Chapter 308: Aria to the rescue

48 hours earlier

The chopper had been in the air for six hours before Aria saw the smoke.

She sat in the open door with a headset pressed over her ears and a rifle across her knees. The wind tore at her hair. Below her, the sea was gray and huge and empty, and in the middle of it a thin black line rose into the sky.

"There," she said into the mic. "Go down, go go." The pilot did not ask questions. He pushed the stick, and the whole machine tipped like a bird.

Two ships sat on the water below. One was burning from the stern. The other was close beside it, long and dark, with men running along its deck. A rope was still hooked over the rail between them. Even from this height she could see bodies.

Viktor left me in charge, she thought. He gave me every contact he had.

She had not slept since the day they left. She had used every favor she could find, and some she could not. Old friends. New enemies. A man in a port who owed Viktor money, and a woman in a tower who owed Sienna her life. She had followed them through every call and every camera, one thin thread at a time, and she had not let go.

She lifted the rifle. "Fire on the second ship," she said. "Now."

The chopper fired once. The Bandesh ship went up in a ball of orange. The blast rocked the whole machine, and the pilot swore and fought the stick. Aria did not look away. She watched the fire, and the smoke, and the black pieces falling into the water, until there was nothing left on that side but a burning ring.

Then she looked at the other ship.

A small figure lay on the deck, in a gray pullover, with her face turned to the side. A tall man knelt over her. He had both hands on her cheeks. He was shouting something that the wind carried away.

Aria’s stomach dropped. "Take us down," she said. Her voice cracked. "Take us down."

They got them off in ten minutes.

The chopper could not land on the burning deck, so it hovered low while the Gallon boys passed up one body after another. Marcus came first, with blood running down the side of his face, and then two of the big men, carrying a third between them. A thin woman in a gray maid’s dress was lifted in last. She did not speak. She held on to the rope with white knuckles and kept her eyes closed.

And then Viktor came, with Sienna in his arms.

He did not let anyone take her. He climbed up the rope ladder with her over his shoulder, one hand on the rung and one around her waist, and when he reached the door, he pulled himself in and laid her gently on the floor.

Aria stared.

She had last seen Sienna in a white coat, laughing, with her hair loose. She had never seen her like this. Her skin was the color of wax. Her lips were pale and slightly blue, and her hair was wet and tangled around her face. One hand had fallen open on the metal floor, palm up, and the fingers were curled and still.

"Is she breathing?" Aria said.

"Yes."

"Is she..."

"She is breathing," Viktor said, and his voice was so raw that Aria shut her mouth.

She put her hand on Sienna’s wrist. She felt a pulse, thin and fluttering and fast, like the wing of a moth. It was there. It was not steady, but it was there.

She did not let herself think any further than that.

—-

The Kessler mansion stood tall, for a few strange months, it had been Sienna’s home. Its halls were wide and dark and full of old wood. It smelled of polish and cold stone and, faintly, of woodsmoke.

Now it was full of strangers.

Aria had called them in during the flight. There were six doctors, and two nurses, and a technician with a cart of machines. They had come from four different cities, with their bags and their folding cases and their quiet, careful faces. They did not ask whose house this was. They did not ask who the girl was. They had been paid a great deal, and they went to work without a word.

They carried Sienna upstairs on a stretcher.

She lay in the big blue bedroom at the end of the second floor, the one with the tall windows and the white bed. The curtains were drawn. A monitor beeped softly beside her. A tube ran into her arm. Four doctors stood around her, talking in low voices, and a fifth bent over a stack of paper.

Why is her heart failing? one of them said. It is not just the heart. Then what?

We do not know. Viktor stood at the foot of the bed and watched.

He had not changed. His shirt was stiff with salt, and his hands were black with soot. He had a cut on his forehead that no one had cleaned. He did not look at the doctors. He looked at the shape under the blanket, at the thin, rising and falling line of her chest.

"Sir," a nurse said, "please step back."

He did not move. "Sir. You are in the way."

"I am not going anywhere."

"We cannot work with you standing there." She said it carefully. "You are making them nervous. They need room."

"I will not touch anything."

"Please." He did not answer. His hands had curled into fists.

Marcus came up behind him and took him by the shoulder. It was a gentle grip, but a firm one, and Viktor let himself be turned. He did not fight. He walked out of the room like a man in his sleep, and the door closed behind him with a soft click.

He stood in the hallway with his forehead against the wall.

Aria found Elena in the downstairs hall.