Page 22 of Wicked Tides
When boots finally started to move downstairs, I sunk a bit further into the shadows, watching as men began to slip into view.
I had never been so close to the Burning Rose or her crew. I’d heard many stories. Horrifying stories. I’d seen the sails. Heard the wailing of her victims. I had hated the damn vessel for a long time but never had such a clear chance to do damage to the men who sailed her. My mouth was watering at the thought. The abhorrence I kept wrapped so tightly inside was starting to get restless at the scent of their bodies as they filled the space. Sweat. Rum. Leather. Blood. Metal.
I saw a man with dark skin and a shiny bald head walking with his blade drawn, looking in corners. Behind boxes. When he caught a whiff of the old blood in the sleeping quarters, he let out a huff of air and covered his nose with his sleeve. There was a man behind him who mimicked his gesture and the two of them walked deeper into the cabin to investigate.
“Captain!” one man called. “Got a bit of a problem.”
More boots started to descend the steps. I watched as a big, burly man with a white beard and an old, worn coat ducked into the lower level.
Something about him…
Behind him was another man whose golden, sun-bleached dreadlocks hung over his broad shoulders. He wore an aged, red coatwith thick cuffs. I only caught a glimpse of him before he passed my hiding space. He smelled of the oak that made his ship, but he smelled more of the salty water that carried it. It wasn’t surprising. His ship hunted in all seasons. In all weather. It was navigating the tides and killing more often than any other vessel.
Bone heart.
His steps were accompanied by the faint jingle of buckles, beads, and whatever weaponry he kept on his person. He was big, having to duck into the sleeping quarters to see the remains of the massacre my sisters and I had wrought on the late crew. Part of me was excited to watch them discover our slaughter because I knew one day it would be their crew painting the decks of their cursed ship.
“Fuck,” the captain muttered, hanging his thumbs on his belt.
I stayed so perfectly still, barely breathing as I watched the men. The captain especially. When he moved aside, I caught another glimpse of the older man with the beard and narrowed my eyes. I knew him. I did. I felt it in my bones. But I’d never seen the crew of the Burning Rose before.
And then it clicked.
As the old man wandered to a pile of bins and boxes near the wall, I glimpsed an eye patch. Then I saw it. A black sand beach. Men screaming. My mother’s taunting words. The violence and excitement came back like a blow to the gut and I saw him there. The old man had been on the beach that day when my mother and her closest sisters were killed. The day when the crew of the Mother’s Fang was tortured and slaughtered.
The day when I foolishly freed a boy from a tiny cage.
I was distracted from the jarring memory when one of the littlest girls emerged from behind the pile of bins and took off toward the steps in a panic. The old man had found her. The captain moved to intercept her and I nearly pounced from my hiding place to jam my knife into his head when his men followed, all of them with their blades out. I stood my ground, tonguing my throbbing teeth as the captain grabbed the girl and spun her to face him. She screamed andcried as an older girl came running out from the same pile of cargo to help her. The old man reached out an arm to stop her and I felt my muscles burn to cut him open.
“Hey!” the captain said, trying to restrain the young screaming girl. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Lies.
The old man looked around at the rest of the cargo, his thick brows furrowing. Then he looked at the girls again.
“What are two girls doing on the Cornwallis?” the dark-skinned man asked.
“What kind of cargo is this?” the old man added. “White furs? We don’t get this shit from any of the regular routes.”
“North?” another man said. “They hunt great white bears up there. I’ve heard it before. These are worth a lot of money.”
“What’s your name?” the captain asked the girl.
She started to babble in her language and the old man seemed to perk up. When he spoke back in a slow and calculated sentence in the same language, the girl’s struggles stopped and she sniveled, caught off guard. She nodded at him, wiping her eyes.
“She was taken by men,” the old man said. “Seems like the Cornwallis was smuggling some rather exotic goods since we’ve been cleaning the waters of threats.”
The captain groaned and stood up straight, rolling his shoulders back with aggravation.
“Fuck,” he growled.
“You think what happened in there was sirens?” someone asked.
The old man slapped the crewman over the head. “You think these girls did that?”
“Why are the girls alive, then? Last I checked, sirens don’t discriminate.”
“Ask if there are more,” the captain said, prompting the old man to construct another slow sentence in the girl’s language.
