Unchosen by Katharyn Blair

Author:Katharyn Blair
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2020-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

WHEN VANESSA SAID THE STORM WOULD BRING the ship to its knees, she wasn’t exaggerating.

All night, the ship rocks on the water, tossing about like a leaf. I try to help, but Rielle just shouts at me to stay in my room. That it’s safer for me there.

I wait for the fear to come. The winds are howling so fiercely that it feels like the walls holding me above the murky depths are made of plywood, ready to splinter at a moment’s notice.

But the fear stays away, or maybe it never left. Maybe fear has become so mixed in my blood that it’s part of me now. Maybe I’ve been low-grade panicking since the night Maddox took the Palisade, so this doesn’t feel like the end of the world.

And even if it is, I’ve already survived the end of the world a few times.

Sometime before dawn, there’s a sharp knock on my door. I pull it open. Seth stands in the doorway, completely drenched. His face is drawn. The swelling has gone down, but he has purple rings under his eyes.

“Where?” he asks.

I blink sleep from my eyes, trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about.

“What’s our heading?” he clarifies.

“Where are we?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at the window. The sky is clearing, and the soft pink blush of sunrise is just starting to inch over the horizon.

“Off the coast of Oregon,” he replies.

I step aside, motioning for him to come in. He closes the door behind him. He puts his hands in his pockets and shifts his feet. It takes me a moment to place the body language. Is he . . . uncomfortable?

“What?” I ask.

Seth presses his lips together and rolls up onto his toes before going utterly still.

“You’re the Chosen One,” he says. The words have come out as a taunt so many times from him in the past twelve hours, so I don’t know what to do now that it sounds genuine.

But the words are raw as they slip past his lips, and they tear me down to the studs. He believes it. The whole of him, all the muscle and heat and the water dripping down the column of his throat, is stretched as tight as a bowstring in the presence of what he thinks could be the end of this hell. Hope, on Seth, is a lethal thing, a beautiful razor glinting in the low light.

If I’m honest? I didn’t think much when I said it back at the Palisade. I just knew I couldn’t watch them take Vanessa. And I didn’t think much again when I said it at the Jawbone. The lie was just locked and loaded in my mouth, and I spit it out at the first sign of trouble. I’ve been using it as counterfeit currency, waiting for someone to hold it up and inspect it.

I realize as I sit, staring at Seth Marsali as he wars with his own pessimism, that I didn’t think it would pass the first inspection.

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