My hands clench into tight fists. If he wasn't so frail right now I might punch him. I had been worried he was dead. He almost did die!
He shoves his hands under the thin blanket that covers him. Something under the material jingles and chimes together before he pulls out a handful of gold. My lips part on a gasp.
"They caught me on the way back." He clears his throat. "I did it."
The Treasure of Talifi. It's real and my brother is holding it in his palms. I reach out a hand and pick one piece up, turning it over in my fingers.
He beams now, in the all knowing way only a big brother can. "I told you some legends were true. A few pieces of this is more than enough to restore our fortune."
“What about the rest of it?”
“I couldn’t carry it all and I lost…” His throat bobs. “The crew was either taken by sirens or lost in the shipwreck. I took whatever I could fit on my body, but it’s more than enough!” His tone turns hopeful.
Laughter works its way up from the pits of my stomach and shakes through my entire body. It releases the hold of worry and stress for the smallest instance, making my shoulders relax. Boston's lips twitch as they stretch higher and tighter. His own laughter a hum inside of his chest.
His laughter quickly fades as Rumi's voice booms overhead, a demand that makes his shadows flicker. Boston's eyes dart to the way the darkness shifts. He purses his lips.
"Millie, what are you doing with Rumi?" he asks.
I knew at some point I'd have to tell him what I'd done, however, telling him now makes my gut clench and guilt wrap around me like a blanket meant to suffocate. How do I tell him about my deal? How do I tell him that it's all selfishly for me? I wanted to save my brother, yes. I needed to make sure he made it home safe. Still, I can't deny how I've felt since leaving the little port town of Himond. I can't pretend like I don't suddenly feel like I'm alive...
"I struck a deal with him," I admit on a shaky breath.
Boston's eyes go suddenly wide. His warm hand reaches out and takes mine. "Millie, I've already given my life to him in exchange for saving our family. It's time for you to go home."
Home. He means back to Himond. Back to that house with all those rules. Back to that fiancé. To the pretending. To the playing my part and failing. To the judging looks and the stern disappointment.
My body sways with the boat. My head feels light while the rest of my body is weighed down with the bricks of responsibility and a life already planned.
I'll have a husband to take care of. A household to learn to run. Children he will want me to bear. Parties I'll be expected to attend or throw.
Heartbeat hammering in my chest, throat tight, I can feel panic sinking in and slashing a painful trail through my entire body.
A new house. A new role. And Boston won't even be around to help me get through it. No one will understand me. No one will encourage me to be...me.
Even if Boston's treasure can save me from marriage it can't save me from the shame of what a woman who doesn't marry must endure. It can't keep me from seeing the way never giving my parents grandchildren bothers them. For me to be happy...someone has to get hurt.
I press my eyes tightly closed to will away the tears that want to burn and build within them. The wall of the ship at my back feels too near, the clothes on my body too tight. Inhaling, I suck down as much air as I can but it doesn't feel like enough. There's no air. I can't breathe.
"Millie." Boston squeezes my hand again.
Opening my eyes, I stare down at him. "I can't go home. I owe him five years." What I won't say echoes behind my statement. I refuse to go home. I don't want to go home. Please, don't make me go back.
I'm up and moving before I can speak. The oversized boots that I've borrowed catch with every unsettled step. The two of us haven't gone through all of this for it to all be for nothing. I refuse to allow it.
As I barrel through the crew’s quarters, kicking away their scattered belongings in my path, something heavy moves behind me. Boston. He's too weak to keep up. He won't make it far, but I can't turn around and look at him or I know I'll go running back to his side.
Both my hands smack against the sides of the stairwell as I take them two at a time and burst through the door that separates us from the day. Sunlight momentarily blinds me as I take in the deck looking for that stupid tan coat and that oversized wide brimmed hat.
Where is he? Where is he? Only when Jac responds do I realize that I've said it out loud.
"If you mean the captain, he went back down to his room." She points behind her not even bothering to hide the way she rolls her eyes.
I don't knock when I get to his door. Breathlessly, I tug at the iron handle and scurry down the steps into his waiting darkness. It doesn't choke me. It doesn't drown me. The shadows...they caress, they guide me, they remind me of our one passion filled morning. Heat travels from my stomach until it's burning on my cheeks.
At the bottom of the stairs, Rumi stands waiting for me. He's stripped himself down to a new pair of trousers—the bloodstains now gone—and a long sleeve shirt with all the ties pulled tight. Feet bare. Expression...blank.
"Rumi," I say as he says, "Millie," at the same time.
***
RUMI
Millicent Acker is a storm. She's a wild thing I cannot tame or predict and when her eyes blaze as they do now, I know there is no stopping her. The walls I've spent the evening building will quickly crumble if she keeps at it. And she will. Even if I'm the one with powers she's the one with magic.
Hair falls into my face but I don't move to push it aside. It's the only thing between me and the savage way she barrels down the stairs past my shadows. The apples of her cheeks are flushed, her large brown eyes wide. Both of her hands dig into the wood of the doorframe as she forces herself to halt her descent.
