Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

The scent of vinegar burned my nose. My skin caught fire beneath the harsh solution, my eyes watering as the fumes stole beneath the blindfold.

  There was only one reason they would take the time to wash my body.

  Blind and shaking, I tracked their footsteps up the ladder behind me. The door to the hatchway creaked open, sounding their departure. Then another pair of footfalls entered the hold.

  These were different. New. The tread sounded softer, the steps lighter. My pulse raged, thrashing hollowly in my ears, as the stranger grew closer, breathing heavily. Sucking the air with excitement.

  My fear was so sharp and cold I didn’t think my bladder would hold. I didn’t care. Panic was a separate entity inside me, skittish and slippery, jumping at every sound.

  Where was he? Behind me? In front of me? Was he holding a dagger? I blinked rapidly, straining to see through the blindfold.

  “Let me see, you coward!” My scream garbled, my voice indiscernible behind the gag.

  The vulnerability of my bent position, with my bare bottom in the air and my body stretched over the barrel, sent me into a fit of convulsive thrashing. But the shackles did what they were meant to do. I went nowhere, and the violent jerking and bucking soon exhausted my already weak muscles.

  Male hands gripped tightly to my hips.

  For a moment, I imagined they belonged to Ashley or Priest. One of them had come for me, and the worst of this nightmare was over.

  But the fingers were too thin, the skin too soft and cold. I didn’t know these hands or this man. As if to confirm my thoughts, he forced my thighs apart and groaned in an unfamiliar voice.

  A sob broke behind my gag, and my legs quivered brutally beneath his heavy weight.

  There would be no courage here. No strength or inspiration. I couldn’t fight in shackles. Couldn’t voice my adamant objections. I couldn’t even see the face of my tormentor. But I could smell the stink of onion on his breath.

  And I felt him.

  Deeply, traumatically, he used his body as a weapon, one violating stab after another.

  Parts of me broke away. I tried to cast aside the physical pain, but the agony punctured through, reaching me where I hid inside my mind.

  I felt myself crying as he took what wasn’t given. Bent over that barrel, my insides splintered as he forced his corruption everywhere he wasn’t permitted.

  He stole from me. Plundered. Thieved in the most barbaric way a man could hurt a woman.

  Burning and ripping, the cruelty pierced deep, beyond the limits of my physical self, all the way to my soul. There was no moment in time, no piece of me, that didn’t know pain.

  Unable to use my eyes, my limbs, or my voice, I held the worst of it inside. The edges of my mind withered. My belly filled with liquid fire. My muscles moved with the speed of molten lead as my bones and joints crumbled like crushed stone.

  Three dead women lay in the hole only a few feet away with ungodly bruises covering their thighs. I now knew exactly how they’d acquired those injuries. With every agonizing second, I felt the skin, tendons, and vessels in my own legs smash and break against the barrel.

  He’d hurt those women here. Just like this. He’d hurt them until they’d died.

  Every moment beneath him devastated more flesh, thrusting me deeper, further into a place where the spirit stopped living. The pain was of the lowest, most wretched kind, the anguish so constant and complete it became the only thing that existed.

  I took a breath. Breathed again. It was all I could do, and so it was all I focused on. I breathed through intervals of him finishing and starting again. Each inhale was a grapple for sanity, each exhale a stumble to retain it.

  My tears gradually dried, my body too exhausted to produce them. But I didn’t stop breathing.

  I was a pirate captain. The ferocious daughter of Edric Sharp. If my tormentor meant to break me, he would need a sharper, stronger, more significant weapon than his body.

  That was what I told myself.

  Amid the pain, time moved at an agonizing pace. Sometimes it didn’t move at all. But eventually, he gave a final heave and walked away, his footsteps retreating up the ladder and beyond the hatchway.

  If there was any relief to be had, I didn’t feel it. He’d left me on the barrel, drenched in his sweat and other fluids. I couldn’t move, couldn’t see, the rag in my mouth softened by spit and tears.

