AN: Sorry about the delay, guys! I moved from North Carolina to Houston, Texas (more than a thousand miles!) and it's been crazy - hotel, apartment, now we're looking for a house, every day for the last week for 6-8 hours. Eeek.
I changed the rating to R because of the graphic, traumatic violence in this chapter - just to be safe. This was a harder chapter to write than the previous one. Let me know what you think. (Translation: Review!)
Chapter Two – Fury
Elizabeth stared at the clouds as they passed overhead, lying lifelessly on the putrid deck of the pirate ship. She lolled from side to side as the vessel pitched and rolled, unaware of her surroundings, frozen.
She felt numb in the place where Will had resided, the part of her heart that had been brutally ripped from her chest. She knew the pain would eventually come, that it would be horrific, debilitating.
But for now there was only the anger.
Rushing, incandescent rage that suffused her body and immolated her mind, burning away every thought except the repeating image of Will, jerking up from the floor, gasping her name, the silver sword plunging through him like lightning, extinguishing his life. The beautiful sword he had fashioned from his own hands and worn proudly every day, more as a symbol than a weapon. Again and again she watched the sword impale him, eyes smarting, unable to stop the endless reel in her head.
And then there was another image. His murderer. The cold cruel eyes of the Satan-spawned pirate captain glowed in her addled brain, mockingly watching her like a cat waiting to corner a mouse. She felt something far beyond hate for the blond devil. Something so powerful, so malevolent, that it left her gasping half in panic, half in exhilaration.
The feeling would have frightened her out of her wits, had she been in her right mind.
Someone stepped over her with an irritated grunt, his grimy boot passing over her line of vision. Briny, smelly muck dripped onto Elizabeth's face, shocking a revolted shudder out of her. She realized she was wallowing on the slimy deck of a disgusting smelling pirate ship, in a very vulnerable position.
She struggled up onto her elbows on the slippery black wood, then onto her knees. She had lifted one knee in preparation for rising when a shadow obscured the sunlight falling on her. She paused in surprise. Scuffed, wet boots, socks so dirty they would have stood up without the support of a leg, faded and frayed breeches that she could tell had once been blood red. She swallowed, then lifted her head proudly and rose, heart pounding.
A bony hand clamped down on her shoulder like iron, roughly forcing her back down onto her knees. Elizabeth grunted as she hit the deck. She hated to look up at her harasser, but she glanced quickly to ascertain his identity.
The captain.
She wanted to sink down through the ship's deck, through the hull, into the sea to escape from his brutal gaze, but she fought the impulse and straightened in anger and offended dignity. She was not going to let this – swine – see that he had made her afraid.
He moved closer to her and shifted his hand from her shoulder to her chin, caressing with a punishing grip, forcing her head back to an unnatural angle until Elizabeth could barely breathe, making her meet his eyes. She tried fruitlessly to escape his mastering grip, but the muscles in his wiry arm might as well have been made of steel for all she could move her head. She gnashed her teeth in impotent fury.
He watched her in silence for a minute, his dark eyes unfathomable, opaque. She broke out in a clammy sweat, not knowing what to think of this new mood. It made her nervous.
He smiled suddenly, chillingly, as if he knew a great joke. She furrowed her brow in confusion, heart slowly thudding. Something was off about that amused look on his face.
A blur of motion at the corner of her eye caught her attention. She jerked her head to the side just in time to see his knee rapidly moving away from her; his leg switched direction and swung toward her swiftly. An instant of frozen horror blinked by as she saw his booted foot approaching her with terrifying speed.
Impact. The pain was blinding, exploding out from her abdomen.
She found herself on the deck, keening in agony, her body knotted into a fetal crouch. She rocked from side to side, arms wrapped tight around her midsection. She heard distant laughter through the thick haze enveloping her, the voice harsh and tinny.
