Blue

Up to the Throat

Quickly, Adam learned that Hunts were nothing more than a reason to gain more scars. Another battle was not a righteous battle engineered to progress his desire to clear the world of sea monsters, but rather a scattered, bewildering battle that left him nursing wounds. This was war and there was nothing glorious about it. There was no burning fire in him that could only be quenched by the blood of the sirens. It was resentment that fueled him still, but it was starting to feel more and more like he was running on nothing. He was doing a lot of sleeping. He wished often that the Ensigns ate, because at least that would be something to do, instead of training and monitoring and hunting and fighting. He was covered in tattoos now. He was missing pieces of himself; chunks of his arms and legs were gone and he was missing his pinky on his left hand, the result of a particularly unfocused battle. There was to be another Hunt today and he was dreading it. They had told him yesterday, while he was sitting with Curtis at the window of Curtis' room, the two of them staring out and watching the fish dart back and forth. They had been sitting like that for days without a single twitch of their fingers. Just sitting. The occasional handful of fish darted back and forth amongst the currents, tapping faces and swimming in their frenetic, darting way. Adam and Curtis watched them unblinkingly. They did not see the door open. They did not turn their heads to see the two people walk into the room until they were standing in front of the window, forcing them to shift their attention from the empty, fish-tinged sea.

'We've located the frenzy,' Rose had signed. Her lips were in a tight frown. She didn't mouth the words as she spoke the way she usually did. She was angry with them. She was a relatively recent addition to the Ensigns and she couldn't understand why the two of them, who had lived so much longer than any Ensign ever before, who had tattoos in neat lines up the front and back of their torsos and now on their faces, did not want to lead training or even speak to anyone. Adam was in charge, officially-the armband that had amazed and impressed him when it was on Anton was now tied securely around his arm-but unofficially, Rose was in charge of training the others and searching for the frenzy. It was common knowledge among the Ensigns. If you had questions, if you had ideas, if you had any thoughts at all, you took them to Rose. Adam rarely entertained even looking at any of the Ensigns. Adam did what he did best, perhaps the only thing he could do now: he led the Hunt.

Rose was with another newer Ensign, a tall kid named Myles who was stuck to her like glue. He followed her everywhere. The two of them had an interesting dynamic on the battlefield, one that reminded Adam of his beginning days of being an Ensign, where he went out of his way to make sure that Curtis remained alive, except, the two were equally matched in skill. It was like watching a double hurricane sweep through the sirens.

Adam nodded to show Rose that he would show up to the Hunt, as he always did.

'You'll be there?' she asked, the doubt clear on her face. The past couple of Hunts she had seemed to be more and more suspicious that he wouldn't rise to the occasion. He didn't understand why. He was only alive now to kill the sirens. He was nothing more than a glorified weapon, like the very cutlass he carried into battle. He was here to cut the limbs from the great frenzy, nothing more, nothing less. What else could he possibly do?

'I'll see you in the mess hall,' he said. Rose lifted her hands, like she wanted to say something else and then thought better. Her hands drifted slowly back to her sides, her fists clenched tight. Like feathers wandering back to the earth after they had been removed from the warmth and security of the bird that had grown them. Would she confront him at some point? Adam didn't know. She was still in that strange mindset of the Ensigns, the one that made her face lit from the inside out, that pushed the expression onto her face and eyes. It didn't exist in him anymore.

He tapped Curtis on the shoulder. It was strange to see the tattoos there, and even worse to see the great scar that cut through the left side of his face. Adam had a scar that disfigured his lips, he knew, but somehow, he suspected, he had been born only for this kind of suffering. Curtis' scars were jarring. Curtis didn't belong here.