by Amelia Wilde
I hate him so much that I answer.
“I’m busy,” I snap, stalking to the window to look out over the sea. A storm front is coming in fast. They do, out on the ocean. Blue skies one minute, midnight the next. “I can’t save your ass right now, no matter what—”
“She’s born,” he says, and then he laughs, sounding so devoid of everything I know about him that it shocks me into silence. Zeus never laughs like this. Not without an edge of violence. “She’s born. I have a daughter.”
Zeus being allowed to have a child strikes me as so unfair, so irresponsible, that I lean my forehead against the window and concentrate on not breaking it. Zeus, who until very recently spent his time running the most sought-after brothel in his city and probably the world. Him. “When do the men arrive to take her away?”
He laughs again. “Fuck you, Poseidon. No one could take you away, could they? No. I would murder them. You’re not supposed to say that to a baby, but it’s true, isn’t it?”
Hurt seizes my chest. There are other daughters out on the ocean now whose fathers didn’t murder anyone for them, much less send the agreed-upon sum of money to save their lives. I pride myself on abiding by the agreements I make, but the fact is that Joseph Donnelly made the first mistake. He let Ashley out of his sight to begin with.
Another voice in the background says, “Brigit wants the baby back. Are you on the phone?”
“Is that Hades?”
Hades, who lives in a mountain fortress of his own design with his wife and his dog and now his new baby. Hades, who takes diamonds from the underworld and sells cold, icy beauty to the highest bidders.
“Who else would it be?” Zeus asks.
“Anyone else on the fucking planet.” Not that I care, but Zeus and Hades don’t visit each other, as a rule. It hasn’t been a year since I had to sail food to Hades after Zeus sent a mercenary army to cut off the mountain from the city. Don’t get me started on our sister Demeter. After that little episode, I thought they would go to their respective corners of the world and leave each other alone.
“Brigit wanted the private hospital experience.”
I have a vague memory of Persephone saying something about this when she called with news of her own new baby—about how Hades has his own hospital wing on his mountain, his own staff, and how Zeus and Brigit had come to be with them for the birth. The memory is vague because I can hardly stand to hear her voice. It’s too much like Demeter’s. It hurts too much to hear it properly. “The hospital wing you donated wasn’t enough?”
“She wanted her friend too. What was I supposed to do, tell her no?” The man cannot stop fucking laughing. He made himself a business out of telling other people to fuck off, but for Brigit, he’ll apparently rent a room in hell.
“Is that Poseidon?” Hades asks in the background. “Is he coming?”
Hades, unlike Zeus, isn’t a giggling fool. A fool in some ways—for Persephone, obviously, and because a lifetime of chronic pain has done things to him that he won’t admit. He has enough sense to be wary of me showing up there for no reason.
The problem with this question is that Zeus is an outrageous motherfucker, and in his compromised state, he would invite me to Hades’ mountain. If he asked, if there was really a need, then I would show up. I can’t stop doing it. I stand up from the window and pace back across the room.
“No,” Zeus says. “Poseidon says he’s busy. But I think he’s lying. It’s that he doesn’t want to visit us. It’s hurtful, really, because you’re so fucking cute I can’t stand it.”
“You’re the first person ever to describe me as cute.” This, from Hades.
I could tell Zeus what’s happening.
I could tell him about the Somali pirates and the hostage I took and lost. I know all about his whore turned wife. If he would take her to Hades’ mountain, if he would do that for her, then he would understand—
Understand what?
Sick rage burns my throat. This situation is fucked. So fucked that I doubt it can ever be righted again. It’s not like a ship you can dredge out. Somali pirates have Ashley, and they have the pearl, and they will hurt her. They’ll hurt her. I don’t know how to live with that, when maybe I’ve started to fall for her. I would feel things about it. It would be another, newer wound.
Zeus is cooing to his baby.
“I’m not sending a gift,” I tell him.
Call ended. The phone drops to the floor, and I go for the upper deck.
Nicholas is waiting there, sans rifle. Smart choice. One less thing for me to use against him. He lifts his chin when he sees me coming. “We can put on speed when the guys are finished welding.”
Right. The holes in the side of the ship. “How long?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“If we don’t catch them, it’s your head.”
