Chapter two
Entering the navy ship
The moment that Clarke and her companions began to scaling up the ship's walls, using the ladder that they'd been given by Wallace, a foldup ladder, that would cling to the wall and let them climb up it, they were glad that they'd been equipped with multiple other items, including the anchor in the boat, which they had dropped down, to keep the rowboat from floating off.
The group got up onto the deck of the ship.
As soon as Clarke got up to the deck, a shiver ran down her spine, before she could help it.
She looked around the empty ship deck, unable to help but feel an odd chilling sensation.
Something felt…wrong.
Something just felt very, very wrong about this ship.
She swallowed. She wasn't sure why she got that feeling.
Though Clarke wasn't dressed exactly ideally for the trip, as they were at sea, and the temperature out was close to the forties, and she was just wearing a simple gray T-shirt under a black and blue leather jacket, and black jeans and black boots.
Then again, none of her companions were dressed relatively warmly either.
Clarke glared at where the others were walking and observed them carefully.
They didn't look like they were looking particularly self-conscious about anything regarding this ship.
Clarke glanced around the ship, feeling the hair on the back of her neck standing up on end.
She couldn't explain it, but her being on this ship was dangerous somehow.
Dangerous for her, that was.
Clarke tensed as she stood there.
The satchel which she had-all of them were equipped with satchels, to store away any valuable items they found, she gripped the handle of said satchel in her grasp.
She only moved when she heard Murphy's snort of laughter as he passed by her, "Actually going to move and do your job, princess?" She heard the sneer in his voice and Clarke fought the need to tell him to go fuck himself.
She didn't have the mental wherewithal to do so, though.
Something about this place felt…off somehow.
She moved, trying to ignore her disgusted thoughts about Murphy.
"Princess" was what they liked to call her, claiming that she didn't do the work.
But she carried this team and they reaped the rewards.
Then again, that was just how they operated. They were freeloaders, did the bare minimum of work, and when they were expected to do more, they relied upon Clarke. And when she complained at all, she was called "princess," "ungrateful," "not good enough." That was just the way they were, you know?
No help for them.
Clarke wasn't going to pretend that she hadn't wished that they'd just drop dead more than a few times.
And no, she didn't think she was a bad person for doing that. There were times when people just finally had enough, and she felt she was entitled to that point where she'd had enough.
Still, she pushed her legs forward and walked after the group that so repulsed her.
When at last, she and the others reached one of the main rooms of the ship, Clarke looked around at the interior, finding nothing that stood out as remarkable.
There was nothing but the usual things one might find in a ship such as this.
Gray, metal walls, a few round windows to look out onto the sea, a bunch of maps and books all over a counter on the opposite side of the wall from where Clarke and the others entered.
There was even an old-fashioned compass that lay at the edge of the counter.
Clarke kept scanning the room. Apart from the few belongings, which she presumed had belonged to the captain, she saw nothing that belonged to anyone. No sign of any domestic belonging or anything else.
Clarke began to move through the cabin, going past the others and going into the next hallway, peering down that hall. There were a series of rooms down the hall.
She kept her satchel close. Tied to each satchel they had, were packets of food that would last for days, which each of them would have access to to and be able to eat the food in and drink from the water bottles in. So, they were taken care of in that regard.
She saw nothing that particularly stood out to her.
Still, that feeling that kept scratching at the back of her brain which told her to leave this ship now, just wasn't letting up.
She moved away from the hall, went to the desk where the few items were on it and grabbed the compass off of the desk and put it away in the satchel she held. She then went back to the hall, ignoring Raven, Murphy and the other freeloaders.
She swallowed and started moving down the hall.
The whole point of this, was to track down valuable objects in this ship and bring it back to Dante Wallace.
She could do that.
It might make her feel mildly sick just because of how disrespectful it was. But she could do that.
Going down the hallway, she tried each of the handles of the doors to the rooms.
Two of the first doors wouldn't budge.
She opened up the third door and stepped in, looking into the dust-covered room.
There was no light on, of course, since any lights in this ship likely had died ages ago. However, the round window that allowed the sunlight in, provided enough light for Clarke to see that there were no objects that she might want to grab and confiscate for Dante.
She nodded and stepped out of the room, and went down the hall, trying some more doors.
The next seven doors were locked, not budging.
But the eighth door was open.
She stepped through and observed the room, layered with dust.
As soon as she did, she grinned.
Well, she found something, apparently.
Two objects. Two not one, but two of those really fancy egg things. "Faberge eggs."
She instantly went into the room, looking behind her, to make sure none of the others were going to see her grab these. No one was nearby. She turned back to the valuable eggs, opened up the satchel and reached for the Faberge eggs.
She had no idea why there were these eggs on some average U.S.S ship, but you know what? Dante Wallace wanted valuable?
