Logan Howlett's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

The hatch below decks bangs open before they can move. Boots on iron. One set. Heavy and slow. Logan smells the old bad-night smell again, stronger now — iron and salt and something sweeter under it. The captain climbs up alone. He carries months of Laura inside his skin, and he walks like a man who knows it. He steps onto a raised square of decking near the stern, cool lights set into its frame humming blue. A piano bench sits there, bolted down, like the ship was built for a show. The captain smiles at Laura. Not at Logan. "Little donor," he says. "I came down myself." Link moves wide on the left. Laura holds center. Logan flexes his hands and the claws come. Logan goes first. He drives the captain off the platform and they hit the planks together. He opens the man's throat. The man laughs through it. The cut closes while Logan watches, pink to clean in three breaths. The captain stands. He throws Logan into the rail hard enough to crack wood. "Burn," Laura says, flat. She tosses Link a flare from her pack. Link catches it without looking. He pops the cap. "Hold him," Link says. Two words. Logan understands. He tackles the captain back onto the lit platform and pins his arms. The captain heals under Logan's grip, again, again. Logan does not let go. Link presses the flare into the captain's chest and holds it there. The smell changes. The healing slows. Laura steps up onto the platform and looks down at the man who carried her in his blood for months. She does not flinch. She takes the flare from Link's hand and finishes it herself. The captain stops moving. He stays stopped. Laura steps back off the lit square. Smoke curls up past her face. "Heat," she says quietly. "That's the answer. Tell the others." Logan nods. Below their boots, the deck still breathes with enemy soldiers who heal — but now Logan knows how to put them down. One captain is cold on the planks. A whole hold full of them is not.