Chapter 37: Extended offer
I had been on this island for what seemed like a month. It really did feel like a month, but I can't be sure because my sense of time was so distorted. The first group of people I had come with were killed by the group that currently held me in their possession. I was numb to the world around me.
The clinking of the chain that bound my wrists together was the only thing that I could hear around me. The constant tension on the chain pulled me forward. I stopped moving forward. The constant tension, the tension, it was gone. I looked up from the ground. There was an explosion near me. I was sent flying through the air and landed on my side, I coughed up some blood. I tried standing. As soon as I found that my feet could support my weight, I was running.
"She's getting away. Capture her." The shouts of some of the men nearby had my feet carrying me away faster. "She's our meal ticket. We can't let her get away." I turned toward the trees. Instinct was telling me that the quickest way to the ocean and escape was through the woods. I heard gunshots from behind me. My breathing faltered for a moment. I looked down to see a growing red spot forming on the torn and dirty old shirt that I had been given to wear. The men were following me.
I burst through the line of trees. I almost ran right off of the cliff that was just on the other side of the trees. I barely managed to make the turn. Two of the men that were chasing after me were not so lucky. They went screaming over the cliff's edge. Unfortunately for me there were more men that were chasing me. I was running along the cliff's edge when I spotted something yellow that was floating on the waves down below me. I thought for a split second what the hell. I had nothing left to live for anyway. I turned and took a leap right off the cliff.
The wind that was rushing past me almost reminded me of flying. How I longed to spread my wings and fly through the air. The metal ring that was locked around my upper torso prevented me from doing that at the moment. I landed with a thud on the metal outer hull of a yellow metal ship with no sails. I looked back to see that one of the men had been brave enough to follow me off of the cliff. He landed on the hull of the ship next to me. I took off running while the man was collecting himself. I took a running jump off the top of the ship to land on the largest deck on the ship. Blood splattered to wood planks beneath me.
"Oh come on I just mopped there." My eyes darted over the person that had just spoke. I took in his red hair, hat, the sunglasses that he wore, and the boiler suit that he and all of the other people on the deck were wearing except for one person. My eyes traveled up the body of that one person to meet their grey eyes.
"Where do you think you're going?" I looked back over my shoulder to see that the man was about to jump down from one of the upper decks down onto the one I was currently on. I ran over to the railing of the ship. I hopped up on it. The man landed on the deck. "Don't you dare." I smiled and started falling backwards. I landed in the water with a loud splash. The heavy chain pulled me below the surface of the water, and no matter how hard I struggled I couldn't manage to get back up to the surface. What little air I had left in my lungs was quickly used up. My lungs screamed for air. I opened my mouth. A bunch of bubbles escaped. I took in a bunch of water. I suddenly felt that I was being pulled upwards. Everything went black.
My eyes opened to a bright light. I heard a steady repetitive beeping noise. I tried to focus on any other sounds around me. There was the sound of shifting fabric. I turned to see a man in a fuzzy white hat sitting at a desk across the room. His feet were lazily propped up on the desk as he read a book. I sat up on the cold metal bed that I was laying on. He hadn't noticed any of my movements so far. I pulled the sensors off. The steady repetitive beep turned into this long drawn out beep. I watched as the man's feet left the desk and he turned to look over at me. I kept my eye on him a few seconds longer while he was getting up before I turned to glare at the machine that was making the annoying sound.
"We had quite the time ridding ourselves of your captors and procuring the keys to your restraints. I was wondering what happened to the pirates who hunted marines. The mighty Angel of Death hath fallen from her throne." The man stood in front of me. "Tell me what befell your almighty crew." My eyes fell to the floor.
"Death paid each of them an unwelcome visit." A long tan finger brushed my jaw line and lifted my chin up. "It's alright though. While I have no one right now, I will eventually find some others to call my friends. Though they will never replace what has been lost." The man leaned over me.
"Join my crew." My eyes shot up to meet his. I searched them for a reason. I couldn't find anything in his cold eyes.
