A/N: Well, I'm back. That certainly didn't take very long. *clears throat* Yes, I have returned, this time with a very different idea! This one struck me near the end of writing Haunted, a much more character-driven fiction that grants a little more personal insight to the characters rather than following drama based around other characters and the plot of the musical. Unlike Haunted, I have no idea where I want to go with this; I only have a few vague ideas of certain scenes that I definitely want to include. Likewise, I have no idea how long this piece will end up being (though I try to make my cap twenty chapters so that neither I nor my readers lose interest). So this work will definitely be a bit of a bumpy ride for all of us!
Nonetheless, I'm excited to post it here! I also hope to have the first chapter of my one-shots series posted sometime next week. Thanks for stopping by, and leave a comment if you enjoy!
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Upon awakening from a brief and fitful nap, Sweeney Todd opened his eyes to darkness. How long he had rested in this underbelly, he had not a clue, for he had no view of the sun, and he could only guess that several weeks had passed. The only indicator he had of the passage of time was the arrival of his meals, which occurred at random and infrequently. Once, he swore they brought nothing for a whole three days—though he could only estimate.
Around him, wood groaned, and unintelligible voices floated from the ceilings above. He paid no heed to those voices; he paid no heed to anyone's voice anymore. Men said unimportant things, leading unimportant lives with petty troubles that would one day end when they inevitably disappeared, eaten by the atmosphere as cruel and unloving as it had birthed them.
The ship pitched sharp to the left. He slammed his head against the wall behind him. Shit. Beside him, the woman flopped from her tenuous sleep and knocked her forehead on his knee hard enough to make a cracking noise. "Oh, bloody hell," she grunted, voice thick and hoarse. She had grown ill in previous days or hours (he couldn't be certain in light so dim he could scarcely discern her silhouette), but he also didn't care. Let her writhe in the agonies of illness, let it take her and sully her flesh. Should've thrown her in the oven when I had the chance.
"Sorry," croaked the baker. It was the fifth time since their transportation that she had addressed him. The first time happened when they were first chained to the wall in the pit of the ship side by side. He remembered that time most vividly because he hated it the most; she smiled, like nothing had happened at all, like his wife didn't lie under the sod on her account, and chimed, "Top of the morning to you, Mr. T."
The second time came soon after the first. It was the first meal they brought to him, which he did not eat, and she asked him, "Ya gonna eat that, love?" Within the hour of him not touching it, she ate it for him. But by the second meal arrival, hunger had gnawed itself so strongly into his gut that he felt faint, and he hadn't skipped a meal since, knowing that the next one would arrive with no certainty. Meals were scarce, so he ate what they put before him—and also, a little, because he couldn't stand the thought of helping her, even if it was through a smidgen of cold, soggy oatmeal.
The third time she spoke to him happened several days later, maybe a week. One of the sailors brought their usual slop of oatmeal, and he ate, and she didn't. Once he had cleaned his bowl, he looked at her—he didn't look at her very often, and never when she was awake. She looked back at him, face gaunt and sickly, and said, "You can have it, love, I'm not hungry." Bloody Mrs. Lovett, trying to take care of him like a bloody waitress even when they were on a bloody ship due for bloody Botany Bay. He did not eat her food.
The fourth time happened immediately after the third, within the hour, as she vomited all over the both of them and apologized profusely. He could have marked it as several different speeches on her part, but it all stemmed from his lap full of vomit. "So sorry, really am so sorry."
None of those times did he speak to her. He had not spoken to anyone, not to a guard, not to Mrs. Lovett, not even aloud to himself, since court, when the judge addressed him. "Your defense, Mr. Todd, tells me that you wish to hang for your crimes on account of the guilt that you have been unable to escape since your apprehension. Sir, is that true?"
He hung his head. "It is."
"Then I sentence you and your accomplice, Mrs. Nellie Lovett, to be transported." He snatched his neck back up to eye the man incredulously. Everyone in the courtroom knew that murder was not a transportable crime—and though he doubted that the law books had a written punishment for the cooking and distribution of human carcasses in pies, he suspected that Mrs. Lovett's crimes would also warrant a hanging. She deserved to hang. She deserved to hang by the neck, but not for her spine to break. She deserved to slowly choke to death on her own weight. "To Botany Bay to serve there for the duration of your earthly lives."
