Good afternoon all. I'm sorry I havn't been able to update as often as possible, I started highschool and I am so wiped out when I get home. That and my mom just had a baby this morning. So...yeah.

For those who read Queen of Hearts, I will try and update as soon as I can this weekend before school starts, so be expecting it.

I thank you so much for all the reviews and favorites this story has gotten. They put a smile on my face. Love you all.

This is one of the chapters that Maria wrote.

Chapter twenty

Drip, drip, drip.

The rain drops from the night before fell from the drainpipe outside the small cell window, the sound slowly chipping away at whatever sanity the residents had left.

Adelaine sat wearily in the circle they had all formed, playing with a solitary strand of straw, twisting it and tying it beneath her fingers. It was a gloomy atmosphere that had descended over the small group of convicts that had huddled together in the center of the cell they shared. The cement walls were cold, the room was clammy, and the ceiling had an agonizingly infuriating leak that dripped onto Pintel's bald head.

Elizabeth sighed, breaking the silence. "What do we do now?"

Ragetti tossed his wooden eyeball from hand to hand, and Pintel pulled his collar up over his head to keep the drip off his skin. "Just wait, I guess," Ragetti suggested, blowing on his eyeball and inserting it back in its socket. Will, confused as ever, furrowed his eyebrows.

"Wait for what?"

There was a rustling sound as Adelaine shifted her position.

"The gallows," she replied shortly, her brown locks falling forward, concealing her face. Gibbs winced, Will recoiled, and even Elizabeth shuddered from her spot beside him.

"We have three days at the most. Then we meet our short drop and a sudden stop," Adelaine continued, her voice monotone, expressing no feeling.

"That ain't really helpin' the mood any, Miss Turner," Gibbs drawled. Adelaine receded from the small circle of people and into a damp corner.

"If that's the case, then please grant me pardon for stating the reality at hand."

Gibbs didn't reply, and neither did anyone else. They continued sitting in their small circle, though nothing was verbally exchanged between them. Elizabeth huffed, sitting up straight. "We should at least try to escape."

Adelaine scoffed quietly, draping one arm over a knee. "They've got one of the most notorious pirate crews in the ocean, the governor's only daughter, a blacksmith turned pirate, and an admiral's runaway wife behind bars. That and the fact that I've escaped from here before, with the aid of Will. They're not taking any chances this time."

Elizabeth's face dropped and she slumped over into the hunched form she was earlier. No one said anything for a long time, the only sound slicing through the silence being the dripping of water and the scurry of an occasional rat. Eventually they all retired into separate corners, Adelaine in one, Will and Elizabeth in another, Ragetti and Pintel quietly bickering in the one across from Adelaine, and Mister Gibbs sitting alone in the only remaining corner.

Adelaine leaned her head back against the cold cement wall and closed her eyes. She cursed herself inwardly. She should have died with him. She should have been dragged down to the bottom of the ocean with the man she loved. At least she would have been with him.

Her fist clenched, and a single tear trickled down her cheek. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't. But when is anything fair?

Oo

When the sky had darkened, the stars and moon shining brightly in the night sky, after the irritating drip had ceased and a small puddle had formed directly below it, and after the six residents of the small cell had fallen into a deep yet uncomfortable slumber, there was the stomping of heavy boots and four armed guards, laden with pistols stepped forward out of the darkness. The cell door rattled loudly, awaking the sleeping persons inside, and two guards stepped in.

"Lord Beckett has ordered you to be brought to his office immediately," one guard said, jabbing a thick, hairy finger in Adelaine's direction. Will groggily raised his head from where it was resting atop Elizabeth's, and blinked a few times in the light of the guards' lantern. "In the middle of the night?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at them. "She should at least be able to—"

"We have orders," a guard snarled, roughly gripping Adelaine's arm and hauling her to her feet. "And they must be obeyed."

Will and the others watched helplessly as Adelaine was violently jerked through the doorway and snapped in irons and pulled up the stairs, and as the last remaining guard slammed the cell door shut with a clanging sound that echoed off the cement walls, snarled one last time, and was gone.

Will and the others exchanged worried glances, all sharing the same thought.

'Whats going to happen to Adelaine?'

Oo

Adelaine observed the guards surrounding her with a face that showed no emotion, and eyes that showed no interest whatsoever. She said nothing as they dragged her up the cobble street through the rain, and made no sound when one pushed her too hard and she went sprawling onto the concrete, unable to protect herself properly with her hands tied, the action resulting in a bloody scrape on her left cheekbone. The guards said nothing likewise. They solemnly did their job, pushing and prodding her when she slowed down. Adelaine didn't have the heart to care. Her mind was elsewhere, thinking about what could have happened if the consequences were different on that fateful day, not that long ago. How different the current day might have been if one certain person hadn't perished.

A sigh escaped Adelaine's pink lips, the only sound she had made in a long while. All too soon they arrived at their destination, a large building, the black spikes that served at décor during the day now looking like spears waiting to slice through you during the night.

The doors were opened and Adelaine was pulled in, and pushed up two flights of agonizingly long staircases that finally ended at two dark mahogany doors that burst opened as they marched through, opening into a lavishly decorated office. A figure in the farthest corner turned to face the room's intruders. His insipid face twisted into a wide smirk and his eyes glinted evilly in the darkness.

Beckett's smirk widened even more when he saw his captor's condition.

"I trust you've had a comfortable stay in the cell I had readied especially for you," he sneered, his voice saturated with scorn.

Adelaine sneered at the man before her but said nothing, Beckett's smirk widening farther at this so that is seemed to engulf his entire face.

"Why do you want me here, Beckett?" Adelaine hoarsely slurred, spitting at his feet, her saliva making a shiny glob on Beckett's polished black boots. His smirk wavered for a moment as he ordered a guard to wipe it off, but then it returned to its full glory. He walked calmly over to the fireplace next to the wall, and picked up something that made Adelaine's eyes widen.

Becket smirked wider, his white teeth forming into an uncanny grin in the darkness.

He picked up the object higher, so that his white teeth turned orange from the reflection of the searing bright orange P that sat with an air of unbelievable power on the end if the rod.