He rowed while they watched him, both wearing smug grins on their faces and for a moment, he glanced over his shoulder, back at the speck of his ship in the distance. When he looked again, they were sniggering and he smiled patronizingly at them and then concentrated on rowing. He couldn't shake the terror in his chest that the brother who had been left behind on the Jolly Roger with Clara had no intentions of looking after her and if there hadn't been a gun aimed at his face, he might have turned the long boat around.
"Bit premature to start celebrating, wouldn't you say," he offered lightly with a small tilt of his head to the side and rise of one eyebrow
Rufus nodded, "One celebration at a time."
"Pray tell, what are we celebrating?" He urged, dropping his head slightly as he grunted, rowing them around a shallow point and leading them back over a pool of dark waters.
Ron snorted. "You'll find out soon enough."
Grinding his teeth, he nodded, "Show me your map." They held it up and he glanced around before continuing to row and Killian watched Rufus searching the waters around them and he laughed, "Expecting someone?"
"Don't trust a pirate."
"Good job finding a charter for your mission then, mate, because I make no secret about my dealings," then he shook his head, thinking about the odd device Clara carried with her. If he had a mobile, like she did, he could call her. If they all had that sort of communication, he could have had an armada waiting for them and he could calm the drumming in his chest.
"Just row the boat, Killian," Rufus muttered.
The sword embedded itself into the mast at her side as a croak of a scream emerged from her mouth and her eyes closed. For a moment she thought maybe he'd missed and he'd be swinging again, but then he shifted forward and tugged at the ropes around her. Collapsing against him, she frowned and shook her head, looking up at Reggie to ask, "What?"
Shrugging his shoulders heavily, he twisted his lips down at her and admitted, "Not really a killer; he forgets sometimes – happens when you're thick."
Clara managed a huff of a laugh as she dropped her head down on Reggie's chest and let her arms weakly clutch around him. She took a few long breaths and on the fourth, she uttered, quietly, "Thank you."
"Oi," he warned, pushing her up and helping her lean, seated, against the mast, "I still have to watch you."
Glancing around, Clara replied, "Where am I going to go?" She gestured up at the helm and admitted, "Don't know how to steer a boat; obviously I can't swim away; and I certainly can't fly."
He smiled, nodding, "But you're a flighty little devil – Rufus ain't givin' you enough credit."
"Oh," Clara groaned, "He's just upset because I punched him in the face… and I'm a girl."
The remark earned her a laugh and the man handed her his canteen and a small package pulled from just inside his vest. "Go on," he urged.
Taking a long drink, eyes closed, Clara dropped her head back against the wood before glancing back down at the item wrapped in cloth and she opened to smile down at a lump of dried bread. She ate slowly, watching Reggie lift up off his knees to walk about the ship before he returned with an oversized brown hat and dropped it on her head with a small laugh as it fell over her eyes.
"You'd make a crummy pirate," he teased.
"You make a crummy thief," she responded, before adding, "The compassion is better suited elsewhere."
He remained silent, standing above her, choosing to work the sword out of the wood and move to lean against the edge of the boat, eyes on the horizon behind them. Clara looked him over, pushing the last piece of bread into her mouth and drowning it with water as she tapped the hat up, grateful for the small bit of shade against the sun despite the fact that it rubbed painfully against the burn on her temple.
"What are you looking for?" She questioned, pulling herself to stand and slowly drag herself to his side.
He nodded out at the ocean, "Looks like we have company."
"Company?" Clara questioned, squinting to look out at the other ship growing in the distance. "More pirates?"
He shrugged, glancing around the empty deck with her before glancing down to meet her eyes with a shake of his head, "We'd better hope not, for both our sakes."
Killian laughed when he spotted the jagged mountain breaking through the haze that had settled around them and he nodded towards it with a sarcastic, "Land, ho."
Rufus and Ron both snapped their heads around and Killian was tempted to lift an oar and knock them both overboard, but the gun was still aimed at him. A gun, he knew, could probably get a good shot off, even soaked in salt water. The oar knocked against the tip of a mast jutting up from the depths of the ocean beneath them and Killian chanced to peer over the edge, seeing the skeleton of some poor sailor lying in the crow's nest, rope hanging loosely at his waist. His anchor to the vessel that lay in shambles in the shallows.
"Keep an eye on the waters for the remnants of ships, aye?" Killian called. "Wouldn't want to be sunk by the mistakes of lost souls," he muttered.
The men turned and then looked out, seeing what Killian was now aware of. The ocean was a graveyard around them, shadows in the depths, bits of planks floating on the surface, tangled in nets and suspended in time. They helped him steer around the mess of debris until they were guiding him between the corpses of two large ships rotting on their sides towards the sandy beach ahead of them. Bringing the boat ashore, Killian jumped into the waters and dragged the boat through the thick sand before turning to look up at the island with a frown.
"Go on, pirate," Rufus growled, handing him the map and poking at his back with the barrel of the gun as Ron gripped the longer rifle, eyes on the dense forrest spreading out before them. "Find us a treasure so we'll take you back to yours."
A week ago he might have smiled about the thought of sailing off into the sunset on the Jolly Roger, the three men having taken him hostage floating in the waters around him, cut down by his sword. Now he thought of Clara, left in the hands of an untrustworthy brute. With a glance at the instructions on the map, he raised his eyes back to the mountain that sat at the center of the isle and he growled as the men behind him laughed.