  I lay there for an infinite eternity, forced to think about every inch of flesh he’d touched, every muscle he’d bruised, every opening he’d stretched and bled. Time became a torture on its own, until I lost track of it, sinking in and out of consciousness.

  At some point, the two lieutenants returned.

  They removed the gag and blindfold and pushed me to my knees on the planks. Eatables were offered. Salt fish and water.

  Nausea rose at the sight of it, my stomach refusing to accept sustenance. But I didn’t know if or when the offer would come again. So I choked down the food and drank the fluid without tasting it.

  Then they returned me to the black hole, locked my chain to the wall, and left me with the rotting, nidorous corpses of my predecessors.

  I curled up on my side as much as the shackles allowed, shaking in the rancid heat. And I slept.

  Until they came again.

  Again and again, the officers pulled me from the hole and restrained me on the barrel. Over and over, the man who reeked of onions returned and defiled my body. Sometimes his visits were quick. A few thrusts and done. Other times, I thought the never-ending torture would rip me in half.

  Whenever the officers came, I fought and screamed and begged for news about Ashley. Had he returned? Was he well? Did he find his feral pirate? How long had it been? I pleaded for answers until they stuffed the gag into my mouth.

  They never spoke. Not a word between them and certainly not one offered to me. But I didn’t need conversation to understand the intentions of men.

  Women existed to them as nothing more than vessels for pleasure. Worthless slaves for whomever they answered to. It didn’t matter how much pain they caused me. My health was of no concern as long as I was breathing when we reached England. If I died incidentally… Well, they would still have a body to deliver. Ashley would still receive his promotion.

  They would never be punished for the horrendous murders of my fellow captives. The laws of Englishmen didn’t protect African slaves or rebellious pirates. There would be no justice.

  Every time they returned, they restrained me, gagged and blindfolded, to the barrel and scrubbed my body with vinegar water to kill the stench of death. Then the other man would come, and it would be only him and his terrible cruelty. Afterward, I was chained in the black hole with the decaying bodies.

  As the days passed, the air became absolutely pestilential. How many days? How often did they come? The displacement of time had a way of fracturing the mind. Some days, I struggled to hold onto a thread of rational thought.

  They fed me bites of fish after every violation. My hunger pangs remained the least of my torments, and my throat never felt parched beyond what I could handle. They came often enough to keep me hydrated.

  Daily visits, I decided. The constant pain between my legs suggested that some of those visits occurred multiple times a day.

  I’d been in here long enough that my stitches needed to be removed. When the tight, itchy skin became unbearable, I spent hours twisting unnaturally in my shackles and using the broken edge of a fingernail to pick the threads from the underside of my foot.

  Giving up would’ve been so much easier. But I didn’t know how to do that.

  By dint of stubborn will, I thrashed and snarled every time they came. Twice, they struck me so hard I lost awareness and woke in a fog upon the barrel. Each time they sent me back to the hole, I was weaker, more depleted, the desire to live gradually draining from my bones.

  When they weren’t abusing me, they kept me shackled in the blackness. It wasn’t long before I looked forward to their
visits if only to escape the suffocation of rot and loneliness.

  The stench was so intolerably loathsome it was dangerous to breathe. I craved fresh air and would take the pain that accompanied it over spending another second inside these walls.

  Isolation was my enemy. It had a gravity to it that dragged me down, a choking sadness that warped the mind. Made worse by the galling of the irons on my wrists and ankles and the filth of the planks beneath my nude body. My head grew fuzzy with poisonous thoughts, and my brain began to fail me. I wouldn’t be able to hold onto my sanity forever.

  With every bleak hour that passed, I expected to share the fate of my cellmates. Sometimes, I pleaded for the last friend, Death, to relieve me.

  But there were still small pockets of time when I hoped for a miracle.

  I created fantasies in my head, my favorite being a gallant rescue where Priest and Ashley took down this ship and killed everyone on board. In reality, Priest would do it without hesitation or question. If he were still out there, fighting to rescue me. I didn’t know.

