Page 2 of Escaping Pirates
New voices, high, feminine ones, cut through the men’s low tones.
“Oh, Daddy, if you’re going to get rid of her, do it somewhere else. I can’t concentrate with her crying.”
“Yes, Blossom and I want to examine our new treasures. Scoot along, Gavvet, I want to see those silks behind you.”
My mind spun. What were two simpering women doing with this calloused crew? One had called a pirateDaddy. What misguided man brought his daughters along on a cutthroat voyage on the high seas?
“You heard my girls! Take this wench up and toss her overboard with the rest.”
“No, no!” Enid screamed. “Mistresses, please, I beg of you.”
“Ew! Don’t touch me, you tramp. Daddy, take her away. She’s mussing my dress.”
My hand flew up to cover my mouth as I heard Enid get dragged away. Splashes of large objects hitting the water’ssurface soon followed, accompanied by drawn out screams. I closed my eyes, bile rising at the back of my throat. How could I just hide here while Enid was being thrown overboard? I disgusted myself.
My hands grew just as cold as Enid’s had been. Was this my body’s way of telling me that my own death was approaching as well?
A light snap shifted my focus away from the repulsive noises coming from outside the ship.
“Sugar, we should’ve had Daddy keep that girl.”
“Why would you want an ugly hag like her around?”
An impatient huff came from the other sister. “Becausethen we wouldn’t have to style each other’s hair. We would have someone do it for us.”
“Ooooh,” squealed the second sister in a voice so obnoxious that it annoyed me even as I feared for my life. “She could organize our clothes and bring us anything we wanted so we wouldn’t have to!”
“Precisely. He could probably still fish her out and they only just threw everyone else over. Daddy!”
They both alternately began calling, “Daddy! Daddy!” until a man thumped down the stairs again.
“Yes, my sweets?”
“That woman you just took. Was she already thrown overboard?”
“Yes, darling.”
“Well, see if you can get her back. Sugar and I want our own handmaiden. It would be such fun, and she could serve us so your crew don’t have to fetch our things.”
“Hmm,” the man said. “I can go check if you really want?—”
“Oh, yes, Daddy!”
I heard them jumping up and down with excitementand felt revolted. They only cared about Enid’s life if it gave them a servant to boss around. They hadn’t cared a pittance before, not even when she had begged to have her life spared.
I’d been focusing so much of my energy on eavesdropping on the conversation that I hadn’t heard footsteps creeping up on my hiding place until it was too late. A man with a wild, black, unkempt beard poked his head around the crates. When he spotted me crouching in a tiny ball, his face split into a wide, yellow-toothed grin.
“Well, lookie what we have here.”
CHAPTER 2
Terror more acute than anything I’d ever experienced in my life caused my voice to stick in my throat. My entire body was so stiff and numb from crouching in a tiny corner that I wouldn’t have been able to move even if I weren’t paralyzed with fear.
A large, meaty hand crushed my upper arm in a vice-like grip as the pirate hefted me to my feet. “Cap’n!”
I was forced into the narrow walkway between the towers of merchandise and shoved toward a middle-aged man with flaming red hair. His beard, braided into two long plaits, was the same vibrant color and hid the lower part of the captain’s face, which was so heavily freckled that he looked tan.
With a shrewd look, the captain inspected me from my fine shoes and well-tailored gown to my disheveled hair. Several other pirate faces popped up behind their captain, each looking at me with a hungry expression that made me curl my shoulders inward in fear.
