Angela began throwing her body around in the stranger's arms, violently trying to break free as her crippling fear dissolved into action, leaving her captor forced to strengthen their grip as another richly feminine voice broke past Angela's ear, tinged with strain, "Cut it out, dammit! I swear, I'll-"
Angela's foot made a swift kick straight back into her captor's leg, though it didn't have the desired effect. Instead of freeing her, it merely led to the two of them falling to the floor as the stranger gasped in pain, though she hadn't relinquished her grip on either Angela's face or her waist, merely cursing under a heavied, pained voice, "I swear to fuck, girl, you'd better cut this out and start listening to me!"
Between the shock of having fallen down atop this person and the tension having slightly dropped in time, now that Angela slowly began to realize her life was not in danger as she'd though, plus the unmistakable voice of a woman, Angela gradually stopped resisting, though her eyes still remained sour as she stared up toward the ceiling with a furious stare at being restrained.
"Alright," came the voice, "You're not going to scream or run away, are you?"
Her hand cupping Angela's face with such strength, she was unable to nod, leaving the stranger with a sigh before relinquishing her grip, repeating, "You're not going to-"
"FATH-!"
The stranger spun onto her side, sending Angela's body onto the hard floor for only a brief second before she found her mouth once again covered, though now the stranger was atop of her. Angela's eyes widened as her assailant's angry eyes met her own. She was, indeed, a woman; tanned that same golden-brown she'd seen in the knothole of the crate, black hair wildly falling down past her face as her teeth barred in open strain at Angela's defiance.
"I swear to god, girl, if you- Argh," she groaned, knowing by now that threats weren't going to work, choosing a different angle as her eyes ran along the walls of the cargo hold, "Look, I'm not a stowaway; I've got everything I need to survive in my box over there, okay? I'm not interested in stealing anything, so just- Don't tell anybody I'm down here, alright? I'm just trying to get-"
"Angela?" came Captain Morrison's voice from outside the room, leaving the stranger's head bolting upward with a tense expression.
As she did so, her necklace fell from its tucked-in spot along one of her shirt buttons, it's glimmer catching Angela's eye just as the woman returned her eyes to her, a sudden, hastened whisper leaving her, "What, you want this? Here, just keep quiet, alright?!"
She tore the necklace from her neck before dropping it atop Angela's torso, in exchange for her silence, quickly hopping to her feet and rushing to settle into the opened crate, eyeing Angela critically as she reached down for the panel that had been torn off, simply pulling it against the rest of the box, unable to take the time to hammer the nails back in, sliding the edges of the displaced board into place.
Angela watched the large box in confusion, the last few minutes having left her mind in a whirl, and by the time she had returned to her feet, her father had already half-stepped into the hold, his head turned as though searching for her, "There you are. Did you fall? The floor is gradated in some spots to keep stuff still, you need to keep an eye out."
He continued as he lifted a sheet of paper into the air, "Here you go. Did yo come across anything unexpected?"
Angela eyed him pithily, his chosen words unable to be any more appropriate, she thought. Her father watched her in growing confusion from her silence, though as Angela stepped forward, careful not to step on the necklace that had fallen to the floor as she stood, she wore a detested face, unable to waver from the feeling of being restrained against her will as she'd been.
"You want unexpected?" she asked, gravely.
Her father's glance grew serious as Angela shoved her fingers in the space where the nails of the board kept from an even fit, suddenly yanking the large face of the crate and letting it fall to the floor, the woman inside staring toward Angela with a disgusted face. Jack's face, on the other hand, widened in horror.
"Angela," he muttered quietly, his voice deepening in gravity, "Call the crew together. We need to vote on how to deal with this stowaway."
Jack dragged the stowaway by the collar up onto the deck, throwing open the door with a swift kick to find his crew having all been assembled while he roped up their 'guest'. He threw her forward, her body rolling along the deck, much to the astonishment of everybody present, save for Angela, the stowaway grunting painfully, still snarling defiantly as she eyed the people circled around her in curiosity.
"We got us a stowaway, crew," Jack explained gravely, "By the rules of the sea, of this stowaway is willing to steal our stores to survive, they forfeit their right to a trial by jury. We're out here on a wooden nation; this stowaway's life belongs to us."
Angela eyed her father with a slight sense of grief, not having understood the severity of such a situation, though she remained quiet nonetheless as Captain Morrison continued, "I already have it in my mind to send this stowaway overboard, but I'm not a one-man crew. We're going to vote on it. It's all of your food after all."
Lucio gasped, "You think she would'a taken Bastion for a meal?!"
