Paradise Cracked

by Jeff Hook

  Jack considered this for a moment, then frowned. “What will Karugo think?”

  Freddy whined piteously. “This is our chance! If you want to keep him, whatever, but his feelings aren’t worth going back to jail over. And who’s to say he’ll complain? It’s not like those islanders did anything other than shun him.”

  “I protected him,” said Hishano grimly. Both of the pirates blinked, as if they’d almost forgotten he could talk. “I’ll keep on protecting him. But that doesn’t mean I have to hurt you. Why do you want to take our crystals? If you don’t have enough to eat then we can help you. We haven’t let someone starve for centur—”

  Jack punched Hishano. The shock of it was greater than the pain. Why would anyone do that? “Are you really that stupid?” asked Jack. “You think we do this because we’re hungry?”

  “Then why?”

  “All these Tandoku are soft,” said Freddy, an exaggerated contempt coloring his voice that Hishano hadn’t noticed before. “I bet they won’t even put up a fight. Not that they could win against any random Mezazi ship if they tried.”

  “We’re going to protect our land and our people,” said Hishano. “Whether it’s against you or against the Mezazi. We always do what’s right, and that’s what keeps us protected.” He found himself doubting even as he said it. Doubt was a new thing for him and he didn’t like it much at all.

  Jack laughed, making Hishano doubt himself even more. “Oh yeah? If you’re so protective of your homeland… punch me. Here, maybe you don’t know what a punch is. I’ll show you. You curl up your hand into a fist, and then you slam it into someone else.” Jack pantomimed the motion, twisting his hips and turning his body as he moved his fist forward, slowly so that Hishano could see every detail. “Not so hard, right? Now do it. Hit me.”

  Hishano balled up his hand and found his whole body tensing. He pulled back his arm, visualizing with horror the moment of impact. Then he threw his arm forward… and stopped before he hit the pirate. He wouldn’t solve this with violence. Violence was never acceptable. It had been that way for centuries.

  Jack and Freddy both laughed. “You’re right, Freddy. He folds like wet paper.” Jack curled his lip into a sneer. “And you know how much I hate wet paper.”

  “Maybe we should take the island ourselves.” Freddy kicked Hishano’s legs out from under him, sending him sprawling, then grabbed him by the hair. The pirate’s face bore the joyous surprise of a child first learning that he could crawl. “This is like candy from a baby.”

  Hishano’s heart slammed in his chest. If he didn’t do anything, they would hurt him and Karugo and Ishū, and then take over Tandoku Island. But if he did something, if he tried to hurt them… the very thought of it made him sick.

  “I bet we could do it with just us,” said Jack. “Maybe even get Karugo to help.”

  No. None of the islanders would fight back, especially against one of their own. They didn’t even know how — the only violence they’d committed for thousands of years was against stalks of grain and the occasional grazing animal.

  “You think so?” asked Freddy.

  “As long as we take down that stupid shield before it starts messing with our heads,” said Jack. “I don’t want to be that emotionally crippled — or that damp — ever again.”

  He had to do it. He was willing to hurt his body to protect those he loved. It would hurt his mind to do this, but it was better than seeing everyone else die. He curled his fist up into a ball.

  “Should we kill 'em all?” asked Freddy. “Or should we make them slaves?”

  “Let’s do it like the Mezazi,” said Jack. “It’s slower, and not as fun, but they work harder when they don’t know they’re slaves. Some of them will even thank us.“

  Hishano stood up, hair slipping from Freddy’s loose grasp.

  “Well, going to try again, are we?”

  He bit his own lip in nervousness, then slammed his fist into Jack’s side. His knuckles crunched in on themselves and his thumb broke.

  Jack laughed and backhanded him, sending him flying across the ship and crashing into a box. Hishano felt a rib break. “Guess he worked up the courage,” said Jack. “Too bad he refused my combat training.”

  Hishano picked himself up from the splintered box, healing everything quickly and trying to shrug off the pain. Each injury still stung after healing; not as badly as if he couldn’t heal, but enough to make him dread the next hit.