"No, Law I will not be joining your crew. I left explicit instructions to not come looking for me." His cold eyes seemed to soften some.
"Yes, you did, but you owe me for using my head as your safe haven." I watched as he sat on the bed next to me.
"I left those instructions for your safety. Why would you want someone to join your crew when they couldn't even protect their own crew?" He shrugged as a response. "My grandfather is done playing Law. Killing my crew was his final warning. It was to be the final nail in the coffin. The captain of the ship that picked me up was a vampire." My hand rose to my neck, and my nails tore through the skin. Law reached over and grabbed my hand to stop me.
"Jay, don't do that." He placed his hand over the wound I had made. "You're going to be alright. You made it out alive. You didn't get any disease, and you aren't pregnant." I looked up at Law.
"Not anymore." He looked at me and tried to find an answer written on my face. "I'm not pregnant anymore." Law pulled his hand away from my neck. "It was like removing an organ." Realization set in upon his features.
"You'll never have to go through something like that ever again if you stay here with us. Join my crew Jay." He pulled me onto his lap. "You'll be safe with us." I leaned my head over on his shoulder.
"Captain, I came to… Oh. I'll leave you two alone." I looked over to see Penguin had walked into the room. He quickly turned around and left the room. I was watching law's pulse beneath his neck. The light flutter of the skin was normally unnoticeable. Law stiffened as he felt my teeth graze his skin.
"Jay, don't do that. We aren't kids anymore." One of my fangs pricked his skin. I ran my tongue over the spot where my fang had pricked his skin. I felt Law shudder. I pulled away from him. I gently got up from Law's lap and put my feet on the floor. I held onto the bed as I tested my legs. "Jay, you need to rest." I shushed him.
"There's no time to rest. I have over thirty bodies to collect and bury. They've waited long enough. I think that you and Iseris would have gotten along well. She was a doctor before she joined my crew, but she just up and walked away from that life. She was a lot like you personality wise. Damn it." My left knee wouldn't bend properly. "It worked just fine when I was running through that damn jungle. This is what happens when shit heals naturally" I probed my left knee with my fingers.
"You had the Iseris on your crew." I looked up at Law. "She was in the newspaper. They revoked her license because she performed twisted experiments on people that more often than not killed them." I thought for a moment.
"That explains why she insisted on having test subjects. She got bored though and begged to experiment on me when she ran out of test subjects." I stared at the wall across the room and glared at it. "She would drive me crazy until I threatened to chop off her damn hands and feed them to the sea kings." Law chuckled at my frustration. "She was the first one to die when I basically fell out onto the deck. Sure others had died already, but she was the first one to die after I stepped out on the deck." My nails dug into the metal of the bed and left jagged marks in the metal. "That bastard planned it." I got frustrated with my knee.
"Let me see your knee." I climbed back up onto the bed and laid my knee across his lap. He poked around on my knee some.
"I know what's wrong with it." He looked up at me. I touched one of his fingers. "See this is what's wrong. Can it be fixed without chopping off my leg and letting it regrow.
"Don't do that, and it would take months the natural way of fixing it." I looked at my knee with disdain. "You will not be cutting off your leg." My eyes rose to meet Law's
"Listen, if I want to cut off my fucking head, I will do so with or without your permission. You don't own me, and you never will. I'm not a part of your crew either. So, don't tell me what I can and can't with my body." I was seething in anger and inches away from Law's face. Law smirked at me. A growl escaped my throat.
"I will tell you this. Never let another man touch you ever again." My anger was replaced by confusion. He rested his head on my shoulder. "Jay, I…" I pushed him away.
"Don't say it. Whatever it is don't say it." I looked him in the eye. "You're getting better at not showing your emotions. But, it's the little things that give you away. Work on that and you'll do just fine." I got up from the bed. I reached up under the shirt that I was wearing and crushed the metal object that was wrapped around my chest. It fell apart and landed on the floor. Law looked at me disgruntled. "You've made a mistake." I was gone from the room.