[A/N- my apologies that this is as short as this, and thank you everyone for putting up with my short chapters lately! I vow that the next one will be a doozy, or I will have five or six up within a week. Deal? Deal. Good, since I'll be on vacation soon and not have access to a computer. Love you all and thank you thank you thank you!]

Alinnya didn't remember being so afraid in her whole life. It made her rash, but she wanted out of there. Bastard though he was, Jonathan Brady was an excellent sailor, and he had a pirate's intuition about his hoard. She hoped Jack understood that. If they were caught, they'd all be on that box. And it really, really wasn't a fun place to be.

Take what you can.

She was off on the first boat, rowing as though dear life depended on it, the ship's crew rowing along behind her, their eyes glazed, the gold- fire that you'd have to see to understand.

The whole damned world was summed up in pound signs.

And there it was- the first mountain of it. The silhouette of the shark under the boat glanced eerily off the cave wall, as the torches glinted off the gold. Gold suspended by floats in the murky water, gold hanging by the crate from the ceiling. It looked like hell, glittering madly in the darkness. She could see the whites of Jack's eyes, a rarity in itself, suspended in the darkness.

"Don't TOUCH IT!" she roared, stilling the greedy hands of the crew. "These crates will crash the boats. There's a trick to it."

She stood, pulling and angling her little boat till it was right under a crate. She motioned for the crewmen to hold it there, as she climbed onto the box, and up the rope suspending it, until she'd reached the coil extra from it's hook in the stone. She loosed the rope, using her body weight against the cave wall to lower it slowly into the boat. She jumped from boat to boat, lowering them all similarly. Finally, they were done, seventeen crates being hauled back to the ship. After loading, a fresh wave began, and they cleaned out the top row.

"How do we get the last?" Jack asked her, drinking his rum in the galley, the crew fit to burst.

"Do we still have that dynamite in the hold?" she tipped her own bottle, letting the liquid swish around her mouth before she swallowed.

"Aye," he looked at her curiously. "Whatcha thinkin', lass?"

"If we aim to get 'em, the sharks'll get us. They leave that cave at dawn- fishin's better elsewhere. So we keep bombing 'em out while we haul them up. They're chained underneath, so we'll have to push them from under as well as lash them to get over."

"Won't the boats tip?"

"We can brace them against the wall. Should be fine." She stood. "Goodnight, Captain."

"I ain't done with you tonight, girl," his grip on her wrist and the look in his eyes told her everything. The ship lurched, unexpectedly, and some of the sailors whispered nervously.

"Just the tide, men, comes in hard through here," Alinnya shouted out, but Jack remembered that blanch in her face. "I'll be above when you're through."

With that, she disappeared up the stairs.

***

"Well, there you are. I was afraid I'd have to storm the ship, love. What took you?"

She felt like she'd lose her meal listening to him speak, but she bit her lip and looked him dead in the eye, silent. It was all she could hope to convince him to leave- did she even dare hope that he didn't know they'd gotten the loot?

"What the hell do you want?" she snarled, but it lacked her normal bite, and he smirked ruthlessly.

"Isn't it obvious, beautiful?" he walked up as close to her as he could without any kind of contact. "You come along, quietly, his ship stays in one piece. We both know he'll never find anything in that cave."

She looked up in his eyes, searching for the bluff. It was the right side, he could blow this ship to smithereens. But not…

"And what will happen to your ship, Captain, when the gunpowder explodes?" she smirked. The cliffs were too narrow, the current too strong outside of the harbor to hold position that long.

"There are other ways to end a man's life," he smiled back, grabbing her hip and dragging her toward him. She yelped, jerking backwards, just as he caught her a right hook in the jaw and two of the other crewmen dragged her, gagged and kicking, onto the ship.

"Come on, boys," Jonathan laughed. "We got our swag."