They’ve left themselves exposed, with one man to guard the deck. I put a bullet through his throat and listen. The ship is alive with other people, all coming from the same direction. They’re coming from down below.
That’s also where the pearl is.
I know it instantly, as soon as I make contact. It’s here, and it’s not on deck. They’ll have it with some cargo below. They’ll have it in an office, or some other space. Mixed in with the rest of whatever bullshit they’ve stolen. I’ve retrieved sixteen pearls from ships like this. It’s one of the more valuable objects they have, so it’ll be in a place that’s easy for them to remember and slightly more difficult to find.
I’m not going to look for it.
Because Ashley is here too.
It’s not a large crew. Maybe twenty people. And the first two push themselves out of an open door and directly into my line of fire. They go down against their buddies with blank expressions. Nothing there. Lights out. And then the other ones are coming behind them, realizing what’s happening, rushing back down for weapons.
Nicholas lands on the deck behind me and rushes the deck. His plan is to shoot whoever’s at the helm so they can’t try to get any distance. I keep my rifle up and aimed until I hear the shot from the shitty half-assed bridge. By then, I’ve killed two more people and the Somali pirates are aware that they’re having a bad day.
Two more of my crew come down behind me. This pause is a purposeful delay in my killing spree, meant to allow the pirates to get up onto the deck. They won’t hide below, because they know we’ll sweep the ship. I’ve got more people, and more guns, and they know it—or at least they’ll know it soon enough.
The bravest ones, or the ones with the least to lose, pile out first and try to fight. They know enough to run right at us. At close range, it gets difficult to aim a rifle, and the pirates take advantage of it.
I shoot one, then swing the rifle around to meet the second one. He’s fast enough to avoid the first swing but not the second, and I bring the butt of the rifle down onto his forehead. He drops to the deck.
I wait for the bloodlust. Wait for the sense of victory. Wait for the adrenaline. But the adrenaline is already here and it’s not doing much for me. It can’t clear my head of the barbed fear twisting in a loop through my brain. There are questions that need answers, like how many of them touched her and how badly she’s hurt. Men like this don’t waste much time, and my ship had holes in it, and no matter how many times I run these calculations, I can’t get a result before I see her.
A young guy stumbles out onto the deck and surrenders. Jason’s there next to him, rifle aimed at his forehead, and I can see how much he wants to shoot him. How much he wants to have this under his belt. He could do it. I’m not close enough to stop him. But he hesitates, glancing around until he finds me.
I shake my head.
Every last person on this ship should die, but the one on the deck in front of Jason is younger than he is. His face is round, limbs lanky, and I’d bet he’s barely cleared eighteen. There’s a line.
Unless, of course, he hurt Ashley.
In that case, there are no lines, none at all.
There’s less of a crush at the door, and I aim again and shoot into it. That clears the rest of them onto the deck. Sailors know better than to get trapped below when there’s an active threat driving them there.
I’m the threat, but I don’t care about pushing them down below.
I’ve come for someone else.
I wade through the skirmish, which is intense but will be short-lived. I can feel that, too. The deck is slippery in the rain, making it hard to find purchase for anyone’s shoes, and guys are more likely to go overboard than they are to win the fight. Most of them will be dead by the time I find her. The rest will have surrendered. They’re not as coordinated as my people. They won’t be loyal to each other.
Not a single one blocks my path to the doorway.
It leads to a dingy staircase, and I take the steps down two at a time to the cargo hold. It’s a fucking mess. I would never let one of my ships sail in this condition. Crates are stacked on each other in leaning towers, nothing is secure, and they’ve got food gone bad in here somewhere.
There are two doors at the back, each one closed. I kick in the one on the left. An office in disarray. It has a desk bolted to the floor and a safe that swings open. That’s where the pearl will be. I fucking know it.
I leave without another glance.
The second door is cracked, and I lean into it with one shoulder.
One small porthole gives the room all the light it’s going to get, and it’s not much, given the clouds outside.
It’s enough to see her once my eyes adjust.
Ashley’s tied up on a filthy mattress, her arms stretched over her head and the rope knotted around a shelf screwed into the wall. My stomach turns at the sight of her. Bruises, evident in the dim light. One on her cheek. A shadow around her ankle. There will be more. They’ve had her down here for enough time.
She’s sobbing through a gag, not making any sound. Her body shakes with it as much as it can shake, which is not much.
They’ve taken her clothes.
I swing the rifle onto my back and kneel down next to her. The gag looks horrible, but her hands are my first concern. These dumbfucks don’t know anything about tying up a person, and I don’t need a fucking floodlight to know they’ve done it too tightly. I cut through the rope around the shelf with a knife and release the tension.
“Hold still.” They were also sloppy with the knot around her wrists. I have to cut through that, too. Ashley can’t relax. She’s crying too hard. When the rope comes free she pulls her arms down to the top of her head first, like it hurts too much to get them back in front of her.
It probably does.
Gag next.
Ashley squeezes her eyes shut when I move my knife over her head. This is fucking horrifying, this situation that I’ve created. It’s a bone-deep, ice-water horror that’s so far over my head I’ll never break the surface. I did this. I swore to keep the seas safe, and what’s a little hostage-taking amidst everything else I’ve done? She practically fell into my lap. I wanted her. I took her. And now she’s hurt.
I have to ease the gag out of her mouth slowly, and when it’s done, she rolls onto her side and retches, again and again, like she can’t get the taste of dirty cloth out of her mouth. I keep her hair out of her face. When her stomach stops convulsing, she reaches for me. It’s almost a blind crawl, what she’s doing, right for me, right for my lap. I sit back on my heels and let her.
But that’s all I can let her do.
I cannot, will not, feel all the emotions that are threatening to batter down the last defenses I have. If I let them in, they’ll take over, and I’ll never be free of them again.
And as sick as I feel, as horrified as I am, it would be far more dangerous to forget that Ashley did this. She swam to these motherfuckers and let them take her onboard. All her relieved weeping doesn’t change that.
It doesn’t change the fact that I put my crew in danger for her. All of these people depend on me, and I threw myself into the line of fire to try to convince her not to do this fucking thing.
She didn’t listen.
Finally, I gather up her bruised body in both arms and stand. She cries on my shoulder, hot tears soaking through the rainwater on my shirt. “Is it over?” she sobs. “Tell me it’s over.”