  Ashley, on the other hand, would always choose his career first. But could he ignore the evil that took place here? Would he let the admiral’s officers live if he knew what they’d done in the hold of their ship?

  I didn’t know that answer, either. It didn’t matter. Neither Ashley nor Priest had come for me. I didn’t resent them for it. I’d never been a woman who depended on a man to save her. This wasn’t their fight. It was mine.

  At age fourteen, I could’ve chosen any path. I picked this one, a life of crime and dangerous risks. I lived for pirating, and in the end, I would die for it. I’d always known that. I just hadn’t expected it to end in rape and torture aboard the ship that would carry me to the gallows.

  As certain doom descended heavier and harder upon me, I turned my mind to the past, seeking a happier, freer place. I thought of my father often. My mother, too. And I indulged in reminiscences of Jade, Reynolds, Jobah, and the glorious years we sailed together. I missed them terribly. I missed my life. But more than that, I missed Priest and Ashley.

  Even as I knew contempt for Priest’s betrayal and Ashley’s rejection, I had a lot of time to sit with my remorse and re-examine it from a new perspective. Ironic how things looked clearer in the dark. Sharper. More poignant.

  Despite their faults, I knew they loved me, each in his own way. That meant something.

  It meant everything.

  Because I loved them, too.

  I loved a libertine and a pirate hunter. Of course, I did. Insanely, shamelessly, irrefutably.

  Could love exist without forgiveness? I didn’t think so. It was time that I removed my invisible chains.

  In the tenebrous, rotting heat of my prison, I let go of the scorn, freed the bitterness, and relinquished the anger. I forgave the two men I loved, completely and unconditionally. Not for their sakes. I did it for me. A final gift to myself.

  I felt stronger for it, lighter, braver. It gave me an overwhelming sense of solace, even in this deathly place.

  When my captors returned again, I didn’t fight them. Instead, I focused the last of my energy on holding my head high.

  If they were to remove the gag and blindfold, they would find neither shame nor fear on my face. They would see relief, for I’d been reduced so low in the hole that I basked in every gulp of uncontaminated air I breathed.

  But it was more than that. They’d taken so much from me, tried so hard to break my spirit. But I was still me. Only bolder. Sturdier. Shatterproof. I was a woman who loved and forgave and found peace in her darkest hour.

  I was the pirate captain Bennett Sharp.

  When the faceless man fell upon me, like all the times before, I appointed him no identity. No name. No rank. He was an inanimate object. Meaningless. Powerless.

  As he rutted and grunted his onion stench atop my body, I didn’t cry. Didn’t make a sound. He seemed frustrated by this, his hands ripping at my hair. His knuckles pounding against my back. His hips ramming harder. More brutally. More bruises. I bit down on the rag and bore it. I held onto my peace.

  Until the door of the hatchway creaked open.

  Boots pummeled down the ladder. One pair…two pairs… Three…?

  My breath froze, and my tormentor fell still, impaled inside me.

  Not once had anyone ever entered the hold while I was being abused. This man worked alone. No witnesses. But whoever was down here charged straight toward him and forcibly wrenched him off and out of my body.

  Then the world erupted in chaos.

  It couldn’t be well described, for I lacked sight, voice, and movement. But I heard horrifying things—boots frantically scuffing, fists smacking flesh, bones crunching, and the gurgling cries of dying men.

  Was it the admiral? One of his soldiers? Were my abusers not supposed to be down here hurting me?

  Or had Priest found me and sneaked aboard the ship?

  My heart thundered as a battle waged behind me. The metallic stench of blood flooded my nostrils. A man began to scream, but the roar cut off. A heavy thump slammed against the planks, followed by the continuous sound of something being pounded with a heavy object.

  Oh, dear sweet God, please don’t let that be Priest beneath those blows.

  Over and over, the dull striking noise repeated, echoing through the hold. The longer it lasted, the wetter it sounded. Like the smack and crush of blood and organs and other vital things.

  There were no grunts. No whispers of life beyond my muffled wheezing. Just the ominous thump, thump, thump.