Now she spoke another apology. She pulled herself back up into a sitting position and sighed, leaning back against the wooden frame of the ship with her eyes fixed at the ceiling. Occasionally, when the men stomped overhead, dust would shower down upon them, and she would blink it out of her eyes until they streamed. Lips sealed closed, she hummed the tune he recognized as the one she had sung to Toby. His jaw clenched tightly. The little heathen had betrayed the two of them, he knew it. The officers arrived just after the boy's disappearance, after he began to suspect. Should've cut his bloody throat when I had the chance.
But now it was too late to regret the chances he hadn't taken. He rolled his hands absently in the cuffs behind him. He'd made careful not to move his wrists too much, but the skin still grew raw and bloody after so long. Leaning forward, he rested his head on his knees. He didn't like resting his back on the wall of the ship. The splinters would get caught in his shirt and poke him and scratch him.
A crash resounded, and Mrs. Lovett flopped again over toward him as he slammed his head on the side of the ship. "Bloody hell!" fumed the flustered woman. "Can't those bastards sail this goddamn ship!" He decided not to mark her outburst as her speaking to him because she didn't address him; she only commented with great rage upon the inadequacies of their wards who would guard them all the way to the bay from whence he had come only a year before. Bloody Botany Bay. He planned on finding a rope and hanging himself first thing. A better end than being chained to the damned woman for the rest of his days. And whatever lay beyond, he could hope for peace, even if the peace came in the form of oblivion.
He did not wish to see Lucy again. He did not know where he would begin to explain what he had done to her, what he had done to London. Wherever she walked, if she walked or if her mind dissipated like electricity into the air from the moment he slit her throat, she walked without him and would do so, he hoped, forever.
Above, a voice shouted loud and clear from the deck. "Oye, gentlemen! I'm terribly sorry for this collision—you must forgive me." He narrowed his eyes at the sound, suspicious at the familiarity which he could not place in his mind. "You see, my ship has caught the scarlet fever, and all my crew is dead—I am so fortunate as to have not caught it myself—"
Mrs. Lovett froze beside him, the antsy passenger for once perfectly still. Then, she sucked in a deep breath, and she began to cough hard. She turned her face and torso away from him, hacking. At the angle, their hands brushed. He started to move away. He did not want to touch her. But she wrapped her palm around one of his fingers and held it there, and in the slim space, he couldn't snatch free from her.
She forked something into the clasp of his handcuffs. It poked him in the wrist, and stillness washed over his body, joints locked. The baker kept coughing, facing away from him, as she twisted the pin around and around, waiting for something to unclasp or click. Why is she freeing me?
Of course, he knew the answer. She had told him the answer the treacherous night when he almost tossed her into the fire, when the officers divided them from their waltz just before he could hurl her into the flames of the oven. "Yes, I lied because I love you. I'd be twice the wife she was, I love you. Could that thing have cared for you like me?"
The voices on the deck continued. He couldn't put a face to the familiar tone. "Oh, I would dearly appreciate any refuge or rations you could offer, though I dare say Australia is no place for a man like myself—I'm a trained sailor, and I would be forever in your debt for a trip back to London—"
The cuffs sprang free, and he shook them off, almost in surprise. She held the pin out to him between her fingers, not daring to speak; he could see her bated breath in her chest, as she waited to see if he would spring her. Why he took the pin and immediately set to work at the lock around her wrists, he didn't know. Because she has a plan and you don't. That was the truth. She had the bobby pin for a reason, and she had waited until now for a reason. He forked it into the keyhole and twisted and gnarled it around until she, too, stood free, and she sprang to her feet, gasping at the sensation of freedom. "Oh, me legs, me knees!" She sucked in a deep breath. "C'mon, this way!"
He had not used his voice in the weeks beside her, but in spite of himself, he croaked, "We've no weapons."
"No need for weapons, just run—come on!" She seized him by the arms and tugged him to the entrance. The sailors left it unlocked. They did not know that their convicts had the means to free themselves. She burst out into the bright evening sunlight with her auburn hair, crazed in mats from the lack of care, bouncing behind her.
The light swallowed him; he imagined the sheer heat of it, the blindness that accompanied so that he saw nothing but Mrs. Lovett's silhouette, felt quite like dying and moving into foretold heavenly light toward his judgment. Arms outstretched, he let the warmth engulf him, but Mrs. Lovett, not so dazed by the atmosphere, kept her grip upon him strong and dashed out into the center of the deck. The men moved like shadows against the sheer sky. He squinted to try and adjust his eyes to the light, but their faces all came in shadowy blurs. "The convicts!" howled one sailor. He lifted something over his head, a hammer perhaps. Mrs. Lovett dragged him out of the way. "They're loose! Watch out!"
