"AYE, THERE'S SOME THAT SAYS HE'S a ghost come to seek the souls of those who dare cross his path." Katriona Annesley peeked over the top of her book, finding the lure of such torrid gossip more irresistible than the modestly titled, self-published memoirs of Lord Howell: Nautical Genius of the Century her uncle had provided for her journey. The creeping shadows of twilight had made reading nearly impossible anyway. Unaware of her scrutiny, the sailor leaned against a barrel, his ancient bones creaking in accord with the deck of the Godfrey. His audience consisted of a handful of sailors and Katriona's starry-eyed younger sister Elizabeth. "None's ever seen em and lived to tell of it. Some say only a glance from his evil eye'll skewer you to the deck like a bolt o' lightning. Aye, bold and ruthless is Captain Vane and the crew of The Ranger."
Katriona sniffed back a derisive snort. Captain Vane indeed. This fearsome pirate was beginning to sound like a character in one of the dreadful Gothic novels Lord Elliot's flighty daughter Lydia insisted on reading. One young sailor was of like mind. Katriona wrinkled her nose as he spat a wad of tobacco on the freshly scrubbed deck of the modest frigate. "Balderdash! I heard the stories, too, but I says it's nothin' but rum talkin'. There ain't been true pirates this far north in years" He tilted his hat to a cocky angle, underscoring the brashness of his youth. "This bloke'd be more likely to get his timbers shivered by the His Majesty's Fleet than not."
Knowing her uncle would not have approved either her eavesdropping or interrupting what was meant to be a private conversation, Katriona bit back an agreement. The War of Spanish Succession had lapsed into a tentative truce with the Treaty of The Hague, but the quieter the winds blew from burgeoning Spanish ambitions, the more nervous the Royal Navy became. This Captain Vane would have to be either foolhardy or foolish to put himself in their eager cannon sights. "Not if he truly is a ghost," Katriona's sister whispered, startling Katriona with her precise reply to her musings. "Then he would have nothing to lose. Right?" Smiling despite herself at Lizzy's straightforwardness.
"Now, Katriona," her father admonished from perfect memory, "seafaring men are a superstitious lot, but you're not a girl given to fancy." For once, his chiding voice brought comfort instead of humiliation.
A sailor in a worn peacoat drew a whalebone pipe from his pocket. As he struck a match and touched it to the capped bowl, the flame cast wavering shadows over a face leathered by sun and salt spray. "I seen him," he announced curtly, earning all of their attentions, including Katriona's. "I was on lookout in the foretop on an eve much like this one. There weren't nothin' but sea and sky for miles, then suddenly the sea opened up and out she sailed like a demon ship cast from the bowels o' hell." Katriona suspected her own eyes were now as round as the cabin boy's. "I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. 'Twas as if the very sight o' her froze me blood. Before I could pry me mouth open to shout a warning, they were upon us. I never seen nothin' like it in all me born days." He shuddered. "Never hope to again."
A pall of silence enveloped the men, broken only by the eerie creaking of the spars and the lazy flapping of the sails against the wind. Full dusk had fallen as they spoke. Tendrils of mist came creeping out of the darkening sea like the tentacles of some mythical beast. Katriona saw one of the sailors glance over his shoulder and sign an unobtrusive cross on his breast. As if to banish the spell of foreboding, the men all began chattering at once.
"I heard he brands his victims just like the devil he is."
"Won't tolerate babblin', they says.
"The lass wouldn't stop screamin', so he up and sewed her lips together with sail twine."
"Cleaved the poor bloke in two, he did, with one mighty stroke of his cutlass." The young sailor who had earlier dared to express scorn for the spectral captain wiggled his eyebrows in a mocking leer. "I'll wager that ain't nothin' compared to the cleavin' he does on his lady captives. One o' my mates swears this Captain Vane ravished ten virgins in one night."
"Ha!" scoffed a grizzled tar. "I done as much after seven months at sea and nary a glimpse o' stocking." The young sailor elbowed him in the ribs.
"Aye, but them weren't hardly virgins, was they?" The men roared with laughter.
Katriona reluctantly decided she'd best make her presence known before she or Elizabeth learned more than they ever wanted to know about the romantic foibles of sailors. She extracted herself from her seat of coiled ropes and stepped into full view. The men snapped to flustered attention as if Admiral Sir George Byng, Viscount Torrington himself had marched onto the deck of the ship. Katriona was not impressed. She'd been receiving such welcomes since she'd been old enough to toddle. Her Father's reputation and the fact that her uncle was one of the most influential shipping merchants in the realm had preceded her every step. She favored them with a benevolent smile.
