Midnight Sky (Dark Sky Book 2) by Amy Braun

face. His move was a feint, and I fell right into his hands.  
    My strike went too wide. All Davin had to do was tilt his head back. He was close enough to throw a punch into the side of my head. Pain exploded through my skull and the world blinked into darkness. The feel of cold snow melting on my face and in my mouth woke me up. I shook my head, trying to clear the painful blur inside it.  
    Davin’s arm slid under my stomach, and he easily scooped me up onto his shoulder. I kicked and pounded on his back. I didn’t think I was really hurting him, but he wasn’t pleased with my reactions. Frustrated, he grabbed my waist with both hands and threw me again.
    Instead of landing in the snow, I slammed onto a hard wooden surface. A painful shock went through my elbow, but I ignored it and tried to push to my feet. My hands slid along the deck of a skiff twice the size of Sawyer’s, and came away red. I lifted my head and cringed when I stared into the terrified, glazed eyes of a dead woman with a shredded throat leaning against the mast. Her blood was cool under my hands, but she couldn’t have been dead more than a few minutes.
    The satchel thumped when it landed on the deck. Davin leaped into the skiff, his boots slamming hard against the blood-covered surface. He glanced at the dead woman and shrugged.
    “Got hungry. Needed a snack.”
    He grabbed her body like it was a broken toy, and flung her off the skiff. She landed in a heap in the snow, the smell of her blood still lingering in my nose and staining my hands. I backed away, my eyes skidding across the deck of the skiff, freezing when they saw the leather satchel lying only a couple feet away from me. Panic swirled around my heart.  
    The design plans were inside. If Davin got a hold of them, there was no telling what he would do. Or what the Vesper would do, if they were brought to him.
    I reached for them, but Davin stepped in front of me, nearly stomping on my hand. I skittered back, but not far enough. The back of his fist crashed into my cheek, knocking me onto the deck again. As soon as I pushed to my hands and knees, Davin kicked me in the stomach. I collapsed onto the bloody deck and he kicked twice more. Knowing I couldn’t move anywhere quickly, he stormed to the helm. An ear-splitting whistle cut through the howling wind. I heard the Hellions inside my house scream, a sound that stabbed fear into my chest. I couldn’t see anyone through the broken windows. Sawyer, Riley, Gemma, Nash… I didn’t know where they were.
    Fighting the panic rising over my heart, I glanced at the satchel again, and was forced to make a sacrifice. Davin didn’t know I had my mother’s journal in my coat. If I remained behind to take the satchel, he might find the journal while he tossed me around. I had come all this way, and refused to go with Davin to the Vesper. I wouldn’t leave empty-handed.
    Looking up to see Davin standing with his back to me at the helm, I got to my knees and dragged my torso over the railing of the deck. My stomach tightened painfully every time I moved, and I was just about to push myself over when six Hellions poured out of my house’s front door. Their clothes looked darker than before, blood splattered on their faces and ringing their mouths in terrible crimson clown smiles.  
    Fear curved its barbed wire agony around my heart. I couldn’t imagine that Sawyer and the others were dead. They couldn’t be.
    I raced across the deck, preparing to throw myself over the edge, but the Hellions were swarming up the skiff. They dragged themselves up and circled me, making escape impossible.  
    Bloody teeth and scarlet eyes focused on me. I had nowhere to run, nothing to see but blanched flesh and gleaming claws. I couldn’t think through my fear, and any resistance I showed would be torn out of me.  
    Think think think! There has to be something–
    “Claire!”
    I thought I imagined it, the voice that carried through the blizzard. The one