A/N: All right, I know what you're going to say. My apologies for this chapter. But what can I do? If Rayman's going to insist on acting this way, I just have to go along with it.
The story does take a sharp turn here, but just realize it's a long way from finished yet. From what I can figure right now, there are another 15 to 18 chapters to come, groan... There will be more changes. On the bright side, at least we're finally getting out of that blasted room!
I'm sorry, anyway! *Sigh.*
Once again, as we all know, Rayman belongs to UbiSoft Entertainment. Everything else, including all the blame, belongs to Rayfan.
Chapter 6: Piranha
She was standing on the side of a hill, high up, looking down into a valley that was all in darkness. (To be on a planet, under a sky, standing on grass and earth, was so eerie, so dreamlike, it couldn't be real... It couldn't be real, but here she was. She stared, fascinated.) There were distant hills, gentle mounds, far away at the horizon, a yellow-orange glow dimming behind them; they faded into silhouette and then melted into the blackness that crept up from the valley. The sun was setting.
Elly sat up suddenly. The room was grey and unfamiliar, and for an instant she was seized with fear. Then she remembered. A small smile took possession of her face.
It grew, she had to hide it behind her hands. Smiling was too dangerous. But it wouldn't go away. Elly sighed, happily.
She looked around. "Rayman?" He wasn't on the bed, she couldn't see him anywhere. She got up, looked in the bathroom, gazed around the room in perplexity.
Then she heard a scraping noise off to her left – in the wall. She approached it cautiously. No rat ever sounded that big!
The ventilation duct grating up near the ceiling was hanging open. Another scrabbling noise, and Rayman's dishevelled head poked out.
"Hi," he said.
Carefully, one piece at a time, he eased out of the duct. It was narrow and there wasn't much to hold onto. Climbing onto a chair left below the grate, Elly helped keep him from sliding out and landing on his head.
"Going to have to practice that," he grinned, brushing himself off. "It's a pretty tight fit, hard to turn around."
She smiled too. "Did you find what you wanted?"
He glanced at her, a brief warm contact, then back up at the grate. "We can get through there, it's not too bad. We can go from room to room. Have to be careful about making noise. I didn't see anyone in any of the cabins around here."
"I don't think there is anybody, but they wouldn't be there anyhow during the – what time is it?" Elly looked around. "It's still day, isn't it? Sleeping in the daytime–I'm all confused."
"It's still day. The lights are still on in the halls and other rooms. And according to my stomach, I'd say it's around suppertime."
She did feel a twitch of hunger, in fact a pretty big twitch. They had not eaten much in the last day or so. "There's almost nothing left. I need to get more food."
They looked at each other. She could see the same thought in his eyes that she was having – the pirates. She hadn't had any problem going out to get food before, but now that they had changed cabins, and there was a search on for Rayman, that was a different matter.
"I can wait," Rayman said. But he looked at her with some concern.
She shrugged. "So can I. I'm not so hungry."
Seeing his skeptical expression, she added, "I've gone days without food before, lots of times. I'm used to it." Then, brightening, she said, "Wouldn't this be a good time to try on the new clothes?"
He stood quiet for a moment, his eyes averted. Then he said abruptly, "I'm filthy, what with the dust and those ducts. I'm going to take a shower." He walked past her to the bathroom. At the door, he paused. He half-turned.
"Elly," he said. His eyes contacted her for a moment, a deeply serious look. For a moment he seemed about to speak. Then he lowered his gaze and turned away to open the door.
He stopped again, turning back momentarily with a very different, weary expression. "Elly, this ship has to be crawling with guns. Think. How can I get one? A usable one, not like that relic from the storage room. And soon?" He stepped though the door, it closed behind him.
Elly sat down at the table. A gun. Of course he needed a gun, any pirate in trouble would try to get a gun. She could hear the water running now. Her thoughts began to drift. Food... food would be nice. But with the stoicism of long habit, she moved on from there. The clothes... She got up, went to the booty bags and dug around in them, pulling out the various pieces of clothing she and Rayman had worked on. She smoothed out some wrinkles, refolded them, laid them neatly on the table. The boots and gloves too... She smiled. It was – fun – kind of a – game – imagining how he'd look... Her hand stroked the material.
