“Was a senator.” And the phantom didn’t even have the nerve to look embarrassed.
“Not just any senator. An avid supporter of the crispy, dead president’s untrained private police. The army he marched into cities to murder, arrest, and terrify the people rising up against his regime. A supporter of the war America started. Evil like you.”
“I’m not my father…”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
There was the familiar, irritated squint. “I’m not my father, because I would never settle for the senate when I could have had the oval office.”
Which deserved mockery, considering. “What shape is your office on the ship?”
“Rectangular.”
“Hmm.” That was a little funny. “Your mom is afraid for you. What does it feel like to have a mom who is still alive and able to be afraid for their child? I miss mine. I miss her in a way I don’t know how to describe. Not just because she was hard on me, but because she was great.”
And Eugenia had meant great in the way that artists were great. The way countries were great. Her mom had been a juggernaut that had changed the world for the better. All that surgical knowledge gone forever, thanks to Aaron’s father.
The phantom took a cautious step closer. “Eugenia, what did Joan say to you?”
“She only told me the truth. You can’t have me and keep peace on the ship. And you know it too.” Since this was final confessions and all, she tacked on, “And though I do hate you, I couldn’t see your work fail just because the pair of us were…”
“In love?”
“Call it whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”
Breathless, he looked torn apart. “It matters to me.”
How many times did she have to tell him? “You don’t get to be happy!”
“Why?”
A sob caught in her throat. “Because I am afraid of Level 9. What it means for the world. What it would do to me to allow it.”
“I know,” he said with such feeling, with so much love in those hazel eyes. “Which is why I am removing your ability to choose. There won’t be guilt because I’m stealing you from the world. Because from this moment forward, I own you. And I’ll remind you of it every day.”
Was he crying? Phantoms didn’t cry. This… this couldn’t be real. “Aaron?”
Gesturing to the dead wood at his back, he waved forward. “Boys, tie her up.”
Chapter Eighteen
How different it was from the first time she’d seen those welcoming lights, their enticing sparkle suckering in wayward strangers. With her head cradled on Aaron’s lap, the vantage was not a tempting glint of civilization from a crumbling stone bridge. She didn’t need to squint to see what was hidden behind the trees.
Eugenia saw the ship clear as day, growing larger as the dinghy that carried her home was oared by strong men.
There was no John running to the shore, abandoning his pack and diving into murky waters.
There was only Aaron, stroking her hair all the hours it took the men to row upstream. There was only fever and raw wrists from fighting rope that bound her weak limbs.
But the ship looked the way she remembered from that first awful encounter.
Pretty, jovial, a beckoning finger in a world of rotting corpses.
A bad place.
Or was it a good place where bad things happened?
It was more than the men on the gangplank. The decks were full. Cheering abounded.