Page 49 of Escaping Pirates
I smiled. “I’ve wanted you to.”
And for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t just surviving.
I was living.
He and I sat down on his bunk, and I leaned back against his chest with his arms wrapped around me. My pillow had nothing on Harlan. He propped himself against the wall so I could relax against him.
“You do realize this means that you’re seeing three different women right now, right?” I told him, weaving my fingers into his. “You rake.”
“I’m secretly seeing one and am forced to entertain two others against my will. Quite a difference,” he said with a laugh.
I trailed my fingers along the veins that stood up on his forearms.
“Do you think anyone ever found our bottle?” Harlan asked.
“Who knows? With our luck, it was probably eaten by a kraken.”
“With our luck,wewill probably be eaten by a kraken.”
I let out a breath of laughter. “No. Remember? They tried that already. You’ll probably end up married to Sugar. Harsh is a captain, he would do the ceremony.”
“Gross. You’re going to give me nightmares.”
I tilted my head back to look up at him. “We still have one last bottle. We can try again. It’s like you said—we make our own luck.”
The wind was non-existent, and tiny beams of moonlight shone through the knotholes and portholes in the hull to cast a sheen of soothing, speckled silver dots on the brig floor. The lack of ocean waves slapping against the ship and the absence of screaming seagulls made my and Harlan’sbreathing seem much louder, but as we sat in companionable silence, his breathing became slower and deeper.
As long as I had Harlan with me, I could face anything.
CHAPTER 18
We must have fallen asleep before I went back to my cell, because the next thing I knew, the brig door banged open, and Captain Harsh stormed in. There was no time to squeeze back into my own cell. We’d been caught.
Both Harlan and I sprang to our feet. We were going to be whipped, I knew it.
With a rattle of keys, Harsh rammed a key into the lock and wrenched the cell door open. Harlan crowded me backward into a corner, arms protectively thrown out as feeble shields. When Harsh stormed in and threw a wild swing, Harlan flung himself at Harsh. Harlan dodged Harsh’s wild punches and returned several of his own, battering the captain with each blow of his fists. “Go, Elena!” Harlan shouted. “Go!”
I ran. Holding my skirts up to my knees, I squeezed past the two men and dashed along the slippery corridor. Where could I go? No matter where I chose, Harsh and his men would be able to easily overpower both me and Harlan.
I sprinted up the short flight of steps onto the main deck, where pirates lounged about, mending sails or listening asOne-Eyed Bart blew a reedy tune on his pipes. A few glanced curiously as I burst onto the deck and the open door behind me allowed the sounds of Harsh’s and Harlan’s scuffle to amplify.
Thad leapt to his feet. “Captain!” he shouted and ran toward the open brig door.
I scanned my surroundings in a panic. There was no telling what my punishment was going to be, and I didn’t want to find out. If there was ever a time to escape, this was it. Could I risk jumping into the ocean below?
“Nab her, boys!” Harsh’s gravelly voice snarled from below deck. “Don’t let either of them get away.”
Get away? Where could I go? There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. Nowhere, except…
The endless horizon stretched out without a single coastline to break the flat line of ocean meeting the sky. Way in the distance, a ship’s sail was the faintest speck of white against the landscape.
It was my only option.
I backed up against the railing and stared around in a panic. I’d never be able to lift a barrel on my own to throw overboard to help me stay afloat. Vibrations shuddered the deck beneath my boots as Harlan came charging into view from down below, Captain Harsh hot on his heels.
Without a single word or slowing down, Harlan charged into me at full speed, wrapped his arms around my waist as his shoulder rammed into my stomach, and dove overboard with me.
If I’d had any breath in my body, I would have screamed. But Harlan’s crushing tackle followed by our fall stole all the air from my lungs. The cold of the ocean shocked my body into remembering the need to draw breath, but the velocity of our fall plunged us deep underwater. Harlan, still latchedonto me, began propelling us away from the ship, legs kicking furiously.