With one wide step, I allow her room to enter and plant myself in that spot with my lips pursed. Folding my arms across my chest, to keep from reaching out to her, I take in the bagginess of her borrowed clothes. The crimson stains are gone. Thankfully. My own clothing has been stripped away and the pants—soaked with Millie's blood—since burned up in my hellfire.
The sight of it, even the thought of it, once everything had started to settle made my stomach churn. I'd gagged several times taking the clothing off, wanting—no needing—to never see or feel her death on my skin ever again.
I have to swallow to appease the dryness of my throat and the sudden feeling of the world plummeting to shambles around me. This is where she tells me she knows. This is where she tells me she hates me. This is where I regret myself, the moment where I remember the self loathing I'd almost forgotten.
It's not her fault that I ruin everything. So now that she likely wishes we'd never met and realizes that I'll never be able to fully give her what she needs...I shouldn't act surprised.
"Millie," I start as she says, "Rumi."
Her gaze softens, the fury inside of her still simmering, waiting to erupt. With slender fingers she pinches the bridge of her nose, hiding her freckles under her fingertips.
"Why didn't I pass through to the afterlife?" she demands still balancing in the doorway. "What did you do?"
Every muscle in my body goes impossibly still as I fight not to flinch at the harsh accusation in her voice. My breath catches in my throat unable to expel my exhale or inhale something new. All I can do is stare, counting the moments down before my heart breaks.
Though I hadn’t expected her to start with this...my power answers the spiraling emotions inside of me. The corners of the room darken, the shadows at her back pulse and press in against Millie, pushing her into the room without my command. Sometimes I have to wonder if I control the shadows or if they control me.
"I put you back." I lift my chin.
Millie blinks, sets her jaw, and holds my gaze. "That's bullshit."
A smile ever so slightly teases at the corners of my lips. "So you're cursing now?"
S
he snarls. There's the beast. There's the creature that's been inside of her all this time. "I saw you. You spoke to someone." My heart stops beating. "Someone dark." Breath leaves me as if I've been punched in the gut. "Your father?"
The best I can give her is a humorless chuckle. All I can do is show her. Show her what happened to me. Show her what I did...for her. For my selfish heart.
I push up the sleeves of my shirt, exposing my forearms before moving to the ties and pulling them loose. Tugging at the collar, my eyes never leave her face as she takes it all in. Her attention eats me up. What is she thinking?
Between every hourglass tattoo is another sort of marking. Black lines go up my forearms and as the strings open they reveal my chest and the way those lines scatter across the skin there too. No, not new tattoos, but rather my veins. Half my body looks like this. My veins...or maybe the blood within them has gone black as coal.
She inhales with a hiss. My feral cat. "What did you do?"
"I made a bargain."
"With the devil?"
"Yes." The answer. One single word filled with the rough desperation her death had consumed me with.
It wasn't her time. If she hadn't met me she wouldn't have died. I’m the reason her death found her sooner.
That's what's wrong with me. I am death. I bring death wherever I go.
"To bring me back?" she asks.
My hands settle at my hips. Millie steps closer, sending my heart racing. Against the old boards smoothed by time, my feet drag in an involuntary step away. The long table that takes up most of the room bites into my backside, stopping me from moving further.
Trapped. I'm trapped between my regret and the blooming love I shouldn't feel for a girl I hardly know. I hate it. I hate me.
My lashes brush against my cheeks as I squeeze my eyes shut, a grimace pulling at the lines of my mouth as I speak. "You still owe me a service."
"You bargained so that you could have me for five years?"
Five years is better than none at all, but I'd give them all up if she'd choose me. Willingly. Happily. How could she love a selfish creature like me? I just couldn’t let her go.
"Yes."
"What did you give?" Her hands clench into fists at her side.
I shake my head, finally knocking the hair from my face. There's nothing to hide my face now. Nothing to hide the monster underneath.
"What did you give?" she repeats when I don't answer.
"My life."
A fist flies into my chest. Air wheezes from my lungs. Another hit lands against my solar plexus and I relish in the hurt, the burn, every bit of the ache as my heart constricts in my chest. Millie showers me with a fit of punches I can't be bothered to stop her. I deserve it. I need to feel it.
"Why would you give up your life for five years? You were so close! You should have let me die!" Her voice raises to nearly a shout. Her fingers dig into the material of my shirt. Her brown eyes fall to my chest, one finger tracing over the black veins there.
His power. My father's power...it'll only make me less human. I belong to the pits of hell now, forever. One day I'll be her worst nightmare.
"I’d do it again." I grind my teeth. "I'd do it a thousand times over."
Her voice lowers until it almost breaks, the sound a knife twisting in my gut. "For five years?"
"For you to get the chance to live."
"You can't do that."
"I was born with a taste for blood, but you...you don't think I saw the way you became someone new...you became you when you took to the sea, when you kissed me, when you climbed that mountain, when you shot that gun."
She stands steady under my relentless gaze.
"You can't do that," she repeats, more sternly.
"I already did."
Silence falls over us again. The weight suffocates me. I can't change what I've done, not for her want or mine. A deal is a deal and the rules can only be bent not erased.
Millie tugs me closer to her as she pulls at my shirt. Her delicate wildflower scent fills my lungs. "I want a new bargain."
