Chapter 24 Washed up
The first thing I tasted was brine.
It flooded my mouth the second I dragged in a breath, thick and wrong, like the ocean had followed me inside and refused to leave. I choked on it, coughed hard enough my ribs screamed, and rolled onto my hands as everything in me tried to come back up. Water burned its way out of my lungs in ragged bursts, scraping my throat raw.
Sand bit into my knees.
It clung everywhere—my lips, my lashes, packed into cuts I hadn’t felt yet. I could taste it when I swallowed, grit grinding between my teeth.
I stayed there, shaking, until the world stopped tilting quite so hard. For a moment—just one—I thought I was alone. Did I die? No I don't think so? I could hear the tide dragging in and out. The sky stretched wide and empty above me, too bright to look at.
Then the light shifted.
A shadow crossed my face.
I blinked against the sting and turned my head. Fisk crouched beside me. He seemed to be looking around all serious, gone was his playful flirty demeanor.
Water dripped from his hair, his coat, it ran in steady lines off his fingers as he twisted the fabric like he could wring the sea out of it. He smelled like salt and smoke and something copper-sharp underneath.
He wasn’t smiling.
Wasn’t talking.
Just there.
I opened my mouth, aiming for something sharp—some jab about pirates and their cursed luck—but all that came out was a broken sound that barely made it past my teeth.
His head snapped toward me anyway. The coat fell from his hands.
He leaned in, close enough that I could see the strain in his eyes, the way the sun caught on the edges of something he hadn’t bothered to hide.
He looked… worn.
Not the man from the deck. Not the one who barked orders like the sea owed him obedience.
Just a man who had dragged himself out of the water and wasn’t sure what he’d brought back with him. My hand moved before I thought about it. Up. Shaking. The chain was still there.
The ring pressed into my palm, cool and solid, the only thing that hadn’t shifted or slipped or tried to drown me. I tightened my fingers around it, ignoring the sting where it cut into my skin.
“Back with us, then?” he said.
His voice sounded like it had been scraped raw on coral.
I nodded.
That was all I had.
His gaze flicked over me, quick, sharp—taking stock. Counting what still worked.
“You hit your head?”
I shrugged.
I regretted it immediately.
The world lurched sideways, then snapped back, and for a second I thought I’d lose whatever was left in my stomach. Nothing came. Just that hollow burn.
“Where… are…?” I managed. My voice didn’t sound like mine. He squinted down the stretch of beach, eyes narrowing against the glare. “South edge of somewhere,” he said. “Hoping it’s not hell.”
His hand came to my shoulder.
Not gripping.
“You didn’t make it easy,” he added, quieter. “Nearly lost you twice.”
The words slipped under my ribs and stayed there. Memory came back in broken pieces. The fall. The crack of wood. The cold hitting me like a fist. The dark pressing in. Then nothing. Then—something pulling me up.
“You… jump…?,” I said. It scraped on the way out. “Me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just that slight tilt of his mouth, like he was deciding which version of the truth I’d get.
“Wouldn’t look right,” he said finally, “losing my new serving girl in the first week.” The words were light. His eyes weren’t. I pushed against the sand, trying to sit up properly. My body disagreed.
Every muscle pulled tight, every joint heavy, like I’d swallowed the ocean and it hadn’t drained out yet. A groan slipped out before I could stop it.
His arm slid behind my shoulders.
Lifted. Careful, but not gentle enough to pretend it didn’t matter. For one disorienting second, I was against him—close enough to feel the hard thud of his heartbeat through soaked fabric, fast and uneven.
“You’re heavier than you look,” he muttered.
It was so ridiculous I almost laughed. But no sound came out. The motion died before it started. I blinked until the world steadied.
We were in a cove. Pale sand stretching out, jagged rocks clawing up behind us. Scrub brush hunched along the edge of the shore.
No ship.
No sails.
No Ghost.
My stomach dropped harder than it had in the water.
“Crew?” I asked.
Barely a sound. He shook his head once.
“We shook the Eel,” he said. “For now.” His jaw tightened as he looked out over the water. “Cost us.” The horizon stretched empty.
“They’ll double back,” he went on. “Bram’ll run them wide if he can. Bring them around.”
If.
The word hung there, unsaid. We were alone. “Wonderful…,” I muttered. “Stranded… with a pirate…. On a beach….” Speaking that much took a lot. Words hurt right now. But my spirit was intact. He looked at me, measuring.
Same look as before. Same calculation.
“Could be worse,” he said. “Could be dead.”
A beat.
“You nearly were.”
The silence that followed pressed in heavier than the heat. I stared at my hands. Sand stuck in the creases, blood dried in thin, cracking lines. I wanted to scrub it off, scrape it away, but the thought of moving that much made my arms feel like stone.
“Why?” I asked again. The word came out smaller this time. No bite to it, no jokes. Just… need.
“Why risk it?”
He leaned back, folding his arms, gaze drifting out to sea like the answer might be written there.
“I told you,” he said.
Quiet.
“I don’t leave people behind.”
His thumb dragged along his wrist, restless.
“Not the ones who fight to stay alive.”
I swallowed.
The salt burned.
The words settled between us, heavy and strange. The tide hissed in, then out again. I tried to stand. My legs folded halfway through. A curse slipped out under my breath as the world tipped again.
He was there before I hit the ground.
Hands catching, hauling me back up like I weighed nothing at all.
“Don’t,” I snapped. I needed to stand on my own. I needed to move and think. But I was already leaning into him.
He made a face. “If you go under again, I’m not dragging you back.” The lie sat there between us, obvious as the sun overhead.
I looked at him.
Really looked.
Water still clung to him, hair plastered to his forehead, skin flushed where the salt had stripped everything bare. He wasn’t the story people told.
He was sharper.
Rougher.
And the look in his eyes—That wasn’t threat. That wasn’t control. That was something closer to fear.
The breeze cut across my skin, cold now that the sun had started to dry me out.
I let myself lean.
Just a little.
“Thank you,” I said.
The words felt strange in my mouth.
He blinked, like I’d thrown something at him he hadn’t expected. Then he scowled it off, shrugging one shoulder. Didn’t let go.
“Sit,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
He guided me back down, slower this time. I didn’t argue. We sat there, side by side, wrecked and breathing, the ocean stretching out like it hadn’t just tried to take everything from me. I didn’t close my eyes.
Didn’t trust it.
But my hand found the ring again, fingers curling tight around it, grounding myself in something small and unbroken.
Beside me, Fisk didn’t speak.
Didn’t push.
Just watched the tide come in.
And waited with me for whatever came next.