The stowaway snarled, "I fuckin' told you! I brought enough stores! Had that woman not found me, I wouldn't have disturbed any of you!"
With a huff, Jack nodded, "It is as she says; I did find a bit of her own stores. No telling how long it would have taken for her to make herself comfortable aboard the ship as a whole, however."
"I wouldn't have even dared!" she shouted.
Breaking through the tense discussion, Junkrat shoves his pegged leg into the deck with a *clunk* before angrily shouting, "I say we strap 'er to a rock! Just like that Prometh'us guy! Use 'er for target practice; at least th'n we'd git some use outta 'er!"
Hana chimed in, "I agree, Captain. As soon as you gain a rep as a stowaway ship, you can barely get a man to pay his own way across the sea. Nobody'd ship anything aboard this vessel again."
As they made their case, Lena fiddled with her chin in thought, though it was Jesse that spoke up next, "It bothered you too, huh, Cap?"
Jack frowned as Jesse continued, "Not once did you refer to the stowaway as to what they are. You could throw a man off a cliff and receive hardly a second glance. A woman is a different tale entirely."
"Eh, who gives a rat?!" Junkrat shouted, "Man or woman, she knew what she was doin' 'soon as she hopped in that crate o' 'ers!"
Before he could be rebutted, Lena stepped through the group, crouching beside the stowaway and carefully brushing the hair out from her face, must to the captor's surprise, Lena asking calmly with a serious face, "What's your name?"
"Well you can't name it!" Hana cried, "You can't judge fairly as soon as you-!"
"She's still a human, Officer," Jesse shrugged, "Least we can do is understand her circumstances. What would we be if we treated cargo with such care, yet throw a person off at the slightest provocation?"
Hana frowned, hating to straw from proper protocol, though as Jesse finished his point, the stowaway looked around, gingerly, her voice breaking out I surely, "F-Fareeha. Fareeha Amari."
"Alright Fareeha, where ya from?" Lena went on.
Her eyes shifted suspiciously, "…Egypt. Spent most of my time in Greece."
"Well, she's a long way from home," Lucio shrugged, "Seems like a stupid thing to come all this way just to become a stowaway, you think?"
"'Ey! We don't need any assumptions!" Junkrat shouted.
Jesse whipped his neck around, "Oh hush; we all know you just want something to shoot at, Junkie."
Their boatswain frowned, shoving his hands into his pocket defector as he frowned, "Still…"
"Nevertheless," Captain Morrison interjected, "She is a stowaway. That's a crime. I don't trust her so far as I can throw her, so bringing her aboard is out of the question. We'll vote on it- keeping her tied up in the hold and turning her over to the authorities at the conclusion of our trip, or settling the issue right here and now and tossing her. Let's hear the first one. We keep her."
Lena's hand shot up, followed by a peevish raising of Lucio's, with Jesse lifting a finger in casting his vote. That did it.
"Four to three," Jack spoke, gravely.
He bent down, taking a tight grasp around the ropes of Fareeha's wrists, the stowaway immediately beginning to panic as he began dragging her of from the deck, her voice a furious spatter if pleas, "W-Wait! Please! Sir, I'll work! I meant no ha- Please!"
Jack's face remained unmoved as he advanced toward the edge, the crew behind him in various stages of discomfort at the scene before them. They had all seen the same event play out before. To be a stowaway was akin to stealing, and in a situation such as living aboard a ship, when rations were everything, a stowaway could be the difference between a crewman surviving the trip or perishing along the way. They all knew it.
All of them besides their newest member.
Angela's chest tugged mightily under the weight of the woman's pleas, a weakness settling in at either of her knees as she shook, both detested at the act as much as she was horrified by what her father was doing. He didn't even bother to speak as the stowaway desperately threw her knees along the deck in a vain attempt to prevent her incoming death beneath the waves.
"Sir, don't-! You don't know what you're doing! Just- Please! Please, sir! Please!"
She suddenly fell, hitting the ground, curled up from her bindings as she shook, her body severely addled from her current predicament. Expected to be kicked overboard, however, she was met with nothing. She merely remained there along the deck; even with her face unable to see as she was, she could feel the tension in the air from an unknown source, though it still caused a chill to run up her spine.
Just as suddenly as she'd been dropped by the Captain, he grabbed her once again, though this time, she was being slid in the opposite direction, a wave of astonishment overflowing from within her. She managed to lift her head, her eyes widening in shock as she watched the girl she'd very nearly tackled down below in the hold, her hand raised as she watched Fareeha being dragged off to be sequestered in the same hold where the two had first encountered one another.