Chapter 12 Adrift
Coming back to myself was not gentle.
My head felt like a herd of horses stampeding on me. The world tipped and swayed. I struggled to figure it out up from down. It took me longer to get my eyes to open and clear my blurry vision, yet I couldn’t see anything. Was my eyes even open?
Then the smells reached me.
Oil. Salt. Sweat.
Not tavern smells. Not home. Where was I and what the hell happened? I couldn’t remember.
As I was working to get my world righted and my memory straightened out. Unfamiliar sounds caught my attention. It sounded just like wood groaning. Water slapping slow and steady as if I was at the docks. A deep hollow rhythm that felt unfamiliar sang in my bones. Was I at the docks? How would I ended up there with no memory.
For one terrible moment I thought I’d been buried alive. Was that Why I was unable to see. I turned my head and fought the pain and the dizzy spell that cause me. Anxiety and fear clawed at me and whispered crazy and unreasonable thoughts. I mentally pushed them away.
Then I saw the light leaking through thin cracks above me. Pale and sharp.
Barely.
I rolled onto my side and immediately regretted it. Pain tore through my skull and down my neck. My arm and hand throbbed uncontrollably. The cot under me was narrow and mean. The blanket felt like sandpaper under my hand.
My temple throbbed. I lifted a hand and touched it. I think there was cloth wrapped around my head. The Layers felt thick. Crusted stiff where blood had dried into my hair.
Someone had wrapped my head. Not kindly either. Tight. Efficient. The sort of work done by hands that didn’t bother asking if it hurt.
Bright light blinded me out of no where and a shadow filled the doorway.
My eyes adjusted and I took in the the man who stepped in. He looked like he’d been carved from driftwood and muscle. Wide as a doorframe. Arms streaked with old scars and ink that climbed toward his shoulders. His hair was sun-bleached and cropped short, and a patch of it clung stubbornly to his chin like he’d given up halfway through shaving.
His eyes didn’t match the rest of him.
They were warm. Brown with little sparks of gold in them.
“Thought you’d lost your soul for good,” he said, voice deep enough to rattle the boards. “You been out nearly a day.”
A day?
I opened my mouth to speak. I had so many questions. But my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, and it choked me every time I tried. I watched him set a tin cup on the shelf beside my head.
“For you.” He said smiling.
I grabbed the tin and sniffed at it. I knew what it was instantly, and I was disappointed.
Water.
Not rum.
I almost took offense, but I swallowed it down greedily. After I placed it down on the bed. I pushed myself up. I needed to figure out where I was and what happened. The world lurched sideways and blurred at the edges.
His hand landed on my shoulder before I tipped off the cot. Gentle. Careful.
“Easy,” he said. “No rush.” I shoved him off out of pure stubbornness.
“Where—” My voice came out like rust scraping iron. I swallowed hard. “Where am I?”
“Safe,” he said.
The word sounded practiced. Like something said to frightened animals. Another voice popped up from behind him.
“You’re on the Ghost,” a boyish voice said brightly.
I squinted past the big man and saw him. Skinny. Maybe seventeen. Maybe a couple years younger then me. He was all elbows and restless energy. Blue eyes bright as cold water.
“I’m Reed,” he added quickly. “Bram’s the quartermaster. He’s the one patched you up.” So the driftwood giant was Bram.
Patched up?
I looked down at my chest. Panic surged as I looked for it. Relief hit sharp enough to hurt.
The chain was still there.
The ring rested warm against my skin, sticky with dried sweat and blood. My mother’s ring. I wrapped my fingers around it and breathed.
Once. Twice.
“Captain’s gonna want to see you,” Bram said. Bluntly but not unkindly.
“But first,” he added, nudging me, “drink some more.” He filled my tin cup up from his flask. Water again.
My hands trembled when I picked it up. I hated that. The water tasted faintly metallic this time. Maybe it did the first time but I drank it so fast I didn’t notice. I drained it anyway.
