They’re crowding into the room now, into the door, but the man who brought me down here doesn’t give his crewmates a second look. He’s too focused on tying my hands. Blood starts to beat underneath the rope. Too tight, like the gag. It dimly occurred to me last night that Poseidon knew what he was doing. This man either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. They’re going to use me until there’s nothing left. Nothing left but bones on the sea floor.
He loops the rope around one of the metal shelves. It’s secure now, no slack in it, and he pulls me against it to make sure. The rope sears my skin. The gag puts pressure on my tongue, so much of it that I’m afraid to cry.
Then he reaches for my clothes, and I’m beyond fear. Beyond being able to stop it. The man takes out a knife and cuts through the ocean-colored tunic, skimming the blade all the way up to my neck. He presses the tip to the underside of my chin. A big, sickening grin spreads across his face. The point of the knife digs in. Nicks me. Cuts me. He takes it away.
And then my shirt is gone.
The bra I have underneath is nothing. It falls apart under the knife. He cuts the straps, rips it out from under me so that the tiny hooks dig into my back on the way out.
I want to tear his blue shirt. Light it on fire with him in it. Choke him to death with it.
I want to do anything but lie here while he exposes me, inch by inch, to the worst people on the face of the earth. The man palms one breast, then the other, then gives one of my nipples a hard pinch. My breath rasps against the gag. Nothing is sexy about this, nothing is pretty, and I hate it. I hate that it’s not over yet but I’m afraid to die.
The knife is too much fun for the man to give up, so he uses it on my leggings, too. One leg, then the other. The fabric tears and splits. Knives like that aren’t made to cut fabric, and he lingers over it, pretending he might cut me. He angles it over my bare thighs and kicks my legs apart.
I stop breathing.
He’s not going to cut me there. He’s not. I focus on the ceiling, not on his face. He won’t, because that will make it less enjoyable for them.
The handle presses to soft flesh through my panties.
Can’t move.
Can’t close my legs, can’t even try. I don’t dare.
He speaks again.
The knife stays where it is. Presses harder. Then it’s gone—one blink—and the sharp tip is in its place. I clench my teeth on the gag hard enough to break my jaw.
My new panties give first, and I brace for the cut I know is coming.
It doesn’t.
I risk a look at his face and he’s grinning. He’s fucking grinning like this is the most amusing thing that’s ever happened. He sticks the knife back in its holder on his pants, shoves a thick finger into the hole he’s made in my panties, and yanks them off.
My legs snap shut. His touch is like battery acid. I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it. I won’t let it happen. He can cut me before I’ll let this happen.
The rest of the crew jockeys for position at the doorway, and their voices rush in past the static horror in my brain. They’re arguing. The man who brought me here leans down and shoves his hands between my thighs to pry them apart.
I’m doing my best, but I swam here. I swam so hard, and in the end, I can’t keep them together.
Two of the other men fall into the room, fists in each other’s red faces. They’re furious, each talking over the other, and I think they’re really going to fight—over me, that’s what they’re fighting about—when one turns and shoves the man in the blue shirt. He shouts back at them, both hands up, pushing them apart, pushing them away from him.
Then he holds a hand out, palm up.
The other two crew members exchange a glance. Whatever they’re saying must be a stream of curses, but they reach into their pockets and press folded bills into the first guy’s hand. He gestures at himself, a stabbing motion, and I’d throw up if it weren’t for this gag. I really would. They’re choosing the order they’re going to fuck me. Negotiating it. The man in the blue shirt shrugs and asks them a question.
Both of them look down at me at the same time, and I see the answer in their eyes.
They move onto the mattress, one on either side of me, and I see their plan in front of me like it’s on a big screen, the biggest screen of my life. One wears red. He’s the first one to touch me, both hands around my thigh, above my knee. He watches my face while he squeezes it, adding more and more pressure until he gets a sound out of me. His fingernails are next. He rakes them down the inside of my thigh, getting dangerously close to where his boss has already laid claim to me.
His friend does the same thing on the other side. They take turns drawing red scrapes down my inner thighs while the man in the blue shirt is out of my view.
Then he’s back in it, hands on his belt.
The one in the red shirt digs his nails in harder, one more time, and I know there’s no more waiting. The first man is going to kneel down on this mattress and rape me in front of all these men. The rest of them are lining up. I try to die, try to get my brain to shut itself down and off before it can happen, but I can’t.
Someone near the door says something to him. He curses back, and then his eyes are on me.
He gets to his knees on the mattress.
The two guys who paid him pull my legs apart, the two of them so proud of themselves. They pull to my limit and then slightly past it until I’m fighting against the rope on my wrists, fighting against the two of them, and it’s the most pathetic fight in history, because I can’t move.
They notice my struggle.
It’s a game for them.
A shout from near the stairwell sounds enough like a cheer that I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m the new entertainment, right up until I die, and oh, oh no, I hadn’t thought about the scarier thing, the reality that they could keep me alive here indefinitely. They could keep me alive for as long as they wanted.
Another shout.
This one sounds less like a cheer and more like a warning.
A warning to who?
I don’t need a warning.
The hands on my thighs have stopped moving, and I hear someone thundering back up the stairs, yelling as they go.
His shout is almost immediately drowned out by more shouting. More boots landing on the metal deck above me. A muffled thud—that’s a gun. That’s a gunshot. More of them come fast, and there’s a scraping sound along the side of the ship, and I know what that is. I know what it is. It’s Poseidon. I burst into tears against the gag. The men scramble up from the mattress and race for the door, colliding with the rest of the crew, and I don’t care. I don’t care at all. I don’t care enough to stop the tears.
He came to get me.
That’s all that matters.
19
Poseidon
The rainclouds break open when my feet hit the deck of the pirate ship.
It makes no difference to me.
Nothing makes any difference. I can shoot a rifle in the rain as well as I can in the sun. I don’t fucking care. Under normal circumstances, I don’t carry one when I’m taking over a ship. People who get shot tend to be more damaged than people with broken bones.
Today I’m not worried about killing them. Damaging them. They can all die. And most of them will, before I’m finished.