Chapter 2: Not Your Girly

Jessica arrived in Tortuga a week after leaving. She could have made it faster if she had had help on the boat. Because of her father being a fisherman, she knew how to man a ship. But doing it alone was still a challenge.

She found room at the Silver Maid Bar and Inn, and spent her first day there, wondering how to go about things. Her first thoughts landed in the realm of doubt.

What am I doing here? she thought. This is madness! How am I supposed to find him here? How do I even know he exists? Her sense of reason soon kicked in.

"He has to exist, I know it! Why else would he be in my dreams?" she questioned the empty room. "Why else would I wind up here? I don't know how im going to find him, or where but I know I will."

She soon fell asleep trying to formulate a plot for searching the rum infested island. She awoke a few hours later, and searched her belongings for the pocket watch her father gave her. It was almost eight o'clock, and she was growing hungry. She threw her golden brown locks into a bun and made her way down stairs.

As soon as she reached the bottom, she gathered looks from a few of the many drunken men in the bar. She had never thought herself pretty, but apparently they did. She had long, wavy brown hair and freckle spotted cheeks, that always seemed to be some shade of red. She had plump lips that she thought sat awkwardly beneath her small nose. Her one feature she prided were the green eyes she inherited from her mother. She had never known her mother, being that she died giving birth. Her father always reminded her that she had her mother's eyes. It was all she knew of her since that was all her father ever said about her.

She weaved her way through the crowd towards a small secluded table in the back corner. She was a little more than halfway there, when she was stopped by a rather large, drunk and smelly brute.

"Hello girly," he snarled, grabbing her around the waist. His face came within inches of hers, and she could smell the putrid odor of rum and years of denying proper hygiene to his teeth. She grimaced, and tried to fight him away as he heavily breathed this odor to her nostrils.

"Let me go!" she screamed, pounding her fists ineffectively on his chest. "Im not your girly!" She screamed in an effort to free herself but was only met with a just as putrid smelling hand meeting her mouth. She tried to bite it away, but he only pressed harder and started to back her against the wall. He squeezed her harder around the waist, and lifted her up against him, causing tears to fall down her face.

She closed her eyes and knew she had made a mistake in coming to this island. She gave up her attempt to free herself as he slid his hand up her thigh, fumbling in his state of drunkenness, to hike her dress up higher.

He suddenly stopped, relieving some of the pressure on her waist. Jessica slowly opened her eyes to find the brute awestruck, eyes wide in horror. She could see no reason though, that she should find him in this state.

"Let 'er go mate. Can't ye tell she don' want you?" said a voice from behind him. A sudden wave of familiarity struck Jessica like a ton of bricks. Where had she heard that voice before? Her train of thought was soon interrupted though, when she collided with the floor.

"Tha's a boy, " the voice hummed again, "Now, turn around, and walk away, mate." But when he turned, he brought his fist around sharply with him. Jessica saw part of what must have been the body attached to the voice that had saved her, duck under the brute's arm.

"Tha's not very nice now, is it?" the voice growled, as she saw his arm swiftly maneuver his sword to the brute's throat. Now that he had his back to him, she could see what had caused him to stop in the first place. Blood slowly trickled its way down the back of his neck. Before she had further time to think about this, the voice was growling again.

"Now, I don' want to hurt you, but if ye don' walk away from the lass im afraid I wont be able to stop me self, so I'd walk away if I was ye." By this time, the brawl had commanded most of the attention of the bar, with the exception of a few other rum fueled fights. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the brute finally grunted and walked away towards the bar, most likely to drown himself in another tankard of rum.

When he turned, Jessica's breath hitched in her throat. She knew those eyes anywhere, like they'd been watching her all her life; yet seeing them now was almost more than she could bear. They were better in person than any dream could ever portray. And they were staring straight at her.