Chapter 10 Between the Crates
The protective tone rubbed every stubborn nerve I had the wrong way. But his grip wasn’t cruel.
Just absolute.
Heat crawled up my spine in a way that made no sense considering the cold sweat in my palms.
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to trust you?” I muttered.
He glanced down at me. For a heartbeat something almost gentle flickered across his face.
“Only if you want to.” Fisk told me with a wink and a devious smirk that I knew got him whatever he wanted.
Talon coughed softly behind us.
“You two done?” he said dryly.
His gaze tilted toward the dock where more silhouettes were gathering.
“We do this now,” he added, “or not at all.”
Fisk nodded once.
“We do it now.”
We moved together.
Fisk in front. Talon sliding through shadow to the right. Me boxed in between them.
At first I tried to memorize the turns. Every alley. Every shed. Every path back to somewhere familiar.
It didn’t help. It just made me dizzy with each jerk and turn.
The village looked completely different from this side of it. Every shortcut I knew twisted wrong or ended in dead space. It was like I didn’t truely know my own town.
We ducked under a sagging fish-drying rack. Strips of salted fish snapped in the wind like brittle flags. The smell hit me hard enough to make my head swim. It reminded me of the ever circling ocean around this island.
I stumbled.
Fisk’s arm wrapped around my waist instantly, hauling me upright.
He didn’t let go. Our faces hovering breathes apart. Our bodies were close enough that I could feel the thud of his heart through his shirt. Or maybe it was mine.
He let me go suddenly and held my hand as he, guided us between two overturned rowboats.
We were so close I could hear the blood moving in his neck. Could smell salt and faint copper where old scars cut through his skin. It made my stomach feel dizzy. Or was it because I hadn’t had anything to eat all day and I have been practically fighting for my life since I woke up this morning? Yeah, that must have been it.
“Almost there,” he murmured again.
I couldn’t tell if he was reassuring me.
Or himself.
My heart almost stopped when both men stopped suddenly. A torch flared ahead. A man with a cudgel stood at the narrow footbridge leading to the north wharf.
Two more shapes moved behind him.
Fisk shoved us flat against the hull of a nearby rowboat, one hand pressing against my shoulder.
“Shit,” he breathed. “They’ve got the dock locked down.”
Talon shifted beside us, already studying the problem. “Give me five minutes,” he said calmly. There was something different in his voice now.
Quiet.
Precise.
Dangerous.
“I’ll make them look the other way and take the long way back while you get to the ship and inform the others.” Fisk’s fingers tightened slightly on my shoulder. As he listened to Talon. He nodded his head before saying.
“Go,”
Talon vanished into the dark like the night swallowed him whole.
And suddenly it was just Fisk and me.
The last thread of sunset slipped away, leaving the world to the thin slice of moon above us. Every breath I took felt too loud.
We waited.
Listening.
For shouting. For chaos.
For anything.
The silence stretched until I couldn’t stand it. I turned just enough to look up at him.
Sweat glimmered at his temple. A small nick marked the edge of his jaw, probably from a careless shave. His lips were parted slightly as he breathed.
For the first time since this started, something like uncertainty flickered across his face.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you keeping me safe? Wouldn’t it just be easy to use me as bait?” I whispered the questions that have been plaguing me since they strolled in the tavern and stopped the thugs. Most would have just turned around. I think I would have.
I expected a joke. Some smug answer about my smile or my legs. Like most men did.
Instead he just looked at me.
His green eyes took in everything about me in this moment.
For a long moment. Like the words had snagged somewhere in his throat.
Then the night exploded.
Sharp pops. Shouting. Metal crashing against wood.
Fisk didn’t hesitate.
He hauled me upright and dragged me forward.
“Now,” he snapped.
We sprinted toward the gap Talon’s chaos had opened.
And as we ran, my question stayed between us, unanswered, beating in time with our footsteps.
We lurched into the gap between two massive shipping crates, the space barely wide enough for the both of us. The wood bit into my spine, rough enough that I felt splinters pushing through the thin fabric of my shirt, but I didn’t dare shift. Fisk pressed in close, every line of his body wound tight like a spring ready to snap. Our breathing didn’t match. Mine came fast and shallow, his deeper but not steadier. The air between us smelled of the dock, sweat and blood.
Footsteps pounded somewhere out on the dock. Voices too. Dozens of them. Hard, angry men shouting orders into the dark. Talon had done something out there, stirred the nest, and now the whole wharf buzzed with it.
Torchlight slid between the cracks in the crates. Every time the glow swept past, Fisk’s arm tightened around my shoulder, pulling me deeper against him until I was tucked into the solid crook of his chest.
We were so close I could feel the shape of his breath against my lips.
For the first time since we started running, I really looked at him. The cut above his brow had crusted dark. His hair clung damp to his scalp. His green eyes looked almost black in the half-light. One hand braced against the crate beside my head, calloused fingers spread wide to keep me pinned and still. The other hovered near his waistband, flexing slowly like it wanted a weapon.
I’d expected swagger. Bravado.
Instead, there was something else tugging at the corner of his mouth. Something hesitant.
The torches drifted farther down the dock. The noise thinned.
I spoke before I could stop myself. I still had questions and I needed answers.
“Why help me?”
The words barely left my throat. For a moment, I thought the wood had swallowed them.
But Fisk heard.
He turned just enough that his beard brushed my temple. The silence stretched long enough to make me wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
“You ask like it’s strange,” he murmured.
A bitter laugh scraped up my throat. I swallowed it down and whispered, “Men like you don’t help women like me. Not unless you want something.”
He leaned closer, his mouth almost touching my ear. I could feel the smirk on his breath.
“Maybe I do.”
I waited for the crude joke that usually followed a line like that. Waited for the hungry grin, the wink, the sort of promise that made men think they were charming when they weren’t. Granted, Fisk was a charming man.
It never came. But what did come surprised me.
“I’ve seen the what bad men do,” he said quietly. “I’d rather not be counted among them.” A rough breath left him, half a scoff at himself. “Besides. You hit harder than half my crew.”
His grip loosened just a little.
Not much. Just enough that I felt the space in it. If I wanted to shove him away, bolt into the dark, ask something else entirely… this was the moment.
But I didn’t move.
My heart hammered too loudly for that. I was so confused. I wasn’t used to that.
“Is this a game to you?” I asked instead. I needed to figure him out. My life, more than likely depended on it.
His mouth curved, though it looked more like regret than amusement. “If it is, I think you’re winning.” His thumb brushed my shoulder once. Slow. Careful. “There are worse things than owing a clever girl a favor.”
Shouting rose again somewhere down the dock. The searchers were doubling back.