Page 42 of A Princess, Stolen
“Prinsessa? You okay?” came from outside.
“Yes,” I called back quickly so Pan would not come in and see me stark naked.
I shook my head in confusion.You’re probably just exhausted, I told myself. That was probably why I slipped.
I rinsed my hair and stumbled again, this time against the faucet. I sat down on the floor for a moment and took a deep breath.Just move slowly.
Shakily, I dried myself while sitting on the wet floor and rubbed my hair. I held on to a bar with one hand and slipped into the clothes that Troy had brought me earlier. Men’s underpants, an ancient ribbed undershirt, jeans, and a burgundy hoodie. The outfit of the first shift.Fantastic!Plus white socks and a pair of sturdy boots like everyone wore here—needless to say, everything was several sizes too big for me, but the outfit was extremely warm. For the first time, I wasn’t so cold anymore.
While it was still wet, I braided my hair and wrapped the band and ring together in a strand. When I peered into the mirror to check if the ring could be seen from the outside, I flinched. The shadows under my eyes looked like they had been painted on with a short-bristle brush. The tube of paint in mypaint box was called liturgical black. My eyes were red and glassy from all the crying, my gaze frightened.
Luckily, Dad never saw me in that state.
I was about to open the door when my shoulder hit the wall. “Crap, damn it!”
“You’re swearing?” That was Nathan.
“And?”You’re eavesdropping!Annoyed, I rubbed my shoulder and tried to get over the shock of having apparently gotten into a washing machine that was throwing me around at will. This time, I was certain I hadn’t tripped.
Nathan knocked vigorously. “Are you finished? If not, hurry up!”
The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the corridor was the general bustle of the crew. Troy was disappearing into a room with a handful of cable ties while shouting and hammering was going on above deck.
“What’s going on?” I thought about Isaac. Maybe he was coming aboard and the men were preparing for his arrival—whatever there was to do. However, then another thought struck, rising straight out of the darkness of my fear. I hastily climbed the ladder far enough to look outside. My heart skipped a beat. Salt was in the air, salt and the wild roar of the ocean. Storm winds whipped across the sea, causing the waves to smash against the hull from all sides.
Nathan had followed me. “Category five. That’s why I untied you this morning. No one should be tied up below deck in a storm.”
“In a storm?” I felt myself turning pale. That was why I was staggering the whole time.
“We’re going around the area, but we can’t avoid the storm’s tail end.”
“But…” I climbed back down and braced myself against the wall as black dots flickered in my field of vision. “A storm,” I whispered.Just like back then.
Out of my memory came a sound like a champagne cork popping, an explosive pop followed by a dull hum that echoed in my ears. I blinked and was caught in the noise for a few seconds even though everything around me seemed silent as if someone had muted the sound.
“What is it?”
I felt Nathan touch my shoulder and forced myself to stay in the present because I didn’t want to drift back into the past. With puffed-out cheeks, I breathed in on two and out on four a few times in a row. “I hate thunderstorms. I hate storms. I hate the Atlantic,” I managed to say at some point.
“I know,” he replied softly, pulling his hand back.
He knew?“How?”
He looked at me almost gently. “We all know. Or we thought so. Your mom drowned. It was in the press. Not that I would have thought of it myself, it was a long time ago. But…some of us…meticulously collected data and facts about you.” His hair fell across his face despite the headband and he automatically pushed it back. “All I knew was that your mom was dead. You told me. I suspected that the Atlantic would not be at the top of your list forhostage shelters.”
Although I heard the last sentence, I latched on to one image. I saw a windowless room, the type detectives always discover when they catch a serial killer: pictures of me and Dad hanging on the walls along with newspaper clippings and snapshots. Isaac’s room. Maybe he was obsessed with me and Dad. However, Nathan had saida few. Maybe there was another one like Isaac. Maybe that Killer-Miller.
“Willa?”
I swallowed and looked at Nathan.
His gray eyes were suddenly full of warmth, which once again confused me. “Don’t worry about the storm. We’ll be fine.”
We’ll be fine, Willa Mouse.
He smiled at me encouragingly and I thought he was going to touch my shoulder again in a comforting way, but he turned and told me to follow him. Recently, I had thought I would despise the leader even more if he were Nathan because Nathan had always represented freedom for me. For a while, I had even wished he were a stranger. Now, I was infinitely glad that he was Nathan. I didn’t know why, but I had the impression that a part of him was still the boy who had danced with me in the Palace of Shards. Who had kissed me. Even if Nathan might not want to remember that boy anymore.
I spent the next hour in a trance, which felt like a horror trip. I barely noticed anything. Nathan had handed me over to Troy who dragged me everywhere. Vague images stuck in my mind. Pan, who seemed to be on the bow and stern at the same time. Long waves with foamy crests. The gaunt man with the dreadlocks, who everyone called Sparta, checked the support boards on the bunks.