She dug around more in the bags. His two knives, at least he had those. She laid them out too. She found a few cups and utensils, put them away in the galley. There were a few scraps of hard bread left. She found a plate, put them on it, laid that on the table as well. She got two cups, filled a jug with water, got the nearly-empty wine bottle... She was smiling again, a shy little smile, but it stayed on her face as though it belonged there.
A gun, of course, where could he get a gun?... Her eyes wandered again to the folded clothing.
The water had stopped running, and soon he came through the door, tying the belt of his grey shirt, his springy hair still damp, muttering, "Ugh, I need clean... clothes." His voice trailing off. He halted, staring at the table, then at her.
She smiled more. He attempted a smile, but it wasn't very robust, and after a moment it gave up and slunk away.
He said, "I see you found some–something to eat, after all." Though from the way he was standing, he seemed to want to back up through the door into the bathroom again.
Elly walked over to him, took hold of his hand. He looked at her, surprised. He didn't move. "It's not much, but come eat," she coaxed him.
His glance darted away, lit on her again, fluttered off in disordered confusion like a pack of startled butterflies. He let her pull him towards the table, though she could feel resistance; it increased as they came closer. She got him into a chair and put the plate in front of him. Standing beside his chair, she poured some wine into his cup, added water.
He looked pale, distracted. "Couldn't I just have plain water?"
"Plain water? Oh, no, that's dangerous! Nobody drinks plain water!"
He sighed. "Well, can it at least be mostly water? Wine makes me thirsty."
She picked up the jug, added water to his cup. He looked at her. Her light, golden eyes were bright, shining with a soft light. Though she wasn't quite smiling now, the usual solemnity of her face had gentled; she gazed at him radiantly.
He lowered his eyes, turned away.
She put the other chair at the corner next to him, instead of across the table, and sat down. Her eyes caressed him, shyly. "I'm sorry there isn't anything better. Tonight I can go get more food, when there aren't a lot of pirates around. But for now–" She pushed the plate at him.
He picked up a small piece, then pushed the plate over to her. "Your turn, Elly." He didn't look at her.
As they chewed slowly on the dry bread, Rayman said, "Um... Elly... did you think of..."
"The gun?" she cut in, guiltily. "Uh–tonight I could–"
With a kind of absent-minded distaste he stared at the remains of the bread in his hand. "Do you think any of the rooms around here might have something like that in them, maybe forgotten by somebody? There wasn't any gun in here, but I did find all kinds of old junk in the drawers and cupboards when I was poking around."
"I guess it's possible."
He got up to pace. "We have to start looking."
She felt a little nervous thrill run through her. "Is it that important? Can't it wait till tonight?"
He stopped, closed his eyes; stood for a moment rocking a little on his feet, hands clasped behind him, then turned swiftly, paced off in another direction.
Involuntarily, looking at the unconscious, compact grace of his movements, Elly burst out, "Oh, Rayman, I'd like so much to see you in these new clothes!"
He stopped, abruptly aiming his gaze at her with such force that she drew back a little. There was a wry, almost bitter smile on his face. "You would? Why?"
"I – I don't know, they'd look so nice... I think they're so lovely!"
"Do you? I think they're basically a practical joke."
"What do you mean, a joke? How can they be funny? I've never seen such beautiful–"
"Oh, Elly," he said – and there was for once a distinct edge of impatience in his voice, "Beautiful! What can that word mean in this place? What's beauty mean in a world where the only thing anyone cares about is force? Pain, death, terror – sure, those are real! But beauty? It's a joke, a mockery! Though it fits... it fits the practical joke of me ending up here at all. Yeah, another little layer to the joke."