  “You’re not going to win,” said Hishano with grim determination. “You’re bad, you’re the worst bad guys in history, and bad guys never win.” At least, that was what Tandoku history taught.

  “The worst bad guys in history?” Freddy giggled. “He thinks flattery will save him.”

  “This is your time,” said Jack. “Keep going. See how it feels to be the Syldris.”

  Freddy hesitated, then stepped up to Hishano. He knocked the boy’s punch out of the way, kicked him in the groin, then grabbed his hair and slammed him face first into the deck. He laughed nervously. “I could get used to this.”

  “I knew you’d like it.”

  There was less to heal this time, but the pain echo was somehow greater. Hishano struggled to pick himself up and was stopped by a boot on his back.

  “You know, search and rescue could be a waste of his talents. Even if I’m wrong about his super, he could be a high-class punching bag for training elite soldiers. After all, punching bags don’t struggle. I say we tie him up and throw him in some compartment until we reach landfall. Fire boy never needs to know.”

  Hishano struggled harder against the boot, to no avail. Freddy sighed and lifted his foot… but only so he could kick Hishano across the face. Hishano was halfway up and so his entire body spun, and he ended up on his back.

  Freddy giggled. “It’s so easy! You gotta teach me to fight, so I can do this to everyone.”

  The best move was continuing the roll. That let Hishano get on his hands and knees and then scramble, stumbling, to his feet.

  Freddy caught him in the knee. There was a snap and a searing pain and Hishano tumbled to the ground. He felt his knee healing even as he fell, but this one would take some time. He instinctively knew he’d be without that knee for at least five seconds, and he’d be feeling the pain for at least a minute.

  Was his healing getting slower?

  Freddy stomped on his stomach gleefully.

  Jack laughed. “I knew you had it in you, hiding under that layer of fear. Doesn’t it feel good to be yourself?”

  Hishano caught Freddy’s leg on one of the down strokes, and when Freddy tried to pull up he couldn’t get it raised.

  “You sea-blasted animal!” hissed Freddy. “Don’t interfere with your own beating! You’re the Freddy now!”

  The pirate bent down and peeled one of Hishano’s arms off his leg. Then he flipped the boy over and got him in a headlock, with one knee on his spine, and yanked upwards. Sharp pain surged between where the knee was crushing him and where the life was being choked out of him. Each attempted breath brought more pain against his throat, and every time he struggled it made the pain in his back worsen. His body was being broken as fast as he could heal it.

  “If you won’t cooperate and be a good little punching bag, then things will go worse,” Freddy whispered. “Don’t think you can stop it.”

  His vision blurred, but he could still see in front of him… and there, peeking out from behind the cabin, was Karugo. Terrified, unsure.

  Doing nothing.

  22

  Loyalties

  Karugo huddled in the shadows, watching his classmate of fifteen years be beaten to a pulp.

  The classmate who had always been the most trouble, the one who had interfered with his plans with the greatest enthusiasm. All of the islanders wished that Karugo was more normal, but Hishano was the most active in making it so.

  Beating Hishano were two pirates who had showered Karugo with affection. Who were teaching him how to fight with
swords, how to be a pirate. An adventurer. They said within two years he’d be a captain. He didn’t know what a captain was, but it sounded important.

  Maybe Jack was helping Freddy train Hishano. Surely that was it.

  If it was anything else, then there was nothing he could do. His entire body was a wreck from the training, and even at his freshest he hadn’t been able to touch Jack while practicing swords. He would have no chance.

  It had to be that they were helping.

  Jack was good. Jack liked him, so Jack was good.

  Hishano’s neck was wrapped tightly in Freddy’s arm, his head and spine wrenched back nearly to the breaking point. It looked as if he was trying to scream, but nothing came out.

  Their eyes met.

  This was no training.

  But there had to be a reason. It wouldn’t be right to interfere with his new friends. What if they stopped liking him?

  Then again, what if Hishano died?

  If he interfered, they might both die. And then Jack would stop training him.