  Dread twisted knots in my stomach. If Priest were only feet away, he would’ve come for me, reassured me. He would’ve called out and said something to calm my hysterics.

  I jerked harder against the barrel, rattling my shackles and screaming against the gag.

  The thumping sound stopped.

  My breath seized.

  Boots creaked as someone shifted. Then footsteps advanced.

  A warning chill shot up my spine as I listened to those steps. They grew closer. I listened harder, really listened, recognizing the confident heel to toe rhythm.

  My entire body came alive, tingling, gasping, shaking. Christ almighty, I shook so hard the tremors struck agony through every muscle and joint.

  He was the highlight of my life, someone I looked forward to seeing desperately, frantically. As I lay strapped to the barrel, concentrating on the cadence of his approach, every second felt timeless. Endless. Hurry.

  Hands swept through my hair, long fingers stiff and trembling. He was shaking as viciously as I was, worse even, as he unraveled the blindfold and removed the gag.

  I blinked rapidly against the sudden light, impatient to see him. Then I did.

  Cold blue eyes.

  Full lips pulled back into a snarl.

  A savage expression bathed in so many layers of fresh blood it was unrecognizable.

  “Ashley.”

  “How many times?” Ashley’s voice scrubbed against my raw senses, grinding like jagged rocks.

  He didn’t sound like himself. Didn’t look anything like the man I knew.

  Gone was the demeanor of an aristocrat. Not just because of the thick blood dripping from his face. Or the sanguine clots of gore that clung to his silk cravat, fine frock, and gold embellishments. It was his bearing, the wild aura that surrounded him. He wore the reckless, uncivilized countenance of a pirate, every muscle in his body emanating a dangerous combination of madness and savagery.

  His hands shook so uncontrollably he struggled to unlock my shackles with the screw key. A key he must have taken off the bodies of my abusers.

  With a grimace, I twisted my neck to see the source of all the blood. But he grabbed my hair, stopping me.

  “How many times, Bennett?” His terrifying expression, buried under all that filth, looked like it might fall apart any second. “How many times did that monster hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.” I trembled beneath the glare of those mur
derous eyes. “I lost count. I don’t even know who he is. Because the blindfold…”

  Something fractured in the abyss of his gaze. A breath barreled out of him. And another. Thoughts churned in his eyes, and I knew he was imagining what I’d endured.

  Oh, Ashley. No. He looked so horrified. So bleak and devastated.

  “You didn’t know.” I released a sigh of dawning realization. “You didn’t know what would become of me here.”

  “I should have. I should have never left.” He freed the shackles on my arms and legs, removed the iron neck ring, and pulled me onto his lap. “By God, I never wanted to leave you.”

  His embrace and the vehemence of his words centered me in a way nothing else could. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed his protective strength until I felt it embrace me again.

  My hand went to the jade stone at my throat, touching it for the first time since I’d been transported here.

  “I thought this would be the safest place to keep you while I…” He hugged me tighter against his blood-soaked frock and choked on a pained sound. His huge hand cradled my wrist as if it might break, his gaze fixated on the chafed, angry red skin. “I failed. Goddammit, I failed you so fantastically.”

  “Ashley.” My mind hung onto his unfinished sentence. “You wanted me safe while you did what? Did you find Priest Farrell?”

  Please, say no. Please, say no.

  “I found the brothel.” He gently set me on the deck and leaned back to remove his soiled frock and cravat. “He used to live there, just like you said. But…” His gaze moved over my nude body in starts and stops, and his jaw grew impossibly more rigid. “You’ve lost so much weight. Your goddamn bones are protruding.”

  He yanked off his linen shirt, which had avoided most of the blood. I looked away and wrapped my arms around my torso, feeling repulsively unattractive and hating myself for that shame.

  “Don’t do that.” With a knuckle under my chin, he lifted my head and searched my eyes, letting me see his sincerity, his undeniable reverence. “Perhaps you have new cracks. Way down deep. Cracked but not broken. Look at you, Goldilocks. You didn’t break.”