Then the men swamped them. He couldn't see, and in the haze, he fumbled for Mrs. Lovett's hand. Someone snagged him by the shirt and threw him to the ground. He rolled and bounced onto his feet, and when the next sailor charged at him, he rocketed a punch at his face, hitting his target with his reflexes and a touch of fortune. Another man slammed him in the chest. He doubled over and cracked his elbow on the man's skull. Into the golden and gray film of his eyesight, Mrs. Lovett had vanished; he couldn't see her at all anymore, but he could hear her grunting.
"Mr. Todd!" The familiar voice came again. "This way!" The man waved his arms on the adjacent ship. "Jump!"
He gritted his teeth, glancing back over his shoulder again. From the tangle of shadows, he discerned the swaying of a skirt. Her elbow flew upward and cracked against another man's nose. "Do as he says!" she raved. "I can handle these bastards!" One leg flew upward from her skirt and booted a man so hard between the legs that he doubled over.
Squinting, he tried to make out the form on the other ship again. Another sailor started toward him—he could hear the footfalls on the wood—and he raced away, toward the edge of the ship. "Jump, Mr. Todd! You can do it!" How far? He hadn't a clue. With his arms, he flung himself over the banister, limbs all gathered up to glide through the air. The ocean tossed beneath him. The salty air penetrated his nostrils. He crashed onto the deck of the other ship and rolled a few feet, all the air knocked clean from his lungs.
The other man scrambled after him, lugged him up under the arm, and only in the proximity could he make out the familiar face. Anthony. "Mr. Todd—great, you're alright!"
Above, another voice cheered, "Go, mum, go! Whip 'is bloody arse!" Toby. They had planned this. Why the hell didn't they tell me?
Mrs. Lovett broke free from the scrambling mob of sailors and raced to the edge of the ship. She hurled herself at the banister, but a final man snagged her skirt, and as she flung herself, it held her back. Her shadow arced through the sky. She slammed into the side of the Bountiful and dangled there, arms clinging to the wall of the ship. Unbidden, he hastened to her side. There, in the painfully bright light, he squinted at her features—the eyes wide, the lips slightly parted.
Throw her. Watch her drown. He grabbed her under the arms. Throw her and let her sink to the bottom of the bloody ocean. She wrapped her arms around his neck, eyes pinched closed. Let the fish gnaw on her corpse or a shark swallow her whole.
With his meager strength, he lifted her up and stumbled backward so that they both collapsed there on the deck. His atrophied muscles couldn't support his own weight, let alone hers. They lay on the wooden floor, each panting. "Bloody hell," Mrs. Lovett whispered after a moment. "I thought you was gonna fling me into the damn ocean, I did."
"Toby, raise the sails! Let's get out of here!"
Sweeney shoved her away. I should've. Why he didn't, he couldn't fathom an answer. The opportunity was there; he simply didn't take it like he should have. Perhaps because they were watching. He needed privacy to make his kills. He had never taken a life with eyes upon him, and he didn't intend to start now. No one else's eyes deserved the perversion that accompanied witnessing a murder.
The ship swayed into movement as the wind caught the sails, Anthony at the wheel. Sweeney pulled himself up on the side of the ship, eyes narrowed as he tried to make out the shapes. What's happened to my eyes? The weeks in darkness couldn't have hurt them, could've it? Yet the haze looked like a veil of smoke wreathed around anything more than a meter in front of his face and cast it in blurry shadows. He found a wall and leaned upon it, certain not to lose his balance if he had something to cling to.
From the lookout above, Toby climbed down and swung to his feet. "Mum!" He sprinted to Mrs. Lovett and wrapped her up in a big hug. "I missed you so much!"
The woman embraced him deeply. "I missed you, too, love." Sweeney glowered at his back. After a moment of clutching Toby, Mrs. Lovett stood tall. "No need to look at him like a piece of chicken, Mr. Todd. He wasn't the one who ratted us out. You can thank your own spawn for this whole fiasco."
"I'm not a snitch!" chimed Toby.