Reed’s eyes twinkled as he watched, like I’d just done something heroic. I turned my head toward the still open door. I started to get up. I watch Reed bounce out the door. Bram stayed behind me. Once I got to the threshold and saw what was out the door I stumbled back. Fear pulling me down.
We were out in the middle of the Ocean.
No land in sight.
Panic clawed up from my gut so fast it stole the air from my lungs.
I whipped back to Bram. “Turn around.” He blinked. “Take me back,” I snapped. “Now.”
His eyes slid briefly to Reed, then back to me. “Can’t do that.”
“Can’t,” I said, voice rising, “or won’t?” my own voice sounding unfamiliar and crazed.
The floor surged upward to meet me. I was going to pass out.
Bram caught my shoulder again before I collapsed completely.
“Careful,” he said. “You took a nasty one to the head, You don’t want to make it worse by doing it again before your healed.”
I shoved him away harder this time, though my arms had no strength behind them.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I can’t— I don’t do ships. I am—” My throat tightened. The words tasted like humiliation. I couldn’t get them out.
Bram’s expression sobered.
“Even if we wanted to turn around,” he said slowly, “there’s nowhere safe to land. The men chasing you at the docks? They’re chasing us too.”
My stomach twisted. “So what,” I said hoarsely. “You’re just keeping me here?”
“Hostage?” he offered.
“Yes.”
He gave me a small apologetic smile. “Not a hostage,” he said. “We’re the good guys.”
I barked out a dry laugh. “That’s exactly what pirates say before they slit your throat and burn your house down.”
Reed snorted.
Bram only sighed.
“You’ll see the Captain soon,” he said.
The ship rolled suddenly beneath us.
Hard.
My stomach flipped violently. I sat down trying to stop the dizziness. My nails biting into the wood as nausea surged up my throat.
I was on a Ship.
I was in the middle of the ocean.
I was on the Pirate ship The Ghost.
Reed slid a bucket across the floor toward me with his boot.
“Just in case,” he said.
Rage burned through the humiliation.
“Get out,” I rasped.
Bram hesitated, then nodded. He steered Reed out with him and closed the door softly behind them. That gentleness somehow made it worse. I waited until their footsteps faded before folding in on myself, knees pulled tight to my chest. I pressed my forehead down and breathed slowly until the sickness settled.
The Ghost.
Even tucked away on a little island tavern, I’d heard the stories. Everyone had. If even half of them were true, I should already be dead. Instead I was alive. My head bandaged. My mother’s ring still against my heart. I should have been robbed. Why wasn’t I? Why was I alive? So many questions blazed in my head. It made the dizzy spells worse.
I whispered a prayer under my breath.
The ship shuddered and rolled again. I clenched my teeth and rode it out.
Eventually, the door creaked open. Reed slipped inside. With a loaf of bread. He handed it to me as he spoke, “The Captain’s free.”
“You ready?”
Ready? I dont think I could ever be ready to meet The Ghost’s Captain.
I took some bits of bread. It was slightly stale as it sank heavy in my stomach, But it was better than nothing I suppose. I wiped my mouth and stood carefully this time. My legs felt borrowed, like they belonged to someone else entirely.
Still, I squared my shoulders and followed him up the narrow steps.
The deck exploded into light.
Sails snapped overhead like giant wings. Ropes creaked and sang. The sky stretched so wide it felt like it might swallow me whole.
And everywhere I looked there was water. Nothing but water.
Drowning, Sinking, No Air. Cold death.
Fear crawled up my spine again, cold and steady. I straightened anyway. I couldn’t think of the death trap I was on. Every where that surrounded me was just more blue waiting to wash me away like I was nothing.
Somehow I manage to ignore it as I focused on making my body move the way I needed to. Back straight. Head high. I pretended that it was just another room full of strangers. Just another night in the tavern. All I had to do was survive it.