“I know,” he says, and he leaves me to stand at the bow and scan the skies.
What I said wasn’t the full truth. If we don’t catch up to them, it’s my heart.
18
Ashley
I scream all the way across the deck of the ship.
It’s not a long deck, and at the end of it, the man with his blue shirt and the death grip on my arm slaps me across the face with a half-open grip. Hard enough to catch his knuckles with my cheekbone. It’s not a true punch, but it still stuns me. God, I’m so much less than I thought I was. Being a hostage hasn’t made me any stronger.
It fooled me into thinking that Poseidon was as bad as things could get.
This man—these men—have no such codes of honor.
I see them circling when my head snaps to the side. The one who has me must be in charge, must be like the captain, but he’s not going to save me from them. He’s not going to save me from anyone.
He told me to let go of that damned buoy. He told me to drop into the sea, and I should have listened. I thought I knew better than him. All those days on his ship, and I took them for granted. I wandered up on the deck of his ship in his clothes and nothing else, and not a single man dared to look at me, much less touch me, and it’s not like that now. It’s not like that at all.
The man’s fingers dig into the flesh of my arm so hard it feels like they’re meeting the bone. Like they could crush the bone. I always thought that in a situation like this I might be tough. I might be able to handle it. But my heart runs away with my fear, up and up and up until it’s beating through my ears.
“My arm,” I gasp. “You’re hurting—”
He hits me again and says something in his language. I don’t recognize the words, but it has the tone of how’s that for hurting, bitch?
This ship is smaller, shallower than Poseidon’s. That doesn’t mean there’s no room down below. And down below is where he takes me. The hot deck gives way to cooler metal. My footsteps make no sound on the stairs. His are heavy, so heavy, like he could crush me with the toe of his boot.
He probably could.
I want to fight him, but my arm is killing me. He’s going to leave bruises.
Someone will find my dead, defiled body covered in bruises.
Blood flees from my face. It feels wrong to go down. Every part of me wants to scramble back up the stairs and get free. I’m like a trapped rat. There’s no safe harbor up there either. It’s all bad. But going down is awful, and it’s going to get worse.
I even took the clean hallway for granted. Someone took care of the floors on Poseidon’s ship. Several someones. They worked in fair shifts. Even Jason, the youngest sailor, the one least prepared to work for Poseidon, called them fair.
It’s not fair here, and they’re not interested in upkeep. It’s one single cargo hold, with two makeshift rooms cut off from the rest. A sharp edge pierces the soft bottom of my foot and the pain lances up through my arch. This smaller pain brings tears to my eyes.
The sight of the mattress dries them like a cold breeze.
We’re at the doorway of one of those rooms, and the centerpiece is
a bare, stained mattress on the floor. Coils of rope like dead snakes hang off it. An empty shelf is bolted to the wall, and I want out. I want away. I pull back hard on the man’s hand. Mistake—he squeezes tighter. He gives my arm an impatient twist and shoves me inside, in front of him, and onto the mattress.
I back up as far as I can go, which isn’t nearly far enough, and he bends to scoop up the ropes. This is my one chance to kick him and I take it. My foot lands on his shoulder. His hand shoots out to grab my ankle in his crushing grip. He digs a thumb between two tendons.
A sound tears out of my mouth. Not words, because saying anything to this man is pointless, but sheer hurt. My arm throbs, ankle throbs, and he picks up a length of cloth from the floor and shoves it into my mouth.
The rest of them are coming. I can hear them on the stairs, but the first man, the worst one, turns me over onto my stomach. The pain in my ankle lets up—he lets go—but then his foot is in the middle of my back, pushing me face-first into the mattress while he pulls the gag tight and knots it around the back of my head.
It’s too tight, too much, and I try to get one hand up to pull it out.
He steps on my hand. “These too,” he says, and then I’m over on my back, my arms above my head in a twisted parody of last night.
I would never, ever admit it to Poseidon, and I would never say it out loud, but I wanted what he did. I wanted the fight. I wanted to lose to him. He knew that. He said it to me, taunted me with it, but that didn’t make it any less true.
I don’t want this.
I don’t want any of this.
It hurts, it hurts, and there’s no end to this. No end that doesn’t involve my dead body on this mattress or at the bottom of the sea.
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 al
most 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.
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.