Hours passed by and it was already night time.
Delia was attempting to get some kind of sleep, which was hardly possible with the other prisoners whistling and calling for the guard dog on the far end of the corridor, holding the keys in its maw.
"Come here, pupper," one called, his arm dangling through the bars and tapping against them.
Delia let out an exasperated sigh, massaging her temples in an attempt to calm herself down.
Just as she was about to say something, Jack, who was also trying to rest with his hat covering half of his face, spoke, "You can keep doing that forever, the dog's not moving anywhere."
The men turned back around to the pirate. "Oh, I'm sorry we haven't resigned ourselves to the gallows yet," one answered in annoyance. Jack, however, didn't regard him in the slightest. Only when the sounds of cannons echoed in the distance, did he move.
"I know that sound," he uttered to himself and scurried to the barred window.
"What is it?" Delia asked as she moved to her window as well, trying to discern what was happening outside.
"It's my Pearl!" Just as he answered, Delia spotted a black ship in the far distance, firing cannons at the fort.
"Pearl? What Pearl?" She asked, panic rising inside her as she retreated from the window, now clutching the bars as she faced the pirate. Her attention then landed on the group of men on the other side of Jack's cell when they explained it was an infamous pirate ship called the Black Pearl.
"I've heard stories," one of the men told ominously, "she's been preying on ships and settlements for near ten years… never leaves any survivors."
A shiver ran down her spine as the men broke out in a murmur.
"No survivors?" Jack asked as he glanced back at the men, a smirk spreading across his lips. "Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"
Just then, the walls rumbled as a cannon flew straight into one of the cells, causing everyone to back away. Smoke and dust filled the air and when it settled, she noticed the gaping hole in one of the cells, through which the men were already escaping.
"Looks like luck really doesn't favour you two," the last one said, his glance switching back and forth between Jack and Delia, and he left without another word, leaving them dumbfounded.
Now it was just the two of them.
"Fucking hell," she cursed under her breath and the pirate's gaze landed on her.
"Never thought I'd hear a lady swear like that," the pirate commented with a smirk.
"You're being awfully calm despite the fact that this place is under attack," Delia pointed out and winced as another cannon landed dangerously close nearby and the ground shook.
"Well, yes, love, because that's my ship," Jack retorted proudly and swaggered towards her, "any moment my crew will walk in here and release me."
He then stopped, their faces now inches apart from each other, and placed one of his hands on hers, caressing them with a feigned look of sympathy. "And you'll regret not coming with me."
"We'll see about that," Delia drawled before jerking her hands out of his grasp and distancing herself.
It was not long after that Jack had begun calling for the dog himself, trying to lure it with a bone from his previous meal. The dog approached curiously, the keys rattling and dangling from the metal ring, and the pirate extended his arms, reaching for them.
Just at the last second, however, the dog froze as a gunshot resounded from the stairwell and scurried away into the opposite direction.
Delia reacted immediately, reaching through the bars as well when the dog was about to pass her cell, but failed to grab the keys. She sighed disappointedly and her arm fell limp, now dangling on the other side.
Another gunshot sounded, followed by cursing and a sudden thud in the corridor with the body of a guard now lying lifelessly before them. Two men then rushed inside and she gasped, jolting back in fright. Pain shot through her arm that was now stuck in between the bars, her sudden movement having left no time to pull it back at the right angle.
"Skatá," she cursed as she felt numbness creeping into her arm. She couldn't move it.
"This ain't the armory!" Her gaze snapped back onto the two men who were eyeing the room in confusion. The one who had spoken was about to turn back around and leave, when the other noticed the two prisoners, his eyes locked onto Jack.
"Well, well, well, look what we have here, Twigg," he grinned menacingly as he approached the pirate captain. "Captain Jack Sparrow. Last time I saw you, you were all alone on a godforsaken island, shrinking into the distance."
"His fortunes aren't improved much," the other pirate added as he joined him.
"Worry about your own fortunes, gentlemen," Jack replied with a bitter smile. "The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers."
He was barely able to finish his sentence, when the dark skinned pirate's hand abruptly shot through the bars and fastened itself around the prisoners neck.
Delia's heart skipped a beat when she saw the hand was nothing but bones under the moonlight. Her eyes snapped back and forth between the man's healthy seeming face and his skeletal hand. This was all kinds of wrong.
Jack was anything but intimidated by the man. Instead, he observed the bones engulfing his neck with astonishment. "So there is a curse. That's interesting."
"You know nothing of hell," the man growled, his voice now having a much more gruesome effect on the woman witnessing the scene. Yet the prisoner was still unfazed, marvelling at the hand transforming back into its previous state as it withdrew out of the moonlight. "That is very interesting," he muttered.
"And who's this?" Their gazes finally landed on the woman whose arm was still stuck inside the bars. Panic arose in her as the pirate by the name of Twigg made his way towards her. "Some precious little company you got here."
Jack bit his lip as he saw him walking over to her, his gaze shifting from left to right as he was thinking about a way to avert their attention back to him.
"Well, she's actually very ugly," was all he came up with, Delia's look of horror now morphing into one of exasperation. "Has an infectious disease which causes her to grow warts all over."
Twiggs regarded him for a short moment, but decided to ignore him.
"And develop brittle bones."
This seemed to deter the pirate as he stopped in his tracks, before retreating. "Think it's gonna spread over to us if we take her with us?" He gulped, glancing at his fellow pirate.
"We don't have time for this," the dark skinned man growled and turned to leave. "Let's go."
Delia, who had been holding her breath for the entire time, finally exhaled as soon as they were gone.
"You alright?" Jack finally asked when he watched her struggling to get her arm back inside.
"I can't move my arm," she croaked.
Jack advised her to lift it with her other hand and slowly move backwards, but she shook her head vigorously after one attempt. The slightest move would cause an unbearable pain to shoot through the arm. "I can't do this."
"Yes, you can." Jack encouraged her to take deep breaths and try again.
Delia's heart raced as she did as she was told, carefully lifting her arm again to pull it backwards. Tears were welling up in her eyes as she grunted at the throbbing pain in her upper arm.
"I think I dislocated my shoulder," she groaned as her shaking hand still held onto her arm, keeping it uplifted to avoid further pain.
"Perhaps I can help," Jack offered and motioned for her to move towards him. Having no other choice, Delia approached him and sat down, leaning against the bars that separated them. He had already been holding out his arms and placed his hands gently on her arm and shoulder, examining it. He gave her further instructions as he helped position her correctly with her dislocated shoulder facing him before taking hold of it and her upper arm again.
"Now this may hurt," he announced and her heart rate started picking up. She winced as he tugged her arm forward and then slightly to her side. She screamed as another flash of pain tore through her arm and felt the joint scraping her bones, tears falling down her cheeks.
Her free hand snatched his arm after she heard a faint pop.
"There," he spoke calmly, "it's all done, love."
She kept holding onto his arm, heaving for air with her body trembling from all the shock. His left hand that had held her shoulder before, now moved to stroke her back in an attempt to calm her down. Then, a sob followed.
Soon after she found herself sobbing uncontrollably in his arms, flooded by all the emotions from the stress and trauma she had gone through in the past days.
The pirate watched her with a contemplating gaze as she held a hand before her mouth to stifle her sobs, and decided to move his arms around her and pull her closer - as close as the bars allowed.
She didn't notice his fingers smoothly trailing around her waist as he did so, nor his faint smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth as he breathed in her scent.
He hadn't been this close to a woman in what had felt like an eternity to him, and if he was to die tomorrow, he would enjoy every second of it.
"Thank you," Delia whispered weakly when she calmed down.
"Don't mention it, love."