Page 47 of Captive of the Pirate King
Bloodied and bruised, I stomp down the ladder and into the galley. Cook looks me up and down, then hands me a basin of water and a cloth.
Dez bobs at my elbow while I wipe the gore from my face and forearms. “Did you kill anyone?” he asks eagerly.
I stare at him blankly, aching inside. I can still hear the shot from Captain Neelan’s pistol—I can see the bullet blasting through that last sailor’s skull, spattering gore across the waves. I can see Neelan blowing the puff of smoke from the mouth of his gun, and Locke standing rigid and unyielding, his feet braced apart, his mouth grim beneath the eye-patch and the head-wrap. Locke looked every inch a pirate in that moment, with none of the softness he’s shown me when we’re alone.
Dez frowns, his curiosity faltering under my stare.
“Be off with you now,” Cook tells him. “Run up above and see if they need help stowing any more swag. Nick can take over chopping the onions.”
Dez races out of the galley.
Mechanically I finish washing up. Then I pick up the knife Dez abandoned, and I chop the onions into small white squares. Their fumes rise, stinging my eyes, and I let the tears trail along my cheeks.
Cook comes to collect the onions a few minutes later. I scrape them into his pan with the blade of my knife. His expression is grim, but not unsympathetic, so I mutter, “I’m too soft for this life.”
“Compassion,” Cook says gruffly. “Some might call it weakness. Others would call it strength.”
He says nothing else, but those few words carry me through the rest of the day, until the late hour when I can finally stagger to my hammock and throw myself into it. Someone has replaced my old sour-smelling pillow with a new, fresh one from theLady Marcella. It was probably Locke, making some sort of apologetic gesture—I noticed his shape lying in his bunk when I entered the room.
Maybe he was trying to be nice. But one of the murdered sailors or the abandoned women used this pillow, and I can’t lay my head on it.
Nausea roils in my gut and I throw the pillow out of my hammock.
Since I was in the galley, I didn’t have to watch the holes being blown into the hull of theLady Marcella, but I heard the distant boom of her demise as theArdentsailed away. I didn’t have to watch the women in that skiff being swamped and overturned, but I know it must have happened.
Shutting my eyes tight, I try to blur the memories of the fight and its aftermath, try to force my mind to think of something pleasant so I can rest—but it’s of no use. The grating snores of the men around me fill my ears, and I hate them for being able to sleep so deeply after what they did today.
Finally I launch myself out of the hammock and run from the crew’s quarters, up the ladder, onto the deck where I can breathe.
It’s dark tonight. The sky is thick with clouds, and only the slightest haze of moonlight shines through. A lantern hangs near the ship’s prow, and a couple more glow on the upper decks.
I’m halfway across the main deck when a hand clamps over my mouth and a thick arm slams across my throat. Another pair of arms sweeps my legs up, right off the deck, and I’m carried along, unable to do more than squirm. My cries are muffled by a meaty palm.
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“Quick, gag him,” says a hoarse voice. With the arm pinning my throat, I can barely breathe, let alone gather air for a scream—and I have enough sense left to realize that a scream might betray my gender. So when the hand disappears from my mouth, I invest in taking the deepest breath I can manage, instead of screaming.
The next second a foul-smelling cloth is stuffed into my mouth, and then another strip of cloth is worked between my jaws and knotted at the back of my skull.
The faces of the two pirates holding me are shadowed, but one is a huge block of a man—probably Tir. There’s a glint and sparkle whenever the other one moves—most likely it’s Gorm. His piercings tend to catch even the tiniest ray of light.
What are these brutes up to?
“We noticed your insubordning today,” grunts Tir.
“Instubbornation,” corrects Gorm.
If they’re trying to say “insubordination,” they’ve both got it wrong. I stifle the urge to laugh despite my growing panic.
“Aye, and the Captain might let that slide, but we won’t,” Tir continues. “We’ve dealt with lads like you afore, and we’ve a mind to do it again. You’re a trouble-maker, Nick, that’s what you are. You’ve turned Locke’s head, and you’ve disrespected the Captain. And now you’re gonna pay.”
With a jolt I remember what they said in the hot spring, about how they tied a sailor naked to the mast to teach him a lesson.
Is that what they plan to do with me?
Desperately I thrash, kicking out and bucking. I wish my mouth was free so I could bite one of them and control them through their blood. I could make them jump overboard like I did with Jinks. They deserve it for what they did today.
If I get out of this, I’m going to make the rounds of this ship, little by little, biting each man I believe to be worthy of death and forcing them to jump into the sea. I should have already done that—but I was lulled into complacency. I actually began to think the pirates might not be so bad after all. I thought maybe some of them had good qualities.