"Good evening, gentlemen. I do hope I haven't interrupted your charming discourse on the merits of piracy." She nodded toward the young sailor, whose tanned skin had flushed a becoming peach. "Do go on, sir. I believe you were about to treat us to more of your speculations on Captain Vane's amorous exploits."
One of his mates cleared his throat meaningfully, and the sailor snatched off his hat, crumpling it into a ball. "M-M-Miss Annesley," he stammered. "Didn't know you were about. 'Twas hardly fit talk for a lady's ears."
"Then I suppose we'll have to string you up from the yardarm, won't we?" The lad's Adam's apple bobbed with obvious distress and Katriona sighed.
For some reason, no one could ever tell when she was joking. She knew that most of her acquaintances suspected she'd been born with no sense of humor at all. She was, however, blessed with a finely honed sense of wit, pity not everyone could appreciate it.
The weathered sailor in the peacoat shoved his way forward as if fearing she might weave a noose of her delicate shawl. "Allow me to escort you to your cabin, Miss Annesley. 'Tisn't safe for a young lady of quality to be roamin' 'bout the deck after dark."
He gallantly offered her his arm, but the patronizing note in his voice struck the wrong chord with Kati. "No, thank you," she said coolly. "I believe I shall take my chances, come along Elizabeth." Tilting her nose to a regal angle and grabbing Lizzy's hand, she sailed past them, ignoring the discordant murmur that rose behind her.
Safely tucked away inside their cabin Kati released her sister's arm. "Why do you always ruin the fun?" Elizabeth whined flouncing into their shared bunk.
"Lizzy you're too young to listen that nonsense."
"Says who? We're on an adventure for goodness sake! Besides, you're not my mother!"
At the mention of their mother Katriona stilled, a brief flash of hurt running through her eyes.
Immediately Elizabeth regretted her harsh words. "I'm sorry Kati," came the tentative reply after a few moments. "I didn't mean to say that."
"It's ok pet," said Kati with a forced smile. "When you're older you can listen to all the lurid tales of gossip from the ton; now it's time for bed."
"Hrmph," was her only reply.
After performing her nightly toilette, Kati crawled into bed beside her snoring sister, gingerly moving tangled limbs and golden curls to make space beneath the worn coverlet. Not blessed with her sister's gift of immediate sleep, Kati opened the page she previously earmarked in Lord Howell's memoirs and began to read.
Hours later, after the fourth attempt to engross herself in the Admiral's accounts of nautical astronomy, Kati closed the book. Listening to the rhythmic breathing that signaled her sister's continued slumber she allowed herself to steal out of bed and wander to the door of their chamber. Looking behind her self-consciously to again check her sister, she turned towards the hall. Some perverse restlessness driving her from the cozy confines of the modest cabin, down the narrow ship's companionway, and toward the deserted stern.
She studied the vast expanse of ocean that stretched out in front of her and every direction, allowing a wistful sign to escape her lips. It was moments such as these, in the quiet, dark hours between dusk and dawn that she allowed to herself to wonder what it would be like to still give into the naïve sense of adventure that ensnared her sister's mind. But no, since mother's death almost twelve years ago there had been no room for those kinds of dreams. Yanking her attention back to the present, Katriona turned her thoughts towards more pressing matters and the reason for their voyage.
Since her mother's untimely death, their father Lord Richard Annesley, third Marquess of Dorset had seldom been home. Though she loved him desperately, the girls saw little of their esteemed father. Except for the few visits at Christmas and the rare gift at birthdays, Kati and Elizabeth seldom laid eyes on him. Therefore, it was their uncle Lord Thomas who had taken them in. Though she was grateful for his protection, it was not the same. It came as a surprise when the previous month their father had written quite unexpectedly that he desired their immediate presence in the Carolinas. While Elizabeth had been elated with the prospect of adventure, Katriona was wise to its reality. She was eighteen after all, and like all young women of the peerage, it was her duty to marry to ensure both her future and Elizabeth's.
She drew her shawl close around her. The brisk wind blowing off the North Atlantic Sea whipped up Kati's skirt and bit through her thin petticoat. But she could bear that discomfort better than being trapped in the cozy confines of her cabin. At the moment its modest space more of a prison than a comfort, a daily reminder that some unknown stretched out before her.
