those extra brains they had were coming in handy when it came to what was left of Calluna’s crew, all of whom said they would be loyal to Jerry and not Ursula.

  “Be patient, Cap. There’s a lot of damage here,” Azar’s confident voice echoed at her, slightly muffled from being under the dash but confident nonetheless.

  Frowning, Jerry resisted the urge to push buttons on the dash to try and get her working the way she should.

  “We knew she was going to need a new engine when you purchased her, and she’s beyond overdue for it.”

  “Yeah, well…I don’t have the credits for it at the moment.”

  Azar smartly said nothing, but Vivian popped her head out. “I mean I’m sure I can devise a way—”

  Jerry shook her head sharply. “No, thank you. I won’t be stealing funds from someone else or forging false credits to get by. That will put us on the radar of the authorities.”

  “Your choice, but let me know if you want me to look into it.”

  Jerry eyed Vivian’s boots as she slid back under the dash. Who is she? She’d gone from an innocent woman who had caught the virus that they had cared for to a mastermind Jerry was more intrigued by every passing day. Ursula had wasted her talents and knowledge on Calluna, and not for the first time Jerry regretted not pulling Vivian over to Yarrow.

  “Just tell me when we can fly.”

  “I’m not sure flying will be an option,” Azar commented back. “More like limping.”

  “Great.” Jerry hit the toe of her boot against the floorboards. “I’m taking a walk.”

  Spinning out of the wheelhouse and onto the deck, Jerry shielded her gaze from the sun. Yafe stood on the main deck, supervising a training she had going on. She was teaching a small contingent of the crew some hand-to-hand, and Jerry noted quite a few of them were from Calluna, likely also a way to teach them how to control their cravings.

  Jerry silently observed everything for a few minutes before catching Yafe’s attention. “Do we know how we’re dividing them up?”

  “Yes, Cap. The harder part is going to be how we’ll sneak the medical vessel back into the harbor.”

  “Leave it to Vivian. She knows how we got her out and the codes we used. I imagine doing it in the middle of the night might be best. I’ll send a message to Arloa as soon as she’s back.”

  “You’re going to clean her up?”

  Yafe’s raised eyebrow was exactly what Jerry had wanted to avoid every time Arloa’s name came up. They shared a knowing glance before Jerry put her hands on her hips and broke eye contact. It was odd enough that she was returning a ship she had stolen, but yes, Yafe had been right to call her out on the fact she was going to leave the ship in the same condition she had found it—as best as she could anyway.

  “Start dividing them up. I’m going to take Calluna and limp her home.”

  “Do you think it’ll be noticed that Ursula is gone?”

  “No.” Jerry held completely still, the memory of firing the weapon, the weight of it in her hand, the heat as the bullet slid from the barrel, the noise it made as it left the gun all too near in her mind’s eye. “No, I don’t think she will be missed.”

  “That’ll be to our advantage.”

  “Then again, it’s common for souls to leave port and never return. I don’t suspect anyone will be worried about her.”

  Yafe canted her head to the side. “But will you survive it? I know you two were friends.”

  “At one point we were. But this last year? I don’t know anymore. She sold us out, Yafe. That’s a betrayal I won’t ever come back from.”

  Yafe’s lips thinned as she nodded her agreement. “I hope you can come back from it. I’d hate to see you continue to spiral.”

  Damn the woman for knowing her so well. Sighing, Jerry brushed her palms over her pants and turned toward the wheelhouse but stopped short. A bright light off in the distance caught her attention. A shiver ran straight up her spine as she stood stock still and narrowed her gaze, trying to see what it was, but it was gone.

  “Captain?” Yafe inquired, as if she could see the hesitation and fear in Jerry’s body.

  “Get everyone where they need to go, now.”

  “Aye, Cap.”

  Yafe rapidly issued the orders. Jerry jumped from Calluna to Yarrow, running straight for the wheelhouse. She slid to a stop in front of the dash and stared down at the readout in front of her. Five fucking ships. They were sending a damn armada.

  “Fuck,” Jerry muttered. She hit her fist against the edge of the dash and ran back out. This changed everything.

  Jerry ran as fast as she could back to Calluna. Yafe was quietly and efficiently moving crew into place, some already leaving Calluna and others staying. Jerry skidded to a halt. “Get everyone off this ship. Now. Speed it up!”

  Yafe’s eyes widened, but she didn’t question the orders. Jerry jumped into Calluna’s wheelhouse and kicked Azar’s boots.

  “Get out, old man.”

  He slid from under the dash, a confused look on his face.

  “You, too, Vivian. Azar, get your ass to Astilbe. Vivian, I want you on the medical vessel with Yafe. Sacha is taking Yarrow.”

  “What’s going on?” Azar pushed up to stand, leaving his tools on the ground in front of him.

  Jerry immediately bent down and started throwing anything she could grab into the crate in front of her and cleaning up their mess. “You need to get your asses gone.”

  “Cap?” Vivian questioned.