Free Marked by Jenny Martin

we make for the coast, where we jump aboard a flat-decked hydrift ship, one that’s nimble enough to cut through the waves, yet powerful enough to rise and hover over the shoreline. The Andalan, Larken swears, is the perfect smuggler’s vessel. Looks like hell, he says, but runs like it too. I know sap about seacraft, but I do like the sound of that.
    Now I stand on its bridge as it races toward our destination.
    Mary begged me to put off this trip, but I wouldn’t back down. So we talked about coping strategies. Deep-breathing techniques and ways to anchor myselfin the present. For now, practicing those routines should help to keep the flashbacks at bay. I promised to report in for therapy the second I returned, but it wasn’t enough for her. She fears I’m not yet strong enough to make this journey, and that I need at least a few months to sort things out in my head. Maybe she’s right, but it doesn’t matter. I have to do this.
    At least I’m not going alone.
    Larken and his personal guard are making the voyage too. With an undercover escort watching our backs, I should feel a little less uneasy. Yet when we left, and Hank closed in for an awkward good-bye embrace, my heart jumped like a baby groat in a sack. Now I’m traveling with two people I’ve known for less than a week. Everyone else? Total strangers.
    Unlike Hank, Bear didn’t see us off. When I looked for him in our final hour at base, he was nowhere to be found. Not in the barracks, in the infirmary, or at the launch yard. When I asked Mary about it, she sighed through her teeth and wrung her hands before putting them over mine. “On patrol. Double shift. I’m sorry, Phee.”
    We are all sorry. Benroyal’s turned us into walking apologies. But I said nothing to Mary. Bear and I, we had our good-bye.
    Aboard the Andalan, Miyu and I have berths alongsidethe crew. Among thieves and rebels and drifters, we hug the Manjoran Gulf, slinking along an outlaw route. It’s safer to put on rust-colored robes and pretend to be smugglers pretending to be monks. Even Miyu’s vac wears its own disguise. On deck, I spy it near the prow of the ship. It’s parked and covered in sap-stained cloth, hiding among cases of poppied hooch and a hundred other crates of bootleg export.
    Now, after two days and two nights of seasick progress, we’re almost there, cloaked in the kind of mist that kisses your skin but never quite turns into rain. A flight in Miyu’s vac would’ve been so much faster, but an unmarked aircraft roaring in from the Strand? Too suspicious. Benroyal’s Interstellar Patrol watches every bit of inland sky. No, with the billion-credit bounty on my head, the crooked harbor is our best bet.
    From the bridge, I watch the harbor’s mouth grow wider and wider. I’m pretty sure we’d make a fine meal for this sharp-toothed city. Bear tried to talk me out of this, and now his words ring like good sense. I sigh. Too late to turn back now.
    Miyu approaches, her monk’s hood pulled low. She sweeps it back, and I get a good look at her face, which is coated with paint. The streaks of orange and black and white are startling, and they make it seem like she’swearing an elaborately patterned mask. Her hair’s neatly braided into thin monk’s ropes.
    â€œYou. Look. Ridiculous,” I say. The sight of her is so rusting absurd, I can’t help but bust up. I have to brace myself against the railing to catch a breath. “For sun’s sake, whoever held you down and painted you up, I hope you punched them in the face.”
    Prim as ever, Miyu barely reacts. She flashes the same unreadable half smile she always does. “I look convincing. I look like a Biseran monk in proper mourning makeup, who’s come to pray for the dead. You, however . . .” She pauses, giving me the once-over, as if I’m the one who’s out of