by Carrie Ryan
She looks up at the pirate. He’s wiped out the only man who’d ever found something inside Iza worthy of love.
Iza reaches one hand up and places it behind the pirate’s head. His skin feels like the summer sun, damp with sweat and rough like a tribon’s body. “And my father’s men will follow you because of me?” she asks. Her mouth hovers just against his. “And you’ll protect me?”
He mumbles a yes as she presses her lips to his. Just this once Iza wants to know what it tastes like, this idea that the world can be beautiful and different.
She thinks about the old Risk board, about how the Venezuelan marked an X where Curaçao would have been. She remembers how she would put her thumb over it, wiping out her world. She wonders at how easy it is to erase everything you’ve ever known. Everything you’ve ever thought you were or wanted to be or should be.
As the pirate lets himself go against Iza, as he breathes her in, she pulls Beihito’s machete up and presses it against his neck. Iza digs the blade in deep like she should have done before.
“Then they’ll follow me,” she says as the pirate clutches a hand to his throat, falling backward into the moon-drenched water. “And I’ll protect myself.”
Iza watches his body sink through the waves, his blood like bougainvillea blossoms blooming on the surface. She could do what it takes to survive. She could do what’s necessary to rule her father’s island.
Iza could be ruthless. Just like her father.
© 2010 Carrie Ryan