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He’d called on more of his boys. Wes recognized the bickering voices but couldn’t believe it at first.
    Godfreezeit
—the Slaine brothers.
Godfreezing freezeit
—back from the dead and with chips on their shoulders the size of Santonio.
Fate’s freezing fist
—
    It was all Wes’s fault; he should never have taken them on his team. He’d done his best to train them, to try to mold them into good soldiers, men who followed orders and did the right thing. He’d tried to show them a way out of bitterness and hatred. But the brothers had never listened to him, never endeavored to be more than thugs.
    Without his influence, they had been left to fend for themselves, to let their darker nature fester and take over what little humanity they had left. From the sound of it, Avo had turned them into monsters.
    â€œDidn’t think you would see us again, did you?” Daran was saying to Wes’s crew.
    Wes opened his eyes slightly.
    Hello, Daran. Can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again.
    The impatient, angry boy they had traveled the toxic seas with had been transformed during his time in Avo’s unit. Daran was no longer reckless and impulsive, but cruel and calculating, like his new commander. Wes could read it in the yellowing crisscrossing scars across his left cheek, his two missing fingers and his dead stare. He had nothing left to live for and nothing to fear.
    Just another frozen, living dead.
    Daran lazily spun his knives. “Let’s see, where should we start? Maybe with these two? As an appetizer?” He laughed, an ugly bray, as he pointed to Brendon and Roark.
    Wes glanced another familiar face.
    Zedric. The brother.
    The look in his eye was equally inhumane.
    â€œGood one, bro,” Zedric nodded, cleaning his bloodied knife on his pant leg. “Shall we?” he asked, setting his knife underneath Brendon’s trembling chin.
    â€œNah, hold on.”
    Zedric twisted around angrily. “What?”
    â€œJust cool it with the blade,” Daran said. The brothers were only a year apart, but Daran had always treated his younger brother like a kid. “I’ve got something else in mind.”
    â€œCome on, man,” Zedric asked. “Let’s do ’em and be done with it.”
    Daran shook his head. “I said cool it.”
    Zedric shrugged. “Whatever.”
    Wes suspected that underneath the bravado, Zedric was nervous and scared.
He should be,
Wes thought; Zedric had seen Nat toss Daran across the deck without lifting a finger, had witnessed Liannan’s power on the black ocean. There were images of Nat riding the drakon all over the nets.
    They should all be scared of Nat.
    She stood with her back to him now. He wished he could see her face, but he was glad he couldn’t—one look at her and he would have been unable to keep himself still, not for even a moment longer.
    Zedric reluctantly withdrew his knife, but not without cutting a thin red line on Brendon’s neck, just because.
    Brendon didn’t squirm, didn’t cry. Wes was proud of him.
    â€œWe need to do this slow—take our time, have some fun with it. Know what I’m saying?” Daran told his brother, his lips curving into a sick semblance of a grin.
    â€œWes should have let you drown,” said Shakes, looking like he wanted to draw a blade of his own. “Guess you caught that life preserver he tossed you, huh? Bobbed in the black ocean until you were picked up by an RSA patrol, is that it? Yeah, maybe next time he won’t be so merciful.”
    Daran turned red. “SHUT UP!” And even though he’d told his brother to put away his knife, he pressed his own dagger against Shakes’s cheek, drawing blood. It dripped in a line down to his jaw. “Is that what you call mercy? You guys left me for dead!”
    â€œWell, not exactly,” replied Shakes calmly, as the blood trickled down off his face.