He swerved, took a few steps, halted. His dark eyes fastened on her again. "Elly. Please just drop that idea, okay? The whole idea. There's nothing beautiful... or even – pleasant... likely to occur around here. Nothing, you get me?"
She sat silent for a few minutes, while he set off again stalking erratically around the room, halting, turning, setting off determinedly in one direction, then reversing with equal though empty determination to stride back the way he'd come; once or twice even hopping onto the seat of a chair and momentarily crouching there, looking half-comical, half-hunted. Or taking an effortless jump onto the galley countertop, stretching himself a third longer to peer up into the highest cupboard, not that he seemed aware of what he was looking at. Her eyes followed him around. At last she said, in a subdued voice, "You mean... Do you mean you aren't going to wear those clothes after all?"
He halted again, frozen as though shot. "I don't mean that. No... I'm going to wear them, Elly." He set off again.
Even more subdued, she murmured, "When?"
Once again he halted. Slowly he turned to face her.
A cold thrill jolted her body. Those were the submerged, suffocating, anguished eyes she'd seen the first time he ever looked at her.
"All right, then," he said. "All right. It has to be done." His head turned towards the table, where the neatly folded clothing lay. He swallowed. "Elly. Why don't you go over to the bed, sit over there."
Hesitantly, she got out of her chair, went over to sit on the bed, as he walked slowly to the table and stood beside the little pile of clothes.
He laid a hand on the new shirt, hesitated; he looked at her once more. Something in his eyes, the way they held her for an instant – like being seized around the neck by a drowning man – something that clutched at her with desperation and then slipped, spun free, was lost, gone. The effect was so dizzying that involuntarily she rose to her feet, about to run to him, grab him, drag him back.
But his eyes pulled away, closed briefly. When they opened, they were steady. And there was that hardness in them that she had seen before, a resolute rejection of despair. Of all emotion?
Silently he turned his back on her. He pulled off his grey shirt, leaving on the black undergarment that covered his whole torso. He began to pull the new shirt up over it.
Elly sank back onto the bed, leaned against the headboard. The silence and solemnity of his movements, that hard, distant look that had come into his eyes – more and more, she didn't want to watch the process of his, his changing. But by deliberately putting on the clothes in her presence, he seemed to demand that she be a witness. A chill ran through her.
All her anticipation of seeing him in the new outfit had evaporated. Now she longed for the courage to tell him to stop, put back on the old shirt, turn his face towards her, don't turn his back on her, don't change...
Methodically, undramatically, piece by piece he put on the elaborate outfit; the shirt or bodysuit, the short black leather vest, the loose, armless coat, the shiny leather boots, the cuffed black gloves. He stood there, still with his back to her, his yellow hair very vivid in contrast to the dark clothing, his head lowered. His body bent forward stiffly. For a moment she thought she saw something incomprehensible – as though an invisible hand had visibly seized his body, subtly squeezed, fractionally remoulded it. He held still, breathing hard. A coldness that wasn't just temperature settled on the room; it lay heavy in her chest like a disease.
He raised his head, arching his back, stretching himself. He took a slow, deep breath. For no understandable reason, she felt another chill.
Now he turned towards the table, side view to her. An irrelevant, detached, awed thought shot through her: Oh, my god, he's so beautiful! He took a step, stiffly. He picked up the wide black hat from the table and, with a slight ironic twist to his mouth, gingerly settled it onto his head, concealing most of that bright yellow hair, putting his large eyes into shadow. They burned out as if from the depths of a lightless cave.
Then the head turned in her direction; those eyes moved to take hold of hers. She didn't know why, even before meeting them, she quailed.