Kati usually found a ship by night soothing to her senses, but the peace she sought drifted just out of her reach, her solitude tainted by a sudden onslaught of restlessness. Even the low-pitched music of male voices working in perfect accord seemed muted and distant. She frowned, licking away the sea salt that flecked her lips. In the rising mist, the sound should carry with the clarity of a ringing bell, but the night was draped in silence as if the sea were holding its breath with her. She strained her eyes, seeing nothing but fog swirling up from the inky darkness and the rising moon flirting with tattered patches of clouds. Chill ribbons of mist coaxed their way through the gauzy muslin of her gown, dampening her bare skin. The sailors' tales of Captain Vane bothered her more than she cared to admit. On such a night it took little imagination to envision a phantom ship stalking the seas. Kati could almost hear the chant of its blood-thirsty sailors out for a prize. She shook off a shiver; such thoughts were ridiculous. She could only imagine what her father would say if he caught her indulging in such whimsy.
She was turning away from the rail to seek the more mundane comforts of her cabin when the veil of darkness parted, and the ghost ship glided into view. Kati's heart slammed into her ribcage, then seemed to stop beating altogether. She clutched the rail, her shawl falling unheeded to the deck. A glimmer of moonlight stole through the clouds as the sleek black bow of the phantom schooner crested the waves, its towering spars enshrouded by mist, its rigging glistening like the web of a deadly spider. Ebony sails billowed in the wind, whispering instead of flapping. The vessel sailed in eerie silence with no lanterns, no sign of life, no hint of mercy.
Kati stood transfixed, mesmerized by a primitive thrill of fear. Although the wind whipped her hair across her face and fed the hungry sails of the phantom ship, she seemed to be standing in a vortex of airlessness. She couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. It was then that she saw the ship's Jolly Roger rippling from the highest spar— a skeleton, blood red against a sable background, dancing in the gusting wind.
The phantom ship came about with lethal grace. Remembering the sailor's story, Kati pressed her eyes shut, knowing the ship would be gone when she opened them.
Cannon fire blazed against the night sky. Kati's eyes flew open in shock as the ghost ship fired a very earthly warning shot over their bow in the universal demand for surrender.
In that first dazzling burst of light, the name carved on the phantom ship's bow was forever emblazoned in Kati's memory: The Ranger. Hoarse cries of alarm and the stampede of running feet shook the deck of the Godfrey as the panicked crew wavered between battle and surrender. Kati was jerked from her open-mouthed astonishment by a rough hand on her arm. The young sailor who had earlier jeered the mere existence of Captain Vane pulled her away from the rail with a familiarity he wouldn't have dared only moments before.
"You'd best take shelter in your cabin, miss. This looks to get ugly." His bold demeanor could not hide a complexion chalky with terror. Kati found herself dragged into the fray and shoved none too gently toward the main companionway.
"Dear God, Lizzy!" Was her first coherent thought. Obeying without thought, she flew down the narrow passage, thankful for once to be unencumbered by heavy skirts and petticoats. She slammed the door of her cabin behind her and ran to her sister.
"Kati what's going on?" Elizabeth cried stumbling from the bed.
A fresh salvo of cannon fire shuddered the hold. With a shriek Elizabeth launched herself into her sister throwing her arms around her waist and burying her face in her small bosom. Pulling her close Kati clapped her hands over Elizabeth's ears, choking back her frantic scream.
As a child, Elizabeth had once scampered off into the garden in search of fairy's only to plunge through an enormous spider web strung across the path. She had beat at the sticky fibers with her small hands, screaming in terror. Katriona could still remember her father's contemptuous words as he had watched Lizzy sniffle into Kati's bosom while she patiently plucked the tattered web from the younger girl's hair. Katriona had always been the one to protect her younger sister from monsters. This time, it was not the goblin living in the manor well, nor the monster lying in wait underneath the bed. These monsters were flesh and blood and very real.
Elizabeth's face crumpled. "Kati, I'm scared, what's going to happen?" Her wide brown eyes were full of terror. "It'll be alright pet," Kati reassured, terrified herself as she struggled to think. "There are plenty of well-armed men on the ship. You'll see, we'll be safe." Even as she said the words they rang hallow. Half the men looked too young to have seen a real battle and the rest were too old to put up much of a fight against well-armed Pirates.
