SICK HEART, Huss, JA [novels for students .txt] 📗

So we jump into the deep water and we swim through a literal firefight as the ship security takes on what’s left of the Ring cabal, bullets snapping the water around our heads.

Zoya gets hit in the shoulder, and we pull her, against the rolling waves, until the rescue boat picks us up out of the water.

I fall back into a pile of rope, thinking… Huh. I got rescued twice today.

And then I smile.

Because that’s a happily ever after right there.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - CORT

THREE MONTHS LATER

CIMA HOSPITAL – ESCAZÚ, COSTA RICA

It’s been a helluva week.

Anya and I cling to each other as we wait in the children’s ward reception for the nurses to bring Ainsey out. She had open heart surgery six days ago to repair an atrial septal defect, the cause of her frequent pneumonia, and today she is well enough to go back to the little apartment we’re renting just a few blocks away.

We’ve been here for seven weeks and even though the small neighborhood is starting to feel like home and we’ve made friends with the hospital staff and the people who live nearby, the three of us are very ready to get back to the ship.

That won’t happen for at least three more weeks because of Ainsey’s recovery, but it’s closer now and my sick heart is starting to feel better about things.

I’m starting to breathe a little easier.

Starting to let myself calm down.

Starting to feel normal, whatever that is, for the first time ever.

We got away that day back at base camp. But it wasn’t clean. Oscar and Sammy, another one of my little boys, were both shot. Both made it to the ship and Oscar lived, but Sammy didn’t. He lost too much blood and we didn’t have time to find a match and give him a transfusion in the ship’s clinic.

Peng died back in the camp and Maeko refused to leave him behind, so he carried him back to the ship while Paulo covered him with a gun stolen from one of the slave owners. We had a sea burial for Peng the next day and Maeko hasn’t been the same since.

Ling and Zoya both took a bullet in the shoulder. Zoya is weirdly proud of this. I think we need to have a chat about that at some point. Rainer took one in his upper arm, Jafari actually drowned because he and Budi also had to jump off the cliff to get to the ship, but Lilith—my oldest girl fighter in the camp—pulled him into a rescue boat and brought him back.

Maart, Cintia, and Sissy didn’t sleep for forty-eight hours, they were so busy trying to glue our kids back together.

And of course, Ainsey came down with another case of pneumonia less than a week later and even though we didn’t have seventy-two thousand dollars for the surgery in a private Costa Rican hospital, Sergey, my oldest boy in camp, took a legitimate fight in Rio and earned enough for a down payment with his win.

Ainsey is going to be fine. She won’t be training for several months, but even though Anya has pointed out that it isn’t normal for four-year-olds to train, I have been having a hard time giving up the life. All of us have.

What does life look like without training? We don’t know, but we’re trying to figure it out.

The platform ship isn’t really the money-maker we had hoped for. Udulf, Lazar, and every other Ring slave owner at that last fight—they are all dead. And with their deaths came a bizarre in-between world of uncertainty.

At least no one came looking for us.

I don’t know why. Maybe they all knew I had bought my freedom. But that’s not likely, so it’s… luck? Maybe?

Or maybe they are afraid of us?

We did take down a lot of very important people. Plus almost all the mercenaries died too.

But whatever the reason, we’re not taking it for granted.

The downside is that we have to find our own contracts now. And while that’s not really a bad thing, it’s definitely a lesson in the meaning of the words ‘fresh start.’

The ship is the new home base. It’s only rated to house fifty-two crew members and we’ve got a total of sixty-seven—all of us from camp, plus the ship’s regular crew—but it works for now.

Money is tight, especially since Anya and I have been paying rent in Escazú for two months. But even with all these bitter setbacks—the deaths, the injuries, the open-heart surgery, the challenge of starting a new business and taking care of thirty other people at the same time… freedom still tastes very, very sweet.

“Here she is!” I turn to find a nurse pushing Ainsey towards us in a wheelchair.

I bend down and smile at my daughter. My daughter. It feels real now.

Well, not the part about her being my daughter. That’s always felt real. The part about me being her father. That took some getting used to.

Anya bends down too. She touches Ainsey’s cheek. “You ready to go home?”

Ainsey nods, but says nothing.

“She’s got your eyes.”

I look up at the nurse. “Yep. She sure does.”

“No,” the nurse says. “I mean, yes, of course, she has the same color eyes as her daddy. But otherwise her eyes are all Mommy, aren’t they?” The nurse smiles at Anya and me. And we smile back.

Because, of course, Ainsey isn’t Anya’s daughter. But that’s not a story we’re going to tell. Ever.

“I mean,” the nurse clarifies when we don’t respond, “neither of you talk much.” She points to Ainsey and Anya. “Not with words. But your eyes…” Her words trail off and she shakes her head. “They say all the things your lips don’t.”

Anya and I stand up, agree with the nurse, and then take our daughter home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - ANYA

SIX MONTHS LATER

Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Brazil

Stepping onto the shore of the park is exactly like stepping into the