21
After The Deal
Millie
Yesterday I traded my life away. Today, as the light of the day finally breaks over the horizon and spills over the surprisingly calm sea, I sink my teeth into the flesh of my cheek as I think. Boston doesn't know and the guilt of waiting is eating me alive.
A new deal. A life I chose. The price? My family will forget me. Boston will forget me.
I try to tell myself it's for the best. Boston won't have me to worry about. He won't have me to drag the status of our family down. He'll be free to find a wife and someday have kids and live the life he's always wanted.
As much as I wasn't made to live that life...Boston wasn't made to serve Rumi forever. I can't stop thinking about that, about what I did, as the shores of Himond come into view.
The deck squeaks behind me as weight is shifted and someone approaches. I half expect Rumi, I almost wish it was Rumi when Boston speaks.
"Admiring the beautiful day?"
More like memorizing the sea, the waves as they crash against what was once my home, the stale salty scent. But I don't say that. I turn toward him. The fever finally broke, his skin now back to his normal coloring, his tangled hair brushed and tied back. Healthy and more importantly living.
"You're up." I smile gently.
"Yeah," he shrugs and slips his hands into his pockets. The clothes he borrowed fit him surprisingly well even if they make him look like a pirate. Father would probably pass out if he saw him now. "I had the strength and I thought the fresh air would do me some good."
"It's good you're here. I...I need to talk to you."
The small smile on his face completely dissolves as he realizes where this is going. Either needing the help to stand or wanting something to hold onto while I speak, Boston grips the edge of the ship. His fingernails dig into the wood, knuckles going taut and white. He looks past me to the shoreline.
"Say it," he clips out.
"You're free to go home."
"And what does that mean, Millicent?" The anger in his voice sounds far too much like our father's disapproval.
My lower lip trembles before I muster the courage to continue. Out of everyone, Boston is the person I want to hurt the least. "I made a new bargain. I gave Rumi my life in exchange for your freedom."
Boston curses under his breath, his fist hitting the wood as he shakes his head. When he turns his green eyes on me more than anger shines there. There's hurt too. And I did that. I made him hurt. I'll have to live with that.
"I can't believe you. Why would you do that?"
My own frustration and anger rise up against his. Boston is my safety net. He's the only person I can be completely myself with, raw and straightforward. "I have nothing left at home. Boston, I'm twenty. I'm passing my prime for marriage. I don't want to marry Desmond. I don't want to be a housewife. Cooking, cleaning, raising babies...sounds like a lifelong punishment. Even if the treasure can save me from marrying it can't save our family from the shame of the life I'm choosing to live."
"And what are the terms of this bargain? What? I go back to my life and you go out to sea? I never see you again? I forget about you? I don't want to forget you. I can't just let you go. I'm your big brother. It's my job to protect you!" He keeps a hand on the railing but straightens to his full height. "I can't let you go."
"It's my choice."
When he runs his hands over his features, he drags his skin down with the movement and I can see the exhaustion in the dark circles under his eyes. "I can't let you do this."
I take his hand in mine, gripping his fingers tightly. I don't want to let him go either. "Listen to me, you have a future—”
"And now you don't."
"Yes, I do. My future is here. With Rumi. On this ship." I take the slightest step closer, trying to memorize every bit of his face. "For the first time in my life, I got to choose something for myself. Let me do it. Let
me give you this." He shakes his head, stubbornly. I don't know what else I expected. So I add, "It's too late to change the deal."
Boston's bright eyes drift over my shoulder to our city where the buildings are quickly coming into focus. Merchant ships fill the docks already. Men, nothing but moving specks at this distance, have already started their day carrying goods to and from.
"You were always too good for Himond," he finally says after a moment, followed by a heavy sigh.
"I might be keen to agree with that statement." Rumi's voice comes from behind us.
Boston whirls around and I have to take a step back to miss the movement of his body as he steps between us. He points one shaking finger at Rumi. "She's too good for you too."
Rumi's chin dips. "You don’t think I know that?" His gaze shifts to me, empty and sad.
The crew moves around us, pointedly looking away from our small scene as they ready the boat to come into the port. Jac moves with them too and she's the only one that openly watches. She doesn't watch Boston and me though, she watches Rumi. I wonder if she's afraid that he'll finally unleash the evil thing that makes him who he is.
"Is this what you want?" Boston asks the captain.
"It's what she wants."
My brother half turns back to me. "Is this really what you want?" he repeats to me. It's the way his voice cracks that nearly shatters my heart completely.
All I can manage is a nod. Boston reaches out, his palms cupping either side of my head. I step forward as he pulls me to him, pressing a kiss to my forehead and tucking me up against his body. Inside the circle of his arms, I can feel how his body trembles and his breathing is painfully uneven.
"When I step off this boat will I remember her?" he growls at Rumi.
"No."
"Don't say that." His hold squeezes me tighter. Tears burn in the corners of my eyes and I squeeze them shut to keep them from escaping and wetting his shirt. Boston loosens the hug but holds me at arm’s length staring down at me. "I want visitation rights."
"She's not a shared child," Rumi scoffs.
Chasing Boston Page 16