  That was when he saw the expression on Freddy’s face. He’d seen a shadow of it before in every classmate who mocked him. In every adult who’d shunned him just because he was different. But this was the first time he’d seen it raw, unrepressed.

  Freddy’s face was alight with evil.

  Surely Jack wouldn’t... surely he... and yet the look was there. Tempered, perhaps, with whatever bond they’d formed that afternoon, but undeniably present all the same.

  “Hey Jack,” said Freddy. “Your little friend is here.”

  Jack flinched. “Karugo!” he said. “You should be sleeping! And Freddy, that’s enough training…”

  Freddy looked confused for a second, then let off whatever he was doing to Hishano. His arm, however, stayed wrapped around the boy’s throat, and no sound came out. Hishano looked at him with pleading eyes. What was he trying to say?

  “Your friend was confused and violent,” said Jack. “He was a danger to himself, trying to jump off the ship. Isn’t that right, Freddy?”

  Karugo saw the broken boxes, saw the pain in Hishano’s face. Wasn’t Hishano immune to pain?

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said Freddy, once again sure of himself, his eyes gleaming with a twisted giddiness. “I’ll keep him safe and protected while you two talk.”

  Hishano struggled, gasping for breath, and Karugo knew what he needed to do.

  “I was so scared,” he said, letting the appropriate parts of what he was feeling come through. “I thought you guys were hurting him, but you were helping him.”

  He ran to Jack and wrapped his arms around him and pretended to weep. The man tensed. “Pirates don’t hug.”

  That confirmed it.

  Whatever Jack felt for him, it wasn’t affection. It wasn’t love. The pirate had put on a show of being like Grandpa Toraburu, and he’d copied certain aspects well enough, but it wasn’t real.

  Jack had forgotten one thing, one thing that he could never have known without understanding Tandoku Island, without living in Karugo’s shoes for years. Something Karugo had dared to disbelieve, if only for a few wonderful days.

  No one, outside of family, would ever love Karugo.

  “That’s right, pirates don’t hug,” said Karugo as he lit his entire body on fire. “Pirates hurt. Pirates lie.”

  Jack’s extra-dry clothes immediately caught fire. The man jumped back and screamed as the flames licked his flesh. He slapped at his burning skin uselessly, then started rolling on the deck to put out the flames.

  “You’re a pirate, and you lied to me.” Karugo felt the anger flow through him, stronger than the island’s shield would have ever allowed.

  “You tricked me!” screamed Jack as he rolled on the deck.

  “That’s right, I did.” Karugo kicked his former mentor with a flaming foot. “Am I a pirate now?”

  ——

  Hishano struggled, making Freddy fight for every inch that they moved. He didn’t know where they were going, but it wasn’t good. He clawed at the pirate’s hand, bit at anything that came within reach, kicked his shins and tried to trip him as best he could.

  “You’re fighting so much better now, now that your friend’s involved,” whispered Freddy. “Isn’t that something? A wasted friendship. Maybe he’ll boil the ocean looking for you… but I doubt it.”

  They were going to kill him, or sell him, or throw him overboard… and turn Karugo into a devil like them.

  Freddy tried an armlock and Hishano broke his own arm to escape. Healing was definitely slower now, but he had to stay alive. Healing would do no good if he drowned, and if he didn’t get Freddy off him then Karugo would suffer.

  Flames appeared at the edge of his vision, making Freddy curse.

  “Stay here,” said Freddy. He released the grip around Hishano’s throat, finally allowing the desperate scream that had been building for so long. He had to let Karugo know that these people were bad.

  The pirate was much more formidable when he had two hands to work with. He pulled out his sword, then drove it straight through Hishano’s stomach and into the bulkhead.

  Hishano’s scream stopped, cut off. Short choking puffs of air were all he could manage.

  Tears flowed down his face from the pain.

  He grabbed the blade and tried to pull it out, but that only cut and bloodied his hands. He tried grabbing the hilt, moving himself up the blade to where it was thicker. The cut in his stomach widened. He pushed on the hilt, trying to dislodge it from the wall, but it was stuck. Freddy was so much stronger than him that he had no chance.