Except for its sombre colour, the outfit was so flamboyant it verged on parody, the traditional self-important pirate captain. It enveloped him in heavy, stiff, thick cloth and leather, completely unlike his former lightweight, skintight clothing. It was nearly all in black; the very dark purple, satiny ruffled shirt or bodysuit, together with a little silver trim of the black vest and hat, gave the only hints of colour. The coat, longer than his body length, secured at the neck and with a narrow belt, was ornately brocaded, beautifully textured with patterns in thick black thread that in their darkness were hardly visible, but added to the richness of the effect. The large, elegantly curved hat was decorated with white feathers running along the brim, and floating plumes that rose back alongside the crown like a mockery of the native liveliness and bounce of his own hair. And the black boots, with their low stiff uprights, and the heavy-cuffed black leather gloves, together with the length and looseness of his wide-collared coat, somewhat obscured the absence of his arms, legs and neck.
The clothes looked elaborate, archaic, and extremely dashing. And they looked unexpectedly natural on him.
In the midst of her astonishment and a low, growing thrill of horror, again the thought trembled: I had no idea he could be so handsome. But it wasn't her thought, it belonged to someone or something else, it banged around inside her skull almost unregarded. Against her will, in defiance of all her lifelong instincts, in spite of her desperate effort to stop them, tears were burning her. And fear. This was not Rayman. He was utterly changed.
Not by the clothes; not even by what appeared to be, mysteriously, another inch or two of height, quite in addition to the inch added by the boot heels. It was something much more subtle, yet which pervaded everything, transformed his least gesture into something foreign. It was his stance: the slight straightening of his posture, the way his chest moved out a little, his head thrown a little back. Rayman's casual, poised, alert attitude, the lightness, the airiness of the way he stood – always as if ready to leap up into the air where he half seemed to belong – had become something defiantly firm, solid, weighted to the ground.
And the startling shift in the way that body moved; from his former easy, smooth quickness, changing as lightly as his mind, to heavily controlled, sudden, nearly machine-like starts and stops. Each motion of his body was so abrupt, so deliberate, and so apparently packed with intention, that even a change in direction of his eyes, as he fractionally turned his head and fixed them on her, was ... frightening.
And – those dark eyes. They were gone, Rayman's eyes, radiating a bright clear warmth like a sun. They were gone. These eyes were no less intense; but with a cold, concentrated, altered light, like a piercing glint reflected off a sharp blade. Even their colour seemed to have shifted from cobalt blue to outright black.
It was as though in stepping into those clothes Rayman had simply ceased to exist; as though he had walked through a magic portal and been seamlessly replaced by this disturbing stranger. Who now looked at her silently through opaque, impenetrable eyes.
"Oh, Rayman," she whispered. "I hardly know you."
"That's right," he said gravely.
Her mind was quite paralyzed, but her mouth was reflexively babbling. "It's that–I don't think he's going to like it – he doesn't like anyone to show him up, Rayman, he's funny that way, about clothes, and you–"
He raised a black-gloved hand, palm out, in a gesture to stop her. "Don't call me that," he said quietly. "My name is Piranha."
Those steady, unblinking eyes were holding hers, and she didn't dare try to pull away. But she couldn't let that stranger see in her gaze the dagger he had just shoved into her chest.
Why had he done this to her? What had she done to make him do this to her? How had she failed? Then she saw.
"Oh, no – it's Anaconda – You're Anaconda's man!" she cried. Her hands covered her face.
Involuntarily, one of his hands moved a little towards her. Then sank back to his side. He looked at her grimly.
"Elly," he said, neutrally.
Quivering with repressed tears, she looked up at him. Already the animation of the last couple of days was quite gone from her face; and the unshed tears were quickly retreating too.
He stood silent, his eyes on her. Rayman's eyes had always been transparent, a clear window into his every passing thought. These eyes were – as if shutters had been slammed over the windows. Anything occurring behind them was barricaded from view. Imprisoned.
"Elly," he said again. In that quiet voice that sent a pang through her body every time he spoke; that lower, slightly harsher tone that was the most alien thing of all. A voice no less expressive than Rayman's, and with no hint of anger or threat – but also, with no trace of that warmth that had always embraced her every time he spoke, that had always seemed able to embrace everything.
He had murdered her Rayman, this alien being with the opaque eyes, he had murdered him in the vicious act of putting on those hell-black clothes, he was murdering him again with each cold, soft-spoken word... What was he saying?