Kati straightened, they needed something to defend themselves in case it got that far. Spurred to practical action, Katriona rifled through her tidy valise, searching for anything that might serve as a weapon. An ivory-handled letter opener was her only find. She slipped off her shoes so she could move silently if the need arose and tucked the letter opener into one of her stockings. Urging Elizabeth under the small bedstead, she grabbed the low-burning lantern and crouched down beside the bunk to wait. A masculine bellow of terror and the thunder of running footsteps sounded overhead as screams of pain echoed into the night.
Kati gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering. "We'll be alright pet, just stay beside me." The wire handle of the lantern bit into her palm. She knew the lantern was useless as a weapon. The dangers of fire aboard a ship had been too deeply ingrained in her since childhood. She would die a gruesome death before hurling the lantern at an attacker.
"We got them?" The question rolled from Captain Vane's lips like the thunder of cannon fire. The deck listed beneath his long, furious strides, but he never stumbled, never faltered, his flawless balance as finely tuned as each of his other senses. "I can't believe the man sent them alone." He swung past the dangling rigging "You're sure they're the daughters of Richard Annesley? Jack if they're not I swear to God…" The lanky brown-haired sailor marching in his wake appeared unaffected by his captain's hanging threat. Only someone who knew him well could stand unaffected by the menace in his gravely bass voice.
"If I'm wrong shall I fetch the cat-o'-nine-tails, Charles so that you can flog me?"
"Don't tempt me," the Captain growled. "I should have left you to hang in Santo Domingo when I had the chance."
Vane ducked his head at the precise moment it would have struck the fore boom and folded his lean frame into the hold. His companion dropped after him, landing with a cat's lithe grace on the pads of his booted feet. The Captain rubbed his chin. "Have you got them together or separate?"
"Separated, the black haired one stabbed Hamund with a bloody letter opener as soon as we walked through the damned door. Spitfire that one. The little blonde one cried quite a bit, but once Hamund threatened to half her sister in two she quieted up her sniffling. The cabin was listed in the ship's log just as Miss. Guthrie said it would be—A-N-N-E-S-L-E-Y-period."
Steering his way through the shadowy hold, he shook his head. "Kill the rest and get underway, with any luck we'll have about three weeks before Annesley gets word and sends the whole Channel Fleet out in force. You get anything else out of her?" "The older one, once we…um…took her sister, she…became a bit more unreasonable. We think she might respond to you best. Besides, you're the one with the reputation for terrorizing innocent virgins."
Vane shot him a dark look as they halted before a door bolted from the outside. "I don't like virgins."
"Even better! You're enough to give any proper young English maiden nightmares." As both men turned towards the door, Jack paused. With a dramatic gesture, he ran his fingers through his shaggy hair and smoothed his cambric shirt.
"Are you going to interrogate her or court her?" Vane growled.
"I haven't decided. Maybe neither. Maybe both. Don't tell Anne."
With an exasperated sigh, Vane lifted the makeshift bolt, unlocked the door, and slipped into the dark room followed closely by Rackham.
Waiting for his eyes to adjust in the dim light, Vane was vaguely aware of the rush of air before pain exploded behind his eyes as something very solid and hefty slammed into the side of his head.
"Fuck," was his first thought before a second stab of pain, this time in the gut, nearly dropped him to his knees.
"Where is my sister!" The feminine yell sounded off the walls of the small chamber.
"Told you she was unreasonable!" Jack yelled from a safe distance.
Vane shook his head to regain his sense. Just as a small arm swung back for a third time, he latched onto the delicate wrist with a vice grip and twisted until a yelp sent whatever hard, offending object she had been holding clattering to the floor. Thinking he had the upper hand, Vane was wholly unprepared for a third onslaught as a bony knee shot up between his legs and caught him in the groin full force eliciting a pained grunt as he doubled over.
"Where!" the feminine voice came again.
Anger, white and coursed through his veins. With a grunt, Vane straightened. Using the full weight of his body, he locked his other hand around the girl's slender throat and slammed her into the nearest wall with enough force to hear the sickening crack as flesh and bone struck solid wood.
His gaze raked her in blunt appraisal. He had been expecting a child. The girl in front of him was most definitely NOT a child and yet not a woman. Oddly enough, it wasn't anything about his captive's size that surprised him, but her stern demeanor and the look in her flashing gray eyes. He had been expecting abject terror or even hysteria, but her flushed cheeks were free of tear stains, her lips were open on an angry gasp, and the eyes that met his were as stormy as any tempest he'd faced. She must be daft, or ignorant at the very least. Had she no sense to be afraid of him, had she not heard the stories of what he did to those that angered him?