He growled under his breath, averting his eyes. His own spawn? Whatever did she mean by that? Barmy woman. Then, Anthony contributed from the wheel, "Yessir, it was Johanna." Johanna? That was impossible. The girl hadn't even arrived at the bakery when he had killed the judge—he hadn't laid eyes on her. "My fault, really. Shouldn't have packed her up in those sailor's clothes and just left her there, but I don't suppose either of us anticipated... Well, she wasn't prepared to witness any murdering, that's for certain."
The sailor boy. He remembered now. He'd hauled the young man up out of the trunk by the front of his shirt and thrown him into the barber's chair, prepared to kill the witness, and then Nellie screamed from below. For that moment, he hovered in deliberation, unable to decide if he could let the youth go free or if he had to finish the job before he rushed to her aid. He had decided that he owed his protection to the baker woman—that, if any harm came to her, he couldn't bear the guilt—and he released the young man. "Forget my face," he said. I almost killed her. He put a hand to his forehead, feeling faint. Better than Lucy, who had actually felt the rage of his razor.
"Where is she now, love?" Mrs. Lovett pressed Anthony, approaching him with her arm draped around Toby's shoulders, a smile on her face. She rarely looked weathered or damaged by the tumult of emotions around her.
The sailor sighed. "Back in Fogg's, I'm afraid." He shook his head, clicking his tongue. "But I had to sail before they caught on to me and kept me from my promises." Glancing back over his shoulder, he grinned a half-genuine smile. "I'm glad you both got out in one piece. I was worried, since Mr. Todd didn't want any private counsel, he wouldn't catch on..."
Another bewildered look passed from the barber, and the baker laughed. "You ridiculous man! No wonder you looked so bloody surprised when I popped those cuffs off of you!" She tossed her hair back. "Denying counsel, telling the judge you want us to hang. You're an awful glutton for punishment, poor blighter." He glared at her with less venom than normal, mostly because he couldn't make on her features with the haze. She patted his arm, and he jerked away. "Touchy, touchy," she whistled, shaking her head as though it was a great shame that he no longer wanted her to touch him.
Again, memories took him—back to his cell, where the guards kept him alone in stone walls with no windows, only a chamber pot. "Visitor for Mr. Todd," grunted one guard.
He rested in the back corner of the cell. "No visitors and no counsel," he said. He had repeated that phrase since they had taken him out of the basement, since the officers had separated him from Mrs. Lovett. The guard lingered, and he repeated, "No visitors and no counsel," a little bit louder and firmer to ensure the strength of his command. He lifted his head.
Beside the guard stood Anthony, youthful face frightened and muddy with eyes round and mouth puckered in displeasure. "Mr. Todd, sir, please, just a moment to speak with you, I've got so much to ask you—"
"No visitors and no counsel," he repeated, voice heavy and cold. He wanted nothing to do with Anthony, nor with any other curious stranger who wanted to ask questions about his killings. The murders would end with his apprehension and his hanging, and London could return to its broken peace, tormented by some new vulture eventually.
Anthony clutched at the bars of his cage. "Mr. Todd, please—"
"No visitors and no counsel!" thundered the barber, and the young man ducked away with the guard. As they walked away, the guard muttered, "For the best. Bloody mad, that one is. We're all going to clap when he hangs by his skinny neck."
"I'd already come by Mrs. Lovett and given her the pin when I came to your cell," Anthony reflected, "but then you wouldn't let me in." He never would have anticipated that the young sailor had cooked up a ploy to free them. "Then, when they decided not to hang you both, I wasn't sure what to do—had to sneak around awhile until I was allowed to see her again. Took quite a bit of lying." He snorted. "Eventually I had to cry that they was takin' my mother away, the least they could do was let me hug her one more bloody time."
The baker snickered. "Oh, dear. Well, I am awfully glad you were able to make it work out the way we planned." She bent over and looked into Toby's eyes. "Toby, dear, did you get what I asked you to get from the house?" He bobbed his head obediently. "Go get them, lad."
As the boy raced away, Anthony continued, "Anyway, Mr. Todd, I hope you forgive my folly in matters of the past, and that your freedom is enough to cleanse me of my naivete..."
Mrs. Lovett rolled her eyes. "Don't expect a response from him, love. Mr. Todd ain't spoke a word to nobody since court. Completely internalized everything by now. The sailors was calling him deaf and dumb." She tossed her back in bold laughter. He glared. She ignored. "He's still mighty upset with me for... Well, there's no use repeating all of it, I told you before."
