Logan Howlett's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

Laura leads them across the deck of the old ship, past coiled rope and a clockwork horse tethered to the rail, its prosthetic legs ticking soft in the dark. The brig squats at the stern — a cracked stone heart on a plinth, hollowed out and barred, used to hold what the enemy could not break. Logan smells iron and salt and the old smell from the bad night. He keeps his hand near his claws. Before Laura can work the latch, the brig door scrapes open from inside. A wounded enemy soldier falls out onto the planks. He drops a sidearm and lifts both hands. Blood paints his sleeve from elbow to wrist. He looks at Laura first, not Logan, and that tells Logan everything he needs to know about who he fears. "Don't," the soldier rasps. "I'll talk. I'll talk right now." Logan crouches close enough to smell the sour on his breath. The veterans fan out, weapons up. Laura kneels at eye level with the man, calm as still water. He tells it fast. The purple they pulled from her — they didn't just bottle it. They drank it. Officers, the captain, the ones above. Months of it. They wear her healing inside their own skin now. Cut them and they close. Shoot them and they stand back up. The weapon was never in a vial. The weapon is the men waiting one deck below. Logan's jaw locks. He looks at Laura. He watches for the flinch he used to brace for. It does not come. Her hand tightens on the journal at her hip, and her eyes go somewhere cold and working. She has already moved past the fear into the math of it. "Then we stop pretending this is a raid," she says. "We have to burn what's in them out." Logan nods once. He hauls the soldier upright and binds his wrists with the man's own belt. The brig stands open behind them, empty as a kicked goal net. The plan they walked in with is dead on the deck. Whatever comes next, they will have to build it standing here, with the ship breathing under their boots and the enemy healing in the hold below.