Being momentarily deprived of vision from the force of the blow had heightened her other senses. Katriona's ears were tuned to the harsh whisper of air from his lungs. Her nostrils flared at the scent of him— a tangy brew of salt spray, brandy, and the pure spice of male musk. He smelled like the predator he was, and she knew instinctively that if she allowed him to sense her fear, she was done for. She was thankful her initial panic had been swallowed by outrage.
"Where is she? What have you done with her?" Came the retort, weaker this time, but no less irate. He moved to stand directly in front of her, one hand locked around her throat, the other maintaining a bruising grip on her wrist, his silence a blatant challenge. He watched, secretly amused, as a flush of pink crept into the hollows beneath her sharp cheekbones.
Though she would never admit it, Katriona had known she was in trouble the moment this man entered the cabin. She had recognized in the space of a skipping heartbeat that he was not the same man who had abducted her, the lanky man whose hands had been almost gentle as he apologized, his voice melodious and soothing. There was nothing soothing about this man. The very air around him crackled with threat. Kati feared she was in the presence of Captain Vane himself, no phantom but flesh and blood— solid, disturbing, and only inches from her face.
The stranger's gaze seared her cheeks, but she refused to avert her face from his scrutiny. "Your name." She kept her mouth clamped tight. Kati expected he wouldn't be pleased with her response or lack thereof, but she was completely unprepared for the humiliating sting as he pulled back his hand and struck her. "Your name." His husky words were a demand, not a request. Defiant gray eyes met blue as another slap rang out. Her captor was silent for several heartbeats, waiting.
"Lady Katriona Annesley," she finally replied, her only defense the shards of ice dripping from her voice. "But I think under the circumstances, you'd do well to address me as Miss Annesley." His excitement was palpable. Gone was the barely repressed violence, replaced by a ferocious satisfaction she sensed might be even more dangerous to her.
"Well, now Miss Annesley that wasn't so hard was it? Welcome aboard the Ranger." It was then that he released her. His voice was both rough and smooth, like well-aged whiskey steeped in smoke. She suspected its raspy timbre was designed as a threat, but it still sent a shiver of raw reaction down her spine. She prayed he did not see it.
Discreetly rubbing her bruised wrist, her anger made her reckless. "And what pray tell may I have the pleasure of calling you, sir?"
"Captain Charles Vane."
Dear god she bad been right.
"My dear, it's customary to scream and weep when one is abducted by pirates, yet you've done neither. Why is that?" Jack finally broke his silence.
Kati was terrified, but she refused to show her fear. Taking a deep breath and squaring her slender shoulders Kati met Jack's eyes "If I might have gained anything by screaming, I'd have had my sister back with me. It's obvious by the motion of the deck that the ship is at full sail, precluding immediate rescue. And I've never found tears to be of any practical use."
Captain Vane moved in front of her, blocking her view of the other man. If he had touched her then, she feared she would have burst into tears. "And which are you, Miss Annesley? Innocent? Helpless? Or both?"
"I've heard enough about your cowardly tactics to know your favored opponents are innocent sailors plying their trade and those too helpless to warrant your sympathy." At the moment, Kati didn't care to admit that she was afraid he'd embroider a skull and crossbones on her lips.
"How rare. The lanky one spoke then almost to himself, "logic and intelligence wrapped up in such a pretty package. Is your father in the habit of allowing you and your sister to journey alone on a frigate? Young ladies of quality do not travel such a distance unchaperoned."
"Does he care so little for your reputation?" The note in Vane's voice might have been one of mockery or curiosity
Kati almost blurted out that her father cared for nothing but their reputations, but to reveal such a painful truth would have been like laying an old wound bare.
"The Captain's mother was traveling with us." A fat lot of good that had done her or anyone else aboard, Kati thought. "The Captain of the Godfrey works…worked for my father. He's known my sister and I since we were children. I can promise you that should any of the men under his command so much as smile at us in what might be deemed an improper manner; he'd have them flogged."
"Purely for your entertainment, I'm sure." Vane rasped.
Katriona couldn't hold back her retort at the unfair cut. "I fear my tastes in amusement don't run to torture as yours surely do Captain," she replied acidly.
"Touché, Miss Annesley," Jack chuckled despite himself. Feisty this one, he was quite impressed by her audacity.
