“I may not have been honest about a few things,” Wen says, dropping to her knees, flopping on her back, and tearing open a panel under the ship’s controls. She pauses. “You thought they might be after you?”
“No, you go first. Explain.”
She reaches into the ship’s wiring, sticking her tongue between her teeth as she pulls and twists. Her tears have mysteriously vanished. “So hey, big surprise—this ship isn’t mine. And I stole it from…Well, I shouldn’t have gotten you involved, and I’m sorry in advance. Your turn.”
I grab her by the ankle, dragging her out from under the dashboard so she can look me in the eye. “Whose ship is this?”
Wen stares up at me, and now there’s terror in her eyes. “Dago Korsa,” she whispers with holy reverence.
“Who the rut is Dago Korsa?”
She points a shaking finger at her face. “Boss of the guy who did this. Head of the Cutters. The worst man in Isla to cross.”
“And you crossed him?”
“He crossed me first!” she snaps so vehemently that I nearly duck. “Look, it was a risk, it almost paid off, but then you didn’t buy the ship, so really we’re all to blame here.” Wen kicks free from my grip, crawling back under the dashboard.
“What are you d—” I break off, pinching the bridge of my nose. I don’t want to know what she’s doing under there. Probably causing more problems. “Rut this. I’ll get us out of here.” I cross back to the pilot’s seat and drop into it, my fingers gliding over the dash as I bring the ship to life.
“I wouldn’t…” Wen starts, then goes back to burrowing in the systems as if whatever she wanted to say isn’t worth the breath.
“Just hold on to something,” I mutter, and throw down the throttle.
But instead of lifting off the ground, the skipship stays resolutely anchored. Instead of filling with the smooth rumble of flight machinery, there’s nothing but the buzz of the electricity powering the lights and another dull thud as a bolt slams into the hull.
I frown, leaning over the instrumentation as panic crackles through me. “No. No, no, no. This can’t be…Why—”
“Because the ship doesn’t have any engines, dumbass,” Wen snaps.
A faint sputtering noise leaks from my throat. If this ship has no engines, she’s locked us inside a death trap, and I’m not even going to start on the fact that she tried to sell me a ship with no engines. “I’m handing you over,” I announce, rocketing up from the pilot’s seat.
“You think passing me off to Dago Korsa is going to stop him from melting your face? Or worse?” Wen continues to dig in the ship’s guts, unbothered.
“I’m a goddamn bystander.”
“You’re an accomplice. You were going to take Korsa’s ship off my hands.”
“You were trying—”
“And that’s exactly what I’ll tell them if they take me alive, so I’m sorry to say you’re in this thing with me.”
“I’m not…I have my own thing—” But I break off, knowing she’s right. I don’t know anything about crime in Isla. Wen seems to know too much. There are people outside shooting at us. Maybe it’s time to listen to her. “What do you need me to do?” I ask, flinching as the shriek of a saw sounds outside the cockpit door.
“Knew you were smart. Hold these.” She thrusts a pair of pliers into my hands. “Almost done.”
“With what, exactly?” I can’t help but turn and face the door, wishing I had a blaster on my hip or deflector armor or something that could stand a chance against twenty angry mobsters. But Wen doesn’t offer any answers, only a scarred, grimy hand. I take it and haul her to her feet.
“The hatch,” she says, kicking it open to reveal a ladder that drops into the ship’s core. She’s shaking all over, but there’s something giddy about it. Maybe narrow escapes are how she gets her kicks.
I’m fine with that as long as we get out of this alive.
“Follow me.” Wen mounts the ladder and slides to the bottom, her palms shrieking against the metal. “Thirty seconds!” she shouts from the bottom.
“Until what?” I call after her, but she disappears into the skipship’s cargo hold. I toss the pliers aside. The saw’s buzz grows louder behind me, and I don’t need telling twice. I drop down the ladder into the cavernous hold. It’s lit only by the soft orange glow of emergency lights. Wen’s shadow flickers against them as she beckons me over.
“In here.” She grabs me by the collar before I can move and stuffs me into a mercifully cool, terrifyingly enclosed space. “Ten seconds.” Before I can ask again, she tucks herself into the darkness with me and pulls a panel shut behind us.
I let out a shaky breath, wrinkling my nose against the scent of two sweaty bodies. “Are we supposed to wait for them to find us? Because that’s a horrible, horrible plan. They know we’re in the ship. They—”
My next words are blasted away by a world-shattering boom. A wave of heat flash-cooks the compartment. Wen’s knocked back against me like a bag of bones, and somehow I already know her well enough to know she’s grinning through this. I feel like I’m slipping back into my own body as the ringing in my ears crests a peak and starts to dissipate, leaving me curled into my knees.
Wen grabs my collar again, kicking the panel open, and I blink against the harsh cut of sunlight streaming in. Smoke clots the air, and my lungs burn with every breath. Wen mouths something and hauls me forward. We tumble down the ship’s cargo ramp—suddenly open in the wake of the explosion—and out into the dirt of the lot.
It’s chaos. Shoppers and dealers scatter. The people in black rush to help their comrades caught in the blast from the cockpit. The skipship’s upper deck is a bombed-out husk, belching ugly black smoke into the sky. The ringing in my ears elides into screaming.
Next to me, Wen’s already scrambling on hands and knees to her folding chair and the colorful umbrella she was shading herself with barely minutes ago. Her fingers close around the umbrella’s hilt, she pops to her feet, and I flinch when she presses down the button, expecting some new horror to burst forth.
Instead Wen snaps the umbrella open, ducks beneath it, and pulls me into its shade. “Arm on my shoulders,” she shouts in my ear. “Move fast, but not too fast.” Her own arm slips around my waist, and she pulls me into the jumbled mess of people fleeing the scene.
I hazard a glance back at the skipship, trying to clock the mobsters, but Wen dips the umbrella, blocking my view. “Don’t let them see your face,” she says. “Always assume you’ve gotten away with it until the second someone says otherwise. Elsewise you’re looking suspicious.” Belatedly I realize that she’s talking at a normal volume again, which must mean my hearing is restoring itself.