"Listen to me, Elly," he was saying. "The game is going on, and I haven't been playing. If I don't make a move soon, I'll be outmaneuvered, I'll be out of it altogether. I can't let that happen. If I'm killed, everything I've – gone through will have been for nothing."
He shook his head, with a slight, acid smile. "In the past, I've been called a good guy by some. Well, I don't know about being so wonderfully good. What I am – is a guy who seriously does not like to lose. I don't like to lose. And I don't intend to lose now." His voice became lower, harsher. "Not that there's any way to win this game. But I have to stay in it. I have to do whatever in hell it takes, to stay alive and – keep the boss happy. That's how it is."
That bitter smile, like a thin knife. "It was kind of interesting to find out from you that when I fought the robot pirates back on my planet, I wasn't just smashing machinery, I was slaughtering living beings. But it wouldn't have made any difference if I'd known, would it? I still would have done the same thing, wouldn't I? I did what I had to do. I always have."
He paused a moment, then added, "Anyhow. In some sense I did know. They didn't act like machines, they had to be alive. Only I didn't want to think about it. And that wasn't the only war I've fought. There are a lot of things I haven't wanted to think about in my life. And so where do I end up? Another of life's little practical jokes... Smacking me face-first into everything I never wanted to look at, about myself.
"Yes. I can't help wondering if I've landed exactly where I belong. As if in my own tailor-made hell. If it weren't for all the innocents suffering here too, I'd be almost egotistical enough... dumfounded enough to believe it. All right. Enough of that."
He had become abstracted; now a new surge of energy seemed to hit him, he turned towards her fiercely. "Elly, I mean to survive. This is a very dangerous time right now. I need your help more than ever."
He took a step forward. Again she was aware of his body moving with a firmness, a determined solidity, that was the direct opposite of Rayman's thoughtless, near-weightless grace. Yet it had a deliberate, feral elegance of its own. Those penetrating, fiercely intelligent eyes, under that elaborate hat that would have looked ridiculous on Rayman, the too-handsome clothes, the small hard smile that seemed to conceal, rather than express, a thousand lifetimes of bitter experience – no, she had never seen him so coherent, so controlled, so exotic, so fascinating.
And she wanted nothing more than to flee the room, to fly down the twisting corridors and halls and all the way across the ship to the lowest depths of the slave quarters, to bury herself in that friendly squalor and never have to return.
Perhaps sensing her reaction, his lips pulled back a little in a painful grin.
"Things might not be the same for you on the ship now, Elly. You're in this with me. That's how it is. I know you're good at recognizing necessity. As I am. You're with me, and you're going to have to do whatever's necessary to keep the game going. I'm counting on you completely to play your part." He paused.
"That also means," he added, "You're my teammate. I owe you the same loyalty you owe me. Do you see that?"
She couldn't speak at first. "No," she said, finally. "No, I don't. But you're my boss. I'll do what you say."
Once again the remote, opaque little smile. "All right. We'll start with that."
He turned back to the table, picked up the long dagger and the shorter knife, tucking them with their sheaths into slits in the black vest under his jacket. He checked for ease of reaching each knife, adjusted their positions, checked again. Then he glanced at her.
"The pirates are going to keep trying to find me," he said. "I think they've been patrolling around in the corridors more, have you heard them? Be very careful when you go out of here, you mustn't be seen in this area." He took a long breath. "There's going to be a lot of fighting to do over the next days, maybe weeks. I have to gain a position, and it's not going to be easy.
"I've got to have a gun, Elly. More than one. And we have to have more weapons, to defend the cabin if it comes to that. You need to check every room around here to see if you can find any. Then later tonight you can go find some food... and get into the weapon storage rooms. Right?"
He took off the hat and the coat. He laid them back on the table. His eyes turned towards her again.
"You'll need to finish more clothes, too," he said. "These probably won't last long. And I can't dress in rags like those – amateurs."