"Understandable." The young man nodded curtly, and she sighed in an almost wistful manner, like she regretted something. She hadn't apologized to him yet. He didn't expect an apology from her, because mere words could never erase what she had done to him.
Toby trotted back up onto the dock where they stood, cold eyes not looking at one another. He paused and shuffled, head down, to Sweeney, with a narrow box held out. Sweeney squinted, and then he took the case and lifted it nearer to his face. "Something wrong with your eyes, love?" pressed Mrs. Lovett. He ignored her and flipped the box open. The silver handles reflected back onto his face. My razors. He nodded once in thanks to the boy, not making eye contact with him as Toby fled back to Mrs. Lovett.
The woman sighed and touched her matted hair. "You going to comb your hair now, mum?" questioned the lad, eyes big as he stumped around her.
"Oh, I don't think so. I'm going to find some scissors and hack it off." Toby's eyes widened. "Don't look at me that way, love. It's hopeless at this rate. Might as well drop the mat into the ocean and be done with it." She eyed Sweeney jokingly. "Don't suppose the barber on the ship would care to help me out, then?" Toby paled, and Sweeney glared back at her. "Of course not. Come on, lad, let's go find some scissors. Do you know where some are?" The boy, naturally, took her by the hand and guided her under the deck, leaving Sweeney and Anthony atop alone.
The silence stretched between them for a moment, and he wasn't certain he wanted to penetrate it. But the young sailor deserved to hear his voice. "Thank you, Anthony, for once again coming to my rescue, and I apologize for the...antic disposition I displayed back in London." I never suspected I would have to explain it to anyone.
"You are my good friend, Mr. Todd. I find it only right that you should have your freedom regardless of your crimes—lest I wouldn't have saved you the first time, pitching and tossing on that raft on the Tasman Sea." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Maybe I'm naive, but every sailor knows about Botany Bay." Sweeney eyed his razors. "Sir, I hate to badger, but are you sure there's nothing wrong with your eyes?"
Squinting, he replied, tone cool, "I don't think that they've adjusted well from the underbelly of the ship to the light of the outdoors."
The man proposed, "But Mrs. Lovett seems chipper," and the barber clenched his fists. "Her eyes, I mean," amended Anthony. He hummed to himself a moment, the late evening sun bathing the ocean in orange hues. The ocean welcomed the young sailor like his true home, no matter how he had ever spoken of London. "I understand your hostility, Mr. Todd, but it is to Mrs. Lovett you owe your freedom—without her planning, I never would have fathomed such a scheme, and that's the truth."
"I owe her nothing," he growled. Nothing but a slit throat. And since she had so appropriately organized the return of his razors, he could arrange for just that particular scenario. He would plan it as elaborately as he had planned for the judge's demise, and just as much he would relish in it, she who had caused Lucy's death, she who had lied to him.
Anthony proposed a half-smile. "Well, I hope you keep things civil, at least until we're on shore." Sweeney clenched his jaw, nodding a bit reluctantly. On the small ship, he couldn't guarantee that neither Anthony nor Toby would pop in on him sawing her neck open.
Back up from under the deck, Mrs. Lovett hummed, "Now, that was quick and painless." She had hacked off her hair just above the ears and carried the large auburn mat in her hands. The top she had raked over and trimmed back so the little ringlets didn't fall into her eyes. She tossed the auburn hair over the side of the ship. "Much better." Her hands mussed what was left of her choppy locks. Should've done it for her. She looked like a harlot who couldn't afford to have her hair done professionally.
As if I bloody care what her hair looks like. She should have kept the mats. They made her uncomfortable, and he didn't want her to experience any comfort. "Mrs. Lovett, there are cans of beans and a couple bottles of gin down below deck, if you wanted something to eat. Toby, stay off the gin, would you? I want you to keep the ship steady tonight for me."
"Yessir!" chimed the boy.
"And there are cots there, too. I figure you both must be pretty worn out, what with your journeying and all." Anthony stretched and kneaded his shoulder blades together until his spine cracked. "We should be passing Portugal soon. Once we round the coast of Spain, I figure we can go into the Bay of Biscay and I'll drop you on the French coast."
The baker fanned herself a bit. "Oh, France. That's fancy. You won't be accompanying us?"
Sighing, he shook his head."No, ma'am. I will not rest until Johanna is free from the asylum, given that she's been there twice now and both times on my account." He looked back upon the glittering sea. "I will return to London to try and free her once again."