She felt the first cramp double her over, a pulling, knifing ache piercing her abdomen. The second one contracted her stomach sharply, and Elizabeth felt sick with the dawning realization of what was happening to her. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she felt the releasing sensation within her womb, a sudden dislodging of the burden she had carried so lovingly, and with such pride. She gave a great heaving sob as she felt the moisture seeping between her legs. She pressed her thighs together as if she could send it back in, feeling the hot stickiness on their insides.
The nausea rose in her until it was unbearable, dizzying. Somehow she lurched to her knees and dragged herself to the rail, the wheeling motion of the ship making things worse. She retched over the side into the sloshing turquoise water, closing her eyes as the vomit hit the water with a slapping sound. Reaching under her skirt, she stuffed her petticoats between her legs to absorb the blood and collapsed on the deck.
She slipped in and out of consciousness for the next few hours, hearing snippets of rough conversation and the lulling music of the ocean, the sound that had been her lullaby for the last nine years.
Pick 'er up ... it's bad luck women are, on a ship ... I ain't movin 'er, ye can stuff 'er in the brig yerself ... wake 'er up then ... she's sick, bleeding like a stuck pig, she is ... so what, wenches bleed all 'er time don't they ...
The words ran together in her brain before she could recognize them as more than varying sounds, blending, their meaning lost to her. A sudden sharp nudge in her shoulder jolted her unkindly from her adrenaline-induced haze. "Get up, Tidbit."
She slowly opened her salt-encrusted eyelids, wincing at the now late- afternoon sunlight as it penetrated her irises. A dark shape was waving his hand rudely in front of her face.
"Get up, now. You're goin' to the brig, see, and we ain't about to cart yer stinkin' carcass over there!" He dragged her up by the arm to a hunched position that passed for sitting upright. "You didn't hear me, Tidbit? The Cap'n says..."
"That'll be about right, Sweeney. Get out of my way," came an icy voice that penetrated even Elizabeth's fog. It was him. He bent close to her, his fetid breath blowing in her face, gold teeth glinting. "Is'at clear then? You get up and walk – now – or I will rearrange your bones this time."
The threat in itself did not intimidate Elizabeth – she was more than ready to die – but the dangerous quality of his frozen voice told her that it would be simply idiotic to ignore his words. In a dream state, she staggered agonizingly to her feet, feeling something ripping inside her, and put one foot after another on the slippery deck as she followed the captain to the brig. She kept her eyes on the ground and concentrated on keeping the dizziness at bay.
The brig was a hole in the deck floor right behind the wheel. He pushed her cruelly into the darkness and she fell hard to the bottom of the smelly damp space. The pirate captain turned away with a shuffle. Before he could walk away, Elizabeth called out, "Wait!" Her voice was rusty and weak, and at first she thought she had gone unheard. But the scuffling sound stopped and was replaced by absolute silence. She took this as assent and called out as loud as she could, "What is your name?"
A pause. Then he spoke in that spine-chilling voice. "Bloody Silas."
The boots started moving again, the shuffling sound falling away into silence as he left the brig entrance. Elizabeth shivered and curled up in the highest corner of the small, flooded cell, where the water was only about three centimeters deep, passing the time before they reached shore, and an opportunity for escape, by imagining various creative methods of brutal torture being performed on the man who had erased her family.
To my lovely reviewers:
OpraNoodlemantra: Wow! My first reviewer ever on this website! Thank you! Yeah, I felt bad for Will too, but that entire chapter just spilled out without a pause. Inspiration I guess you could call it :/. I know, this one's depressing too, but I'm laying the foundation for the action and character development coming up. Plus I'm trying to be as realistic as possible. Love more feedback. :o)
WolviesLover: Aww, thank you. How sweet. Hopefully this chapter didn't disappoint. I know it's very...heavy, but it'll get less intense in upcoming chapters if you don't like that. I would welcome constructive criticism. Thanks for the pick-me-up! :o)
To all my readers, if I'm fortunate enough to have them, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed. Review for quicker updates!