He paused, looking at her as she stood, not moving, eyes lowered, her body a little bent.
"You can stop looking like a human sacrifice," he added, dryly. "Do I go around acting like one? All right, you know what to do."
With that, he turned his back on her, went over to jump onto the chair still standing below the circulation vent, pulled himself up into the opening, and slipped away.
Elly stood for a few moments, looking at the vent. She looked at the table where the old shirt lay.
She sat down on the bed for a little while. She was having some trouble breathing.
Over the next couple of hours Elly dutifully explored the neighboring cabins, darting out of one door into another when no heavy footsteps had been heard approaching or passing for at least ten minutes. She dug through the drawers, under the beds, into the cupboards, through all the dust and abandoned junk. Very few of the rooms had ever been tidied up when the last inhabitants had departed – how many decades ago.
As the evening grew later, it seemed that the sporadic traffic in the hallways increased, to the point where she was afraid she wouldn't be able to make it back into their cabin unseen. When she finally did slip back in, locking the door behind her with relief, she looked around the room. No sign of – him. She took a deep breath. He would be furious; she hadn't yet found a gun.
She laid a couple of small daggers and a short sword on the table. She sighed. Food... It had been a long time. There were still a few old crusts on the plate, about as edible as cardboard. She wasn't quite that desperate. She took a drink of water. She sat down at the table for a moment, a little dizzy.
Yes, she was hungry. And very tired.
She went back to the booty bags and dug out a partly finished shirt she'd been working on in the storage room. Without enthusiasm, she got together her sewing equipment and the cloth and went over to sit on the bed, leaning against the headboard. It was more comfortable than working at the table.
When he slid back out of the duct some half an hour later (much more neatly than the first time), dropped quietly to the floor, and stood brushing himself off, he saw her. She'd fallen asleep on the bed, mid-stitch. He glanced over at the dry bread on the table, at the sword and knives.
He got a drink of water. He hefted the sword, shaking his head.
He sat in the half-lit room while she slept, running his hands over his new identity, as though only now trying to find out what it was. Flexing his fists, insulated in their thick gloves, and learning the sensations from fingers muffled by leather sheathing. Running his hands over his own slight, lithe body, buried under layers of strong cloth and leather. Touching his own face; even that was changed, it felt different to him, numb, lifeless, shapeless. The set of the mouth and vision from the eyes, it was all new, unfamiliar, not very comfortable. He put his big hands around his chest, over the small arsenal under his coat, and squeezed hard, compressing the flat sides of the daggers against his trunk, feeling the location of each individual blade. They hurt.
He sat still for a short time, eyes closed, fists flexing, unflexing, tightening again almost hard enough to tear through the gloves.
He put the big showy hat on and felt where it impeded the reach of his hands, felt how his head turned in it, felt the weight of it rebalancing his whole body.
Getting out of the chair, he began moving quietly and quickly around the room, with abrupt turns, halts, dashes; then, flinging his hat aside, rolls and leaps, landing, twisting and firing... except that he didn't fire. It was hard, imagining the enemy, not to lash out automatically with Rayman's old effortless energy shots. (He refused to confirm, in practice, with finality, that he didn't have shots to fire any more, he refused to try and fail. Either to fail or to succeed at firing would have been unbearable.) He kept on and on, until he had fought down the emotion; until his hands were just hands, until he had forced the envelope of control around him to shrink from the ability to place a pinpoint shot anywhere within sight, to – the size of a small frame, a head, two feet, two hands, a dense little package. Like a solid-body.
It was hard, it was very hard, it took a long time. He had to stop a few times, panting, his fists clenched, his eyes squeezed shut. His body shaking. Then starting up again, without a sound, his teeth bared, his eyes cold and dark as stone.
Later, he would need to expand his area of control again, to convert it to the use of a weapon instead of – instead of himself. He couldn't do it just yet.
