Melissa la Cruz - Frozen

“It’s an old joke between us, that that ship’s more of a burden than anything. You’re right, he’s not from Thrace; he’s ex-army—we served in the same unit,” Wes said. “Now he’s a mercenary, just like me.”

“What happens if you aren’t able to persuade him to show us some mercy just because of the good old days?”

Wes sat. “Well, if I know Avo, one of these days he’s going to get distracted, or lazy, and I can bust us out, get all of us the hell out of here.”

“And if that doesn’t work? We’ll be auctioned off as slaves, right? I mean if we’re lucky, that’s what’ll happen. Because if no one wants us, they’re going to sell us to the flesh markets, won’t they? The outlaw territories are starving. And they’ll take any kind of meat.” She shuddered. She’d heard the dark rumors about the flesh trade—first they blinded the slaves with acid, then skinned them alive before butchering them for parts.

“It’s not going to come to that, Nat. I won’t let it. Remember our pact?”

Nat didn’t answer. “But why did he say I’d fetch a higher price . . . What do they do with the marked?”

“I don’t know.” Wes wouldn’t meet her eye.

“You do, you just don’t want to tell me.” Nat felt her stomach twist. Wes was trying to hold it together, but she saw the fear in his eyes that he was trying hard to hide, and she remembered how young he was then. How young they all were. He was the best at pretending. He kept his cool, made them believe he was older and in control. But he was only sixteen. He was still just a boy. All of them children and orphans. Slob was the worst of them, Nat realized, the meanest bully on the playground.

The cold seemed to nip at them from all directions. There were no distractions, nothing to see or do. The days and nights were unnaturally long, and always, there was the arctic wind, burning like a fire that offered no heat.

For the next several days they were kept in the cage with nothing to eat, nothing to drink but melted icicles that formed around the corners. Nat felt fine at first, but on the third day she felt too dizzy to even sit up. She was claustrophobic in the cage, drained of energy, hungrier than she’d ever been. She tried to sleep, but her body shook every time the wind whistled through the bullet holes. The frigid air would sweep across her skin, waking her from her sleep as it robbed her reddened cheeks of their last drops of moisture.

Nat heard a tearing sound and she thought for a moment that the crate was about to fall to the water below. She looked up and saw Wes ripping a long strip of fabric from the liner of his vest.

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer; he just kept tearing another long strip from his clothes.

“You’re going to freeze! Stop it!”

“Here,” he said, handing her the longer one. “Eat it.”

“What is it?” she asked, too weak to reach for it.

“It’s Bacon Fruit. Tastes like fruit, looks like bacon. The military rolls them into these polyiso tubes. Poly’s basically the stuff they use to make home insulation. The liner keeps the dried fruit fresh for years. Shakes and I discovered it makes for cheap personal insulation just as easily, so we stuffed our jackets with them.” She watched as Wes reached inside the lining of his vest and tore a long strip of fabric from inside it.

“I was trying to save it until we really needed it. Looks like that day has come. I never actually thought I’d end up eating the stuff.” He took a bite and smiled. “Tastes worse than it looks.”

He was wrong. Nat thought it was the most delicious lining she had ever eaten. The hunger faded for a moment as she chewed.

In the morning, the guard pushed tin cups of gruel and water through the hole in the door. Along with the Bacon Fruit, it was enough to keep them from starving to death, but that was all.

Still, every time the door banged, Nat was sure it was Slob; she hadn’t liked the way he had looked at her—she could almost see the watts in his eyes. But as the days passed and nothing happened, Nat began to think that maybe he had forgotten about her, or that maybe Wes had been able to talk him out of selling her for now.

What did they do with the marked? Why did they fetch a higher price at the markets?

Nat could hear Liannan in the storage container next door, which meant that the sylph was still alive. But what about Shakes and the smallmen? She wondered how they were faring, and prayed that they were still alive.

She fell asleep on Wes’s shoulder, when she heard a soft voice call her name in the darkness.

“Nat? Nat? Can you hear me?”

“Liannan!” Nat said.

“I can’t talk long, the iron is too strong, but I can project my voice a little. I’m scared, Nat.”

“Don’t be. Wes will get us out of here. He will, I know he will.”

“It’s all this iron,” Liannan said softly. “If only there was a way to get out of this cage.”

“Maybe there is,” Wes said, piping up, “if I know these guys. By tomorrow they’ll be bored and they might let us out of here. Which is good and bad.”

“Bad how?”

“Because when slavers are bored, they make the slaves put on a show.”

WES WAS RIGHT. A FEW DAYS LATER THE slavers let them out into the open. Nat was glad to feel some warmth on her face, glad to be out of that small container. Her eyes had not seen daylight in nearly a week. Though the sky was its usual foggy gray, it burned for a moment like an ancient summer sun when they opened the cage.

The pirates singled out the marked prisoners. Nat was separated from Wes and made to stand with the others in the middle of a circle. The slavers kept iron spears, crudely forged from scrap metal, pointed at their backs in case the prisoners attempted to use their powers against them, although there was little chance of that happening, as the hunger and despair had sapped every ounce of hope from the captives’ spirits. They performed as dutifully as trained monkeys.

Nat watched as fellow marked slaves levitated boxes, made the sails ripple, and knocked glasses around the deck.

“This is what they’re for, right? Stupid parlor tricks,” sneered a crew member holding an iron spear.

“You there—do one,” another said, pointing to Nat. For a moment she was caught off guard. “Me?” she mumbled, and the slaver nodded, his mouth opening to reveal jagged set of yellowed teeth.

She didn’t move. He poked the sharpened piece of metal at her, and Nat shivered. Her mind was empty. She felt less than human and knew immediately that was the slavers’ intent.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do anything.”

The slaver’s jagged smile disappeared. He narrowed his eyes, his face contorted horribly. He made to bash her with the stick, and Nat cowered, ready for the blow, but none came.

She looked up to see the slaver turning red, his collar contracting around his neck, choking him.

She looked around—and a fellow marked prisoner was staring at the slaver with a focused anger.

The slaver began to sputter as the fabric continued to tighten, cutting off the blood. The man fell backward, his head crashing on the hard metal deck.

The slavers laughed at their fallen comrade. A second pirate—tall, burly, and stripped to the waist to show off his ugly tattoos—kicked the downed brute aside. “You’ve got to take charge of these animals!” he snarled. “If you give them half a chance they’ll toss you in the ocean. Go belowdecks and make yourself useful.” He walked past the row of marked prisoners. “It’s my turn to have some fun.”