He was going to get valuable.
Clarke reached for the first of the Faberge eggs. This one was pale pink, studded with gleaming gold, small beads stuck to the egg.
She grabbed up the first egg, stuffed it into the satchel, then reached for the next one.
The next Faberge was glossy and sleek, dark blue and with small gold spikes at the top aimed in different directions.
She snatched that one up next and stuffed it into the satchel.
She felt herself smirking.
She'd like to see the look on Dante Wallace's face when she showed these eggs to him.
She might not have liked him, but Dante respected when she did a good job, unlike her supposed teammates.
She moved on from that room, to the next few rooms.
Again, nothing.
The few rooms that weren't locked up tight, had no real attractive possessions within them.
She supposed that that was to be expected. After all, this was a navy ship. So, therefore, it was unlikely that there would be all that many valuables onboard. Not valuables as in sentimental keepsakes, but actual priceless items.
The fact that Clarke had found those two Faberge eggs? Was remarkable. Because what the hell were a couple of Faberge eggs doing onboard a navy ship?
She tried not to think too hard about how those two particularly priceless items got onboard this ship.
Regardless of "how," it didn't change that she had ahold of them now.
And Wallace would reward her.
Or perhaps she could confiscate these two Faberge eggs for herself and sell them, see how much money she could sell them for. Maybe get way more money from wherever she sold them to, than from Dante Wallace.
Now, Dante Wallace, he paid well. Very well, indeed.
But she had heard of Faberge eggs before. The more authentic ones? They paid to the point where if she sold both of these and they were as valuable as she suspected they were? Then she might never have to go out on another unsavory job for Dante Wallace, ever again.
But still, the question remained in the back of her brain-what the hell were a couple of Faberge eggs doing on this boat? On a navy boat of all things?
From what little she knew of Faberge eggs? They were supposedly originated in Russia, right?
And again, that begged the question, what the hell were they doing on a United States navy boat?
Had one of the people onboard the boat been descended from some Russian aristocrat or something?
Or had the eggs been stolen from somewhere?
In which case, Clarke simply was stealing something that had already been stolen.
It didn't excuse what she was doing, no, but it did make her feel somewhat better, pondering that as a possibility.
Still, she couldn't shake that ever-present invasive feeling of being watched.
She could feel eyes on her the whole time. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up on end.
She wasn't sure what explained that watched feeling she was experiencing. There was no one else here except her and her crew.
A new thought entered her mind, but she dismissed it instantly. The thought of ghosts.
As soon as she thought of that as a possibility, she nearly laughed. Because really? Ghosts?
Was she really so willing to jump to irrational conclusions? Ridiculous.
Clarke was a rational person. She didn't go pursuing the possibilities of things as implausible as ghosts. Or anything like that.
There was no such thing as a ghost.
If such a thing as a ghost existed? Then why hadn't her father, probably the only person that had loved her in her entire life, come to visit her?
Clarke's chest instantly felt like it was being squeezed painfully, at the thought of her father, Jake Griffin.
Her father, the only person that had ever done anything for her remotely.
Just thinking about him and having lost him, made her feel like she was about to break down in tears, no matter how many years it had been since his death.
Still, she composed herself, gripped the handle of her satchel more tightly and kept walking.
None of the other doors were unlocked, or led to any room with a valuable object inside.
No surprises there.
Again, those two Faberge eggs were a shocking find. This was a U.S. navy boat. How likely was it to find that many priceless items to bring back to Dante Wallace?
This navy boat was far more likely to be full of things like maps, books about sea travel, some firearms and clothes, maybe and old mattresses. But riches? That was a laugh.
Still, Clarke continued her search.
The next several set of rooms were empty. Void of any possessions whatsoever, including the more mundane ones.
When at last, Clarke's radio fired up and she heard Raven's blunt voice sneering out, "Hey, princess, thing it's time we all reconvene back at the main hall of the ship, downstairs."
"Fine," Clarke snapped into it, glancing over the rooms she was closest to, one last time, before turning and leaving.
She didn't want to have to deal with any of her crew. But she wasn't finding anything of value in this place. Hadn't since she had discovered the unexplainable Faberge eggs.
So, what else was she going to do?
She went down the stairs, a new thought running through her. One that filled her with something close to disappointment and anxiety.
What if the Faberge eggs were fake?
Sure, they had felt real enough to the touch, in that they had felt like genuine solid metal or something of the like, not like plastic or anything as such.
But couldn't an experienced con person, make something that appeared and even felt authentic?
It was possible. It was possible that those two Faberge eggs that she had in her satchel, were just a couple of very realistic appearing fakes.
Either that, or pair, just not very valuable.
