Page 40 of High Seas

A flash of blond hair rose from below decks. Titus hadn’t slept long.

He lumbered toward me and propped his hip on the railing. Looking up at the main mast, he yawned. “Looks high enough to get us home.”

“It is.”

He froze for a second. “Seriously?”

“If Edward Thatch is to be believed, yes.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t trust that guy.”

“He hasn’t turned yet?” I asked.

Titus shook his head. “He seems fine.”

“Edward gives sage advice at times; my favorite of which was, ‘Never trust a pirate’.” I also remembered what he said about darkness, and the things hiding in it.

“That would mean we can’t trust Enoch or Terah, either,” Titus pointed out.

“I trust Enoch. You don’t have to.”

“I do to a degree, but I think he has a switch that is very close to being flipped. You see it, right? He’s not the same guy we met in thirteen forty-eight.”

I sighed. “He’s not the guy from our time, either.”

“He’s in between and so are we.” Titus grabbed a taut rope beside him and used it to stretch his arms and back, bending into the space between it and the railing.

“Titus…” I started. I’d been thinking the words on repeat for so long, I wasn’t sure why I had any trouble saying them.

“I’m not unlinking us,” he grumped.

“That’s not what I was going to ask.”

“What is it?” He turned to face me, waiting patiently as I gathered the nerve to speak what I was afraid of most.

“Do you think we’re clones?”

His cheeks puffed out as he released a long breath and braced his hands against the rail. “I honestly don’t know.” He held up his wrists. “We aren’t marked, so I want to think we’re not, but I can’t say that for sure.”

“I thought clones would be thoughtless, emotionless. But they’re like us.”

“What I can’t figure out is where they kept them all,” he wondered aloud, peering out over the waves that looked like they were carved from glass and moonlight.

“Not in the Compound; there wasn’t enough room. But what about the other lower-ranked Assets? Did he clone them, too?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Titus answered, “but he could be working on it, I suppose. Kael’s always plotting something. And why keep sending clones of the three of us. Sending faces they don’t know would make more sense.”

“Unless he can’t clone the others.”

“Maybe our upgrades help him?” he asked. “We are different somehow.”

I plucked at my suit. “Maybe that’s why my blood tastes weird.”

“What do you mean?” He twisted to his side to face me again. “How does your blood taste? Better yet, how do you know it’s unusual?”

“Enoch and I kissed, and his fang nicked my lip a little. He said my blood tasted strange, or something to that effect.”

Titus’s brows were as high as they could go. “Wow, I didn’t realize the two of you had already gotten to first base. I mean, we’ve only been in this time for around thirty-six hours or so…”

---