At last, when he was under control, when his body had stopped shaking, when the hands had stopped crying out to him, when he finally knew who and what he was – he moved onto the next phase. One by one he pulled out each knife, looked it over carefully, felt its blade, imagined its function; imagined using it. Then he put them all back in their places. Again he began his rapid, erratic movements. His hands snatched at his chest with blurring speed, at his boot, again and again, in mid leap, in mid roll, while twisting towards an opponent, until they knew with utter certainty where each dagger was.
As the moves became larger, covering more distance, he had become inevitably less quiet, and at last, making a sudden leap from the floor onto a chair halfway across the room, he knocked it over with a crash. Elly jumped out of the bed with a shriek. He stood beside the fallen chair, looking at her irritably.
"What–what happened?" she gasped, picking up her sewing from the floor.
"Nothing," he said. "Why don't you go get some food now."
"All-all right," she stuttered. He picked up the chair, stood beside it, a dark, compact figure. A short dagger glinted in his hand, his black eyes were on her. She was almost afraid to take her own eyes off him as she set the sewing on the bedside table. She slunk into the bathroom to splash some water on her face, came out to find he hadn't stirred. Those eyes continued to follow her as she threw a patched old cloak around herself, crept over to the door, unlocked it, and slipped out of the room.
After she was gone, he put the knife back into its place. He began his moves again, at a faster pace this time.
She was still not thinking about it. She wasn't thinking about him. She wasn't thinking about who or what he had been or what he was now or how he could have changed so. Her loss had been so abrupt, so unexpected, so unprepared for.
Even though in a way, she could see now, he had warned her. He had tried to tell her. He hadn't been lying. Now he was gone. As if a switch had been flicked.
It was late, past curfew. The few pirates and slaves still in the halls were mostly scurrying towards quarters. The night cook-guard, a human, gave her the usual rations without comment beyond the raising of an eyebrow at her long absence.
On her way back to R– the cabin – Piranha's cabin – she was stopped in the corridor by one of the First Mate's human thugs, a very large featureless slab of meat with a smaller, nearly featureless slab of a face.
"There you are! Where's your little freak?" he demanded. She stood still, head lowered, not looking at him. "Laying low in some cozy nest being babied by a girl? Since when do captive enemy slaves get treated better than the crew? Or is it true what they're saying, that he's dead and you're taking it easy, living on his rations?"
She answered in a voice as low and as monotone as possible. "He's in his cabin."
The pirate snorted and spat on the floor just beside her. "His cabin! You tell that armless joke that the Boss wants to see him, now. Blargh told Anaconda this morning his half-missing pet's gone missing completely, and he was not pleased. The vacation's over. They'll hunt down the little fake if he doesn't show up. And I don't think he'll find that such a holiday."
He bent forward, grabbed her soft flesh, squeezed hard, but she didn't flinch or make a sound. With another snort of laughter, he let her go.
"I'll tell him," she murmured.
"You'll tell him? No. I better tell him myself. You take me to him right now." His huge hand groped again at the cloak, aiming for her arm underneath.
Elly ducked, took a few quick steps back, staring up at him, as he grinned at her. Then with a faint gasp, clutching her little bag of food, she leapt forward and dodged around him, taking off down the corridor at a flat-out run.
He made a lumbering swipe at her as she passed, then stood there laughing.
"You tell him I get you after we're done with him," he called after her. Elly ran faster.
About to make another lunge, knife in hand, Piranha froze in mid-motion as she slammed into the room – perhaps not sure that it was she. He took in her disarranged clothes and wild eyes.
"He wants you now," she panted.
He thrust the dagger into its sheath and made a grab for his hat on the table.
"Wait," she said, "Eat something first."
He gave her a slight bitter smile and took the proffered bread, chewing it quickly while he patted down his knives, checked the set of his shirt and hat, adjusted his boots and gloves.
At the door, he stopped and turned to her. "Get me a gun," he said. Though his voice was quite expressionless, it was clear that he was reminding her of how many times he had asked for it already. Her heart stopped.
"I will," she whispered. He gave her a cold, hard glance, and left.
[End of chapter]