Part Three. The Wrong Side of the Sword

"Sparrow! On yer feet!"

Jack Sparrow started out of a deep sleep, his hand still clutching the neck of a rum bottle. He had a few seconds for his eyes to dart about wildly before being grabbed roughly by his arms and pulled to his feet, coming within an inch of the face of the familiar face of the drunkard from the other night.

"I see you're doing alright, a bit paler then when I left you though," Jack commented, with a slight smirk on his face. One of the two men holding him twisted his arm to shut his mouth.

"Who was that girl?" demanded the man. "You had something to do with it, I'm not as stupid as I look."

"Really, you had me fooled," he replied, still with the smirk.

"Who was that girl!?" repeated the man, spitting on Jack's boots. "And I'm not in any mood for your cheeky answers."

Jack looked down at his boots, his face pit falling into despair. "And I just had these cleaned!" he groaned. "You know how hard it is to find time for this sort of thing!"

"You git one last chance, Sparrow! Who's the girl!?"

"Now, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you now, mate," Jack said, his voice taking on a slightly more serious tone. "Even if I knew the girl, I wouldn't tell you. She seemed like such a lovely person, anyway, I wouldn't want you to hurt her."

"He had his chance!" growled the man, holding Jack's right arm.

"Let's just kill him, already! We were gonna do it anyway!" agreed the other one.

"Yes, that's all very nice," Jack said. "But I really ought to be on my way, I've got a ship and… and a crew waiting for me… I… I am the Captain…" Jack's voice trailed off as none of the other men seemed not to care much for his duties as a Captain.

The man from the other night took a pistol from his belt, his wrist heavily bandaged. He pressed it between Jack's eyes. "You can't tell me where the girl is… You're of no use to me. You'll be better off dead, Sparrow."

Jack crossed his eyes to follow the pistol to where it had rested. "Or am I of use to you?"

"You said you didn't know the girl!" the man hissed, losing his patience.

"Well, how can you trust what I say?" Jack said. "After all, I'm a pirate. How good can my word possibly be? So maybe I do know the girl. I just don't want to tell, for say I'm, madly in love with her. Even if I told you I did know her, I could just be lying to save my own skin and get my ship out of Tortuga as fast as I can. So the question you gentlemen have to ask yourselves, is: What kind of man is Captain Jack Sparrow? Is he the kind of man that'll do anything to save the woman he loves. Or is he the kind of man would leave her to be killed by the likes of you. But then you always have to remind yourselves, you don't know anything about Captain Jack Sparrow, now do you?"

The man holding the gun blinked, his fingers loosening slightly on the gun. "Well… I suppose… Well, it's obvious… What did you say again?"

Jack smiled devilishly, the faint light catching his gold tooth. Moving quickly, Jack wrenched himself free of the two men, and got his head out of the way just in time to avoid a hurtling bullet. Jack didn't bother to stay and fight. The man who lives and runs away, lives to run another day, he thought, tearing out of the barn he had dozed off in earlier that day.

"Well, what are you waiting for?! Go after him!!"

(~*~)

Joan sat propped up against the dirt wall, her knees arching under her dark skirt. She peered around in the darkness of her hiding spot. She'd give night another half hour or so to come. Between her forefinger and thumb she cleaned the dirt from the small crevices of the pendant. Despite the incredibly faint light, the pendant still managed to gleam brilliantly. Joan sighed, running her finger around the rim of the shape of a crescent moon.

Joan felt very confident that Tortuga would be the place to deliver her someone worldly enough to know of the great fortune it could bring. But someone who didn't know the horrors it could unleash. Joan ran her tongue over one of her fangs, thinking deeply to herself about the opportunities. And if she was lucky… the chaos. She grinned in the dim light. All she needed now was a ship.

"Tonight's another night," she said softly to herself. "Soon… soon enough."

(~*~)

Jack dashed through the streets of Tortuga, hoping to loose the men as the Caribbean sun began to sink behind the horizon. The outskirts… It's not as crowded… They won't suspect to look for me there… Right? Hmm. Not exactly one of my more full proof plans. Jack threw a look over his shoulder as a gunshot went off.

"You can't loose us that easy! You're a dead man Sparrow!"

Now Jack was fast, he was the fastest person he knew, but the man didn't seem to be lying when he promised not to let Jack go. Maybe the more crowded streets would have been easier to hide. But at least this way no one could say they had seen him go this way or that. As the streets and buildings began to thin out, the trees became thicker, the ground beneath his feet softer and turned to dirt.

Though, a bit unfortunately, the effects of the rum had not entirely worn off on Jack. Had he been a bit more sober, he wouldn't have missed the final step on the natural staircase. But he did. With that misstep, Jack fell face first into the dirt, giving his pursuers just enough time to catch up with him. Jack scrambled up on his feet, just out of reach of the three men, backing slowly away.

"We're all gentlemen here," Jack said, but his smirk seemed unsure. "Maybe we could settle it over a nice bottle of rum… or two?"

"End of the line, Jack," said the man with the bandaged wrist. He raised the pistol and cocked back the hammer, advancing with every backwards step Jack took backwards.

Jack closed his eyes, dreading what was inevitably to come next. Though, he hadn't expected it. With his last step he had hit some sort of low wall and he lost his balance. At that same moment, the pistol went off. Just as the bullet left it's chamber, Jack's body pitched backwards and fell down into blackness.