Maybe the person on this ship that had purchased them, had done so, knowing that they couldn't afford the real thing, so, instead, had bought ones that weren't nearly as expensive and so, therefore, not nearly as valuable to sell.
That thought was almost as disheartening as the thought that maybe the two Faberge eggs she had with her, were simply fakes.
Because that really would just be how things turned out for her, wouldn't it?
Clarke cursed quietly.
Clarke's life had been nothing but a string of things not turning out well for her.
Her father dying when she was young, her mother throwing her away like trash, growing up in an orphanage and being tossed out of various foster homes and later adoptive homes-honestly, the way things went in her life, she was surprised she even had something like a job.
She was surprised that hadn't blown up in her face too.
Still, even with the much more rational possibility of the Faberge eggs she had found, only being fakes or very cheap Faberge eggs that some navy person had purchased to feel like they were rich, even if there was nothing authentic about it, she decided that she would never let any of her crew find out what she had found and had in her satchel.
Both for the possibility that the Faberge eggs were valuable, and because of the possibility that they might not be valuable.
Because one possibility would mean that she'd have a potential fortune to protect.
The other possibility would mean that she had been duped effortlessly.
And she wasn't eager for any of her shallow and narcissistic crew to find either of those things out.
She made her way down the metal stairs of the ship, to the main hall.
When she reached the main hall, she found only Raven and Atom there.
"Where are the others?" Clarke asked distrustfully.
"Cool it, Griffin," Atom said, shrugging, looking grumpy per usual, "Murphy's just in the brig, said he needed to piss. Jasper, Miller and Monty are raiding the kitchen."
Clarke almost snorted at that.
Neither pieces of information surprised her.
Jasper, Miller and Monty would raid the kitchen, wouldn't they? And no, not even they were dumb enough to eat the food that had spoiled ages ago in that kitchen. They most likely were raiding the kitchen, in hopes of finding things they could potentially use in drugs.
Jasper and Monty regularly experimented with plants and alcohol. So, it was easy to imagine them hoping to find uses in the herbs or even the fermented and spoiled food in the kitchen and put it to good use.
Miller often helped.
And Murphy pissing inside the brig of the ship?
Didn't sound like a surprise to her either.
Honestly, the only thing that would have sounded more fitting, was if Murphy found a corpse of a sailor and pissed on that corpse.
Murphy was just that degree of "respectful."
It always went over Clarke's head, because she knew that some people liked Murphy. She had no idea why.
She supposed that was all the more reason to see people as a general rule as shallow and assholes.
Because they liked people like Murphy, Atom, Raven, Jasper, Miller, and Raven's boyfriend, Bellamy and Bellamy's sister, Octavia.
She never could get it, but for some reason, people liked the people within her crew.
She had cut herself off emotionally from people over the years, so, she supposed she understood why people didn't like her, why she couldn't make those same connections.
But she just didn't get why anyone would find anything appealing about her crewmates, or about Raven's boyfriend or about his sister.
She just didn't get it.
All the more reason for her to feel resentful and angry, she supposed.
She contained her anger, though, just stared straight ahead and sneered, "Fine, I guess we can just wait for their highnesses to join us."
Clarke fought a smirk, when she saw Raven and Atom both glare at her.
They were fine condescending her all the time, but didn't like it when she talked back.
According to them, she was to take their insults and veiled disgust, and she wasn't supposed to say anything back.
In other words, they would prefer it if she let them walk all over her.
Because that was just how bullies and assholes were.
Clarke, however, just smiled a bit too innocently at Atom and Raven, and neither of them said anything in response.
That prevalent feeling of her being looked at, still hadn't gone away-Clarke still could feel like someone was watching her.
And still, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
But she didn't want to ask Raven or Atom or any of her crewmates, if they felt the same way about this ship.
She didn't want them to have ammo to throw at her and condescend her with.
When at last, the other four; Murphy, Jasper, Monty and Miller rejoined them, getting to the main hall, Jasper sent Clarke a glare, which she returned, then he and the others started regaling the rest of the group with what they had found in the kitchen.
Jasper's smile was actually genuine, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag, containing multiple moldy things and he bragged about how he could probably make some cool drugs from it.
Clarke tried not to scoff at him.
She had long since given up on trying to make friends with the people in this group. They had made it pretty clear to her from the beginning, that they didn't like her. And that they weren't going to even try to like her.
To them, because she was actually professional about things, because she was better off than they were, because she had worked harder, she somehow was unworthy of their time.
Clarke felt for those that were of lower class, and she certainly was amongst them-her mother had thrown her away, which had left her with nothing to live on, for years.
But if you were not well-off as other people, yet did nothing willingly to help your situation, did you really deserve any sort of sympathy?
And Clarke knew Jasper, Monty and Miller. It wasn't as if they'd