Page 56 of The Last Hope

“Why?” Mykal asks like it’s a dumb request.

And all four of us are staring at one another as violent gunshots ring out, three rapid-firepops.TheLucretziacrew screams into guttural sobs. Wailing likenothingI’ve ever heard.

I open my mouth, baffled as the people on the balconies cry and embrace, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Hands tangled comfortingly in hair.

I focus back on the hologram: three bodies crumpled together, blood soaked beneath their lifeless limbs.

Lifeless.

What… “What just happened?” I ask, just as the hologram recedes and the stone-carved woman returns, the rushing water more ominous.

Court pries his methodical gaze off the fountain. “They’re dead.”

Stork hops back onto the observational deck. “They were killed.”

Killed.

Life can’t be taken like that on Saltare… from Saltarians. I’ve never seen anyone be killed before, but when Bastell was hunting Court, I feared that ending.

I stare off, unsure of what I feel, and I mutter, “Let their souls find peace.”

Mykal nods wholeheartedly, and he brings his hands together in robust applause. I would’ve joined too, so I could respect the dead, but the noise drops uncomfortably.

He stops.

And a dense air compounds, tears sniffed back, and the crew’s anguish morphs to enraged horror.

“What’s wrong with you?!” a girl screeches.

Mykal is hot all over, and Court wraps a firm arm around his waist and whispers in his ear.

She wails again. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH—”

“He meant no offense to you!” I holler back over the balcony. Not against spitting if I have to. I will toss a wad if someone means to shame him again.

“Knave!” a few people shout, as though telling Stork to wrangle us.

Stork motions anokayto a young woman down at the fountain’s base. Fiery red braids line her scalp, inked rings tattooed around her tawny-olive biceps. I read CAPT over four lines on her breastplate.

I figure she must be Captain Venita.

Court drops his arm from Mykal and then seizes Stork by the elbow.

“Mate—”

“Tell me they didn’t give their lives for ours,” Court says urgently. “Tell me that wasn’t thetrade.”

Oh.

Gods.

To help free us from the brig, the admirals let the Saltarians murder them.

Sickness churns, and I wait on edge for Stork to shake his head and saynever.Because who would ever do such an irrational thing?

He doesn’t shake his head.

Doesn’t deny.