“You mean Pine. Yes. I’m bigger than Pine. And everyone here.” He flashed another smile. “How are you feeling?”
She felt worse than when she’d first opened her eyes. Her body was on fire, and every breath added fuel to the flames. She felt utterly weak. But he didn’t need to know any of that. “I’ll live,” she said.
He nodded. “That was our conclusion as well. Triple patched your wound after you tore your stiches with your little jog yesterday. You slept straight through. A normal person? We would have assumed you were done for. But we were pretty sure you’d pull through the night. She wrapped your ankle as well. It’s a little less serious than the stab wound.”
Caledonia cataloged each new piece of information. He was a Bullet, but he wasn’t talking like one. And they’d worked hard to keep her alive. She wasn’t exactly ready to be dead, but what motivation could they possibly have for saving her life?
“Keep still.” He swept one hand over her legs without touching them. She hadn’t even realized that she’d been moving them. “I get the sense that’s hard for you. Soon I think we’ll have something to speed your healing along. Otherwise, you’ll be cot-bound for a long while yet.”
He spoke with command, the kind that came with the confidence of leadership, and he had yet to threaten her overtly. Even his physical presence, while anything but subtle, was somehow nonaggressive. It left Caledonia uneasy, unbalanced.
“How long have I been here?”
“Eight days,” he said apologetically. “Like I said, you’ve had a fever, and medtech isn’t exactly easy to keep around.”
Caledonia barely heard his words. Eight days? Without thinking, she heaved her body up. “My ship,” she said. “What happened to my—”
The fire that sliced her body left her speechless, and her vision went white for several long seconds. Strong hands caught her just beneath her shoulder blades and gently lowered her onto the cot.
“We don’t know,” he said, in a tone that promised more answers. “They left the bay before the Fiveson’s fleet arrived, and that was the last we saw of them.” He released her and sat back on his heels with a heavy sigh. “We found you and your tow and that’s it. Damned if you haven’t been fighting since we hauled you in, Red.”
The name hit her like a cold wind, bringing with it a spear of memory: the gunshot snapping the air, the wide-eyed look of love on Redtooth’s face, the gentle way her hands fell on Amina’s shoulders, and the moment her light went out.
She clenched her jaw, hoping this boy didn’t see the tears that now leaked into her hair.
“Don’t call me that,” she said when she’d regained her composure.
“What should we call you instead? You have a name, I assume.”
“Why are you helping me?” she countered, eyes straying to the scar on his arm. “Are you healing me so you can hand me over to Aric?”
The shadow of a frown flickered across his features. “We saw what you did out there. When that conscription ship came into the bay, we were watching, and we saw you. We saw your crew destroy that ship, and we thought that was the end of it. But then we saw something truly unbelievable: a girl sneaking aboard a Bullet ship. We saw everything. The fight. The explosion. And when your tow pulled you to our shores, we decided that a girl willing to do all that was not a girl we could let die.”
“So you’re doing all of this because you like how I fight?”
“Something like that.” The boy’s smile returned, and he rose to his full height. “Does that earn me a name?”
“Depends. What are you going to do with me?”
“We’re going to see you healed. I thought I’d made that clear already. We want to help you.”
“And after that?” Caledonia couldn’t help but look again at the scar on his arm. It was old, the color slightly dulled, but there was no doubt as to its origin.
The boy gave a wounded sigh. “We’re not what you think. We aren’t going to hand you over to Aric or sell you to the next Ballistic who drives his ship into the bay.”
“Why not? You’re a Bullet, and Bullets serve Aric.”
“We’re not Bullets.” The boy clenched his fists, frustration chiseled into every flexed muscle. “Once we were, but none of us chose to be. We are here because we choose a different kind of life. Where we do everything we can to ensure none of us has to return to Aric. That includes you. You’re welcome here. The only thing I ask is that you do not try to run again. When you run, you put us all in danger.” He paused, a heavy regret slipping into his expression. “I need you to trust that I will do whatever it takes to keep my people safe.”
Suddenly, it was Pisces’s voice in Caledonia’s mind begging her to give her the gift of trust, urging her to stay with their crew. She pictured the close-crop of her sister’s hair, the soft, uneven bend of her smile, the salt drying on her sunny brown skin, and she missed her so desperately that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. She pressed her eyes shut against the renewed threat of tears. Pisces would tell her to trust this boy.
When he spoke again, it was with an edge of concern. “Get your rest, friend. There will be time for questions later.”
“No, wait.” Caledonia struggled to prop herself with her elbows. “My name is Caledonia.”
She braced herself for the moment recognition brightened the boy’s eyes and betrayed him as a Bullet. But it didn’t come. Instead, he said, “It is good to meet you, Caledonia. You can call me Sledge.”
“Sledge.” Caledonia nearly laughed. “Did you give that name to yourself?”
Sledge’s smile was full-toothed when he answered, “No. But my friends did.”
“It’s subtle.”
“About as subtle as I am.”
Caledonia returned his smile, easing herself off her elbows and back to the cot. “One more question, Sledge.”
“Yes?”
“Am I your prisoner?”
Sledge crossed his arms and considered her with a crease between his thick eyebrows. “Are you planning to run?”
In fact, it was her most immediate plan, yet Caledonia didn’t feel like she could lie to him outright. She held his gaze and didn’t speak.
“I see.” That crease appeared between his brows again as he considered his next words. “You look at me and you see a Bullet. You have no reason to trust me. But I hope that when you’re well enough to get up and see the rest of this camp, you’ll understand that no one here wishes you harm. My people are recovering from everything Aric put them through, and I will do anything to defend them. We brought you into our sanctuary. We put ourselves at risk to help you. So the answer to your question is that I would strongly prefer it if you chose to stay of your own volition.”