Page 40 of Wicked Tides
A rope net dropped down beside the ladder and before I knew it, Vidar was taking it toward me. I knew what he meant to do and I wouldn’t make it easy. As he untangled me from the boat and startedspreading the net around me, I began to kick and writhe. But the man was strong. Few men could overpower me, but he was and he was doing it with ease. But I was exhausted and my limbs had been tied for some time. I blamed it on my handicaps when he shoved me into the net and it was pull taut around me.
Then the men above started pulling. The twine bit into my skin as I was lifted from the boat like a catch of fish and Vidar ascended the ladder beside me. He boarded before I did and helped his men haul me over the railing and put me on my feet. I stood there, eyes cutting into each and every man’s face as I scanned across them. They looked at me like I wasn’t real. Like they were having trouble processing my presence.
I supposed they were used to killing us. A prolonged look at me seemed to stupefy the lot of them.
When my eyes reached the back of the group crowding around us, I noticed the burly man with the white beard and aged features. Gus. He was looking at me differently than the others. Instead of wide eyes, his remaining one was narrowed with burning suspicion. I zeroed in on him and cocked my head to the side, holding his gaze until he diverted his.
“What happened to you?” someone asked Vidar.
“We was searching everywhere,” another said.
Every voice was laced with concern for the captain. A crew that cared. How sweet.
That meant it would hurt more when I slaughtered them all.
I balled my fists in front of me, which only made the binds around my wrists tighten and throb. I looked for the one I would kill first.
“Was on a rock,” Vidar answered chipperly. “And fought my way back. Did you expect anything less?”
The men erupted in relieved hoots as they reached out to pat their captain and welcome him back. It was nauseating. Each one of those men was responsible for the deaths of multiple sisters. I flared my nostrils, sick over the scent of their human skin and filth, and felt my muscles tense to pounce. Even without full use of my arms, I couldbite a throat out just fine. I focused on a man with a particularly gnarly grin and a red bandana on his head when the sound of pattering footsteps tapped across the deck. Heads turned as a young girl wrapped in a brown blanket jogged through the cluster of men.
It was Ahnah.
The rage and ferocity slid off my face when I saw those round cheeks. She rushed toward me, misunderstanding the situation completely, and wrapped her little arms around my waist.
I didn’t know what to do…
I was meant to be feared. I was meant to fill men with dread and haunt their nightmares and this little girl had ruined that. I didn’t hug her back. Instead, my eyes stayed glued to the floor in front of me, stunned and at a loss.
“Da’ya,” she said.
Then she continued speaking in that language of hers until Gus shoved through the crowd to pick the girl up and pull her away from me. I didn’t want him touching her. I didn’t want any of them touching her. Ahnah’s little fingers grasped mine, forcing them from their tight fists, and then she was taken away. I wasn’t blind to the glare on the old man’s face as he carried her as if he thought he'd saved the girl from instant death.
My jaw clenched with unreleased anger as she disappeared through the crowd. And, without thinking, my foot moved forward half a step as if my body was desperate to follow. Vidar’s hand shot forward to grab my arm and I stopped, teeth gnashing together in my mouth.
“Back to work,” Vidar ordered his men. “Mullins and Boil, come with me.”
The crew dispersed, tossing me disgusted and questioning glances as they tore themselves away. Ahnah had made me look soft. I welcomed her affections and cursed them at the same time as Vidar started forcing me to walk across the deck. He led me to the steps going below and it wasn’t hard to know where he was going to put me. Most ships were the same.
When we reached the holding cells, I immediately noticed that, unlike the cells on the other ship where I’d found the girls, his cell gates were metal. It was perfect for locking up someone like me. Someone who could splinter a wooden gate and escape.
Vidar swung the gate open and pushed me inside, forcefully spinning me around to face him before I stumbled on my injured leg. The two men behind him had pistols trained on me as he started to loosen my binds. When I felt the blood rush to my fingers, it almost hurt. I watched the twine unravel from my wrists to uncover the raw and chafed skin beneath.
But that was hardly from Vidar’s binding. Most of it was the xhoth. I winced at the memory of their slimy fingers on my body and the way they cut deep into my thigh just to test my meat. A few more moments and half of me would have been melting in their stomach acid.
Vidar’s thumb brushed over the reddened rings on my wrists, which made me look up at him. His brown eyes met mine, heavy with fatigue but still alert as ever.
“Don’t get excited,” he muttered, pulling a set of irons off the adjoining gate and locking them around my wrists.
So he wasn’t offering kindness. He was just replacing my binds with something I couldn’t chew through. But at least the iron cuffs did not squeeze me as tight. They were cold and heavy, but the chain connecting them allowed a little more movement. I sighed and lowered my hands down in front of me. Smirking smugly, Vidar closed the metal gate. The hinges whined with age as it swung shut and latched. There was a heavy lock on the outside that he snapped closed, imprisoning me inside.
Only then did the two men behind him lower their pistols and tuck them back into their leather belts. Vidar tossed the men a brief glance over his shoulder, resting his hands on his hips. Exhaustion was trying to claim him, I could tell. But he was fighting it, trying to put on a strong face for his crew.
“Fix me something to eat, will you?” he said to one of them.
The lanky man with a horribly scarred face gave him a nod.
The other man with the dark skin seemed hesitant but eventually followed his disfigured companion out. Once they were gone, Vidar let out a long breath and leaned an arm through the bars, resting it there while he pinched the bridge of his nose in quiet frustration. I watched him, admittedly intrigued by his behavior. Then I glimpsed his fingers. I could so easily bite the rest of them off and he knew it. His other hand certainly bore the evidence of what my teeth could do and yet he let it rest freely inside my cell like he knew I wouldn’t. Surprisingly… I was too curious about everything that had happened to make that move. That would likely earn me a gag or even the loss of my tongue.