"That's very romantic, love." The genuine, gentle smile that touched Mrs. Lovett's face filled him with rage. "She's lucky to have a lad as dedicated as you looking after her." Anthony blushed. The woman placed her hand on his arm, and he growled like a rabid dog. "Oh, don't make those noises at me. We haven't eaten in days. Let's go." And, much like a dog, he buckled under her coaxing when the thought occurred to him that, without guidance, he would have no way of accessing the underbelly of the ship, and he didn't intend on asking anyone for help.
She led him to the ladder and swung around, blowing her freshly chopped hair out of her eyes. Once she had dropped a few rungs, he thought her clear and followed her, only to tramp on her fingers. She hissed in reply. "Get your arse out of my face!" He tried to scramble back upward, but through the haze, he fumbled for a rung that wasn't there, lost his grip, and tumbled unceremoniously backward off of the ladder. He struck her, and they both plummeted to the ground; Mrs. Lovett gave a brief shriek before it cut off, abrupt, when he landed directly on top of her.
He rolled from her, biting back an apology on his tongue. "Bloody hell, man," she gasped, "didn't they ever teach you how to climb a ladder? You're going to break my neck!" She pushed herself up into a sitting position, apparently unharmed as she dusted herself off.
Toby's face appeared at the hatch. "Is everything alright down there?"
"Yes, love, we're fine," replied the baker in a sing-song voice, pleasant as always, her mood shifting like the gears of a factory machine; if he touched her during motion, he could lose his fingers. She puffed a sigh and stood up again, offering him her arm. He did not take it. "Of course not," she muttered, stalking away toward the back corner of the room. She took two cans of beans from the top stack and a bottle of gin. The second can of beans she tossed at him. It bounced off of his arm and rolled on the floor. "You're not seeing well," she informed him, voice blunt and factual. "Don't suppose it's any of my concern. Now, see here, there's this bottle of gin, and there's no glasses, so we're gonna have to share if you can act civil for a bit, at least so we're both able to sleep well."
He set his jaw and did not reply. "Don't suppose I'll be graced with a response, either." He knew, of course, the one way to annoy Mrs. Lovett was to ignore her. She bathed in any kind of attention, always wanting to be in the spotlight, and he relished in the temporary knowledge that his game of the cold shoulder had finally slipped under her skin. "Since you've proven you can't climb ladders, I'll take the top cot." She swung halfway up the ladder and put the can of beans up on the hard mattress, and then she sat there, legs dangling over the edge.
Underneath the top cot, he sat on the bottom one, and the mattress creaked. The can of beans popped open. He slurped absently at the juice, not bothering looking for a spoon, for the gnawing in his gut told him that a long time had passed since he last ate anything at all. Who would see him and judge his lack of propriety? Only Mrs. Lovett, and she had seen worse of him in the past weeks than slurping beans out of a can. At the distinct sound of a bottle cracking open, he perked up a bit more than he wanted to admit to himself, and he waited for her to pass it down.
She gulped audibly from it like a tired horse guzzling water; she didn't give the burn a chance to settle. He counted the swallows that he could hear. Twelve. Does she want to get drunk off her arse? She passed the gin down to him with a sigh and cracked open her own beans. In a few minutes, she dropped the empty can down beside him, flopping backward on the mattress. He drank what he wanted from the gin, just a few swallows, and held it back up to her. She's going to be sick in the morning. And she would certainly roll over and vomit her guts right over the side of the cot. His nose crinkled; he'd already experienced a drenching of her upchuck once, and he didn't care to endure it again.
"Oh, no thank you, love, I've had plenty." He put the bottle down on the floor and rolled up onto his own creaky mattress. It smelled like moths. Head upon the pillow, he stared at the underside of her bed for a long moment, blurry in the darkness, and then he took out his razors to examine them once again. "I hope your eyes get better. Can't imagine what could've happened to them. All that time in the damn darkness... Well, god knows how much that did." Her voice shuddered. The mattress croaked when she rolled over on her side, facing the wall. "Goodnight, Mr. Todd. I hope you sleep well, love. We're free once again."
In a few minutes, she snored softly, as trusting as ever. What a fool. He had promised Anthony civility, and he would grant it. But soon enough, he would have his golden opportunity, off of the ship and in solitude with her. Anthony would leave them. And Toby? If the boy got in the way, he, too, could face the sharp end of a barber's razor. His lip curled upward in a snarling smirk, and to these thoughts, he comforted himself enough to sleep.