"Perhaps you're not so helpless after all. If we could only ascertain your innocence with such flair …" Vane let the unspoken threat dangle. She couldn't seem to stop her tart tongue from running rampant. She'd do well to remember that this man held both her life and that of her sister in his hands. Just then she realized that he held power over something else, something far more precious, especially for a woman. His brisk footsteps paced in front of her, weaving a dizzying spell as she struggled to follow his movements with the onslaught of a headache. "Perhaps you'd care to explain why your noble father deprived himself of your charming wit for the duration of your voyage."
"We're to meet him. He saw no logic in journeying halfway across the ocean to only return to his original destination."
"How noble of him," Rackham responded
Vane merely glanced in her direction.
Something flickered behind her eyes. If Vane blinked, he would have missed it. Jack hit a nerve somehow. Interesting.
"So he sent you and your sweet sister off alone then?" Jack continued.
"What do you want with us?" she snapped avoiding Jack's question. "Is our fate to be the same as the men you murdered!"
Vane grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze once more. "Is that what you've heard Miss Annesley? That we're murderers?" She pressed her eyes shut, beset by a curious mix of dread and anticipation.
"Among other things."
"Such as?"
"They say you're a devil," she whispered. He leaned over her and pressed his lips near her ear.
"Maybe I am." The prickly softness of his beard chafed her tender skin. The masculine weight of him permeated her senses. "What say you, Miss Annesley?" His touch was flagrant. It's blatant virility set Kati's raw nerves humming. She'd never been touched with such matter-of-fact familiarity by anyone. Her father prided himself on maintaining a cold reserve, finding physical displays of fondness distasteful. "You are no more a devil than I. Though anyone that derives pleasure from the murder of innocent people deserves a special place in hell." She opened her eyes and looked at him then. "Sir."
He slanted her an unreadable look beneath his generous lashes before backing away from her. His crystalline eyes were the brightest blue she had seen. He chuckled at her then. "Thank you, Miss Annesley you have been most helpful."
Narrowing her eyes, Kati took advantage of his purported indifference to study him. His thick hair was a warm honey brown shade, worn long, hanging well past his impressive shoulders. He was shorter than his companion, yet towered over her by a good six inches. He seemed utterly at home with his size, finding no need to use its power to intimidate or cajole. His countenance might have been called handsome were it not for the once-broken nose, and the jagged scar splitting one eyebrow. He had an oddly tender, expressive mouth for such a rugged visage.
With a nod from Vane, both men turned to leave.
"Wait, please, where is my sister?"
Captain Vane paused for a moment, "you care a great deal about her." It was a statement and not a question.
She met his questioning gaze, "I would do anything for her."
"Let's hope for your sake that it doesn't come to that."
With that they turned and left, locking her inside the tiny room.
"What do you want?" she whispered to the dim.
Kati told Captain Vane that screaming was futile, yet in that moment all she wanted to do was scream. She winced as she brought her fingers to her cheek, noting the swollen flesh. She'd never been struck before and the slap had stung, not only her skin but her pride. She hated this man and she barely knew him.
Katriona hugged herself through her thin nightdress, fighting back a shiver of mingled fear and desperation. She felt as if her flesh was being consumed by a terrible fever—one minute burning, the next chilled to the bone. Her usual calm logic seemed to have betrayed her. What was she going to do? What were they going to do? She thought back to their exchange.
"Wait, please, where is my sister?"
"You care a great deal about her." His gaze was questioning.
"I would do anything for her."
"Let's hope for your sake that it doesn't come to that."
What did he mean by that? As Vane's words echoed through her mind, a sudden onslaught of utter helplessness consumed her. From down the corridor she heard a noise. Muffled men's voices and heated shouts. She didn't know what lay beyond that door, yet she knew with a certainty beyond mere female intuition that her life was about to change. She could sense it, feel it, like an inescapable shadow cast over her soul. Her weary gaze immediately shot to the woodened door, stealing herself for another encounter. She pulled herself to her feet, determined to show no fear. She didn't want to believe that monsters walked the earth. But this man was as close to any she could imagine. Yet she would not fear them. The stories were only stories. These men were made of flesh and blood just as she. Pressing a hand to her brow, she closed her eyes. She would figure a way out of this. She could. She would. She didn't have any other choice. Kati slowly lifted her head and opened her eyes. The hall was quiet, the room remained dark. No one was coming. Slowly she sunk back to the hard floor. With a trembling sigh she closed her eyes, shutting out the events of the night.