  He could only wait, and weep, and bleed.

  23

  Desperate Measures

  A fist hit Karugo in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.

  He felt the wood and instinctively turned off his flames. They were lucky that Jack’s rolling hadn’t done anything worse than char part of the deck, especially given how dry Jack’s power kept the ship.

  Karugo rolled onto his back so he could see his opponents.

  Freddy licked his fist where it had gone through the fire and smiled. “Turning off your protection. How nice of you.” Karugo got a kick in the stomach.

  He tried to wriggle away backward, but a trained pirate on his feet could keep up with one terrified boy on the ground. Karugo kicked, lighting his foot as he did so, and that was the only thing that worked to keep Freddy at bay. He held the foot up, tired muscles fighting gravity, a warning flame that kept the rest of him safe.

  Freddy stared at the fire and reached for his sword… but it was missing. So he pulled out a dagger and began working up the courage to stab through the flames.

  Jack had put out his own flames and stood up, a horrifying figure of ragged clothes, burned flesh, and seething resentment.

  “I trained you!” yelled Jack. “I trained you, and you betrayed me! You dirty rat! You rot-infested board! You were wasting away on that island, crushed by their oppressive systems, and I rescued you! I saw what they couldn’t! And this is how you repay me?”

  The man spread his arms to show the worst of the burns, the ones where Karugo had been gripping him.

  Then the anger cooled, the fire in Jack’s eyes changing to the glint of something… Karugo couldn’t quite tell. There was a hint of what he’d always seen from Grandpa Toraburu, but it was obscured by the look of cunning evil he’d seen earlier.

  “I shouldn’t do this,” said Jack, “but I’m giving you a second chance.”

  The pirate grabbed his sword and flinched away, dropping it. It was still hot from the flames. His knife was the same. Jack stomped to Karugo’s side, so he was looking down on the boy.

  Karugo knew he couldn’t fend them both off for long. Even just against Freddy the fight was hopeless.

  “What…” He couldn’t believe he was saying this. “What do I need to do?”

  He needed to survive. No use both of them getting killed. And even if it wasn’t love… it was
something.

  Jack forced a laugh. “I knew you’d come around. You’re going to be so incredibly powerful once we’re through with you. Freddy, what do you think he should do to prove himself?”

  Freddy stepped back but still eyed Karugo’s leg warily. “Our punching bag is still on board. Maybe have him take a couple rounds on that.”

  “I like it. Poetic. Make him hurt that islander more than he hurt me.” Jack grinned evilly, the sliver of compassion disappearing from his expression. “Make him kill his old life.”

  He’d have to kill Hishano? As annoying as his classmate was, he didn’t want to hurt the boy… then again, if he did nothing then the pirates would kill them both.

  What option did he have?

  That was when a bloody sword slammed into Freddy’s arm. The stroke was wild and shockingly unskilled, even to Karugo’s eyes, but it still caused Freddy to recoil and blood to flow profusely from the wound.

  As Freddy stepped back, Karugo saw the assailant.

  Hishano.

  Shaking violently, his stomach literally sliced in half, his left hand clamping his shirt in order to hold the left side of his body together. Sword in his right hand, bloody fingers wrapped around the wrong part of the handle.

  He growled and his hair stood on end.

  “Don’t you dare touch my friends.”

  Karugo couldn’t make sense of it. Hishano, who had tormented him ever since learning to walk, was literally falling apart and risking his life in order to help.

  And calling him friend.

  Jack laughed, a laugh that Karugo could now recognize as derision. “Look at you. You can barely stand. You’re about to drop your sword. You’re basically cut in half, and even with your power you’re going to pass out from blood loss. I’ve been a pirate for decades. I’ve killed so many men I’ve lost count. What exactly do you think you can do?”

  Hishano gritted his teeth. “I’ve protected Karugo my entire life.” His left hand was slick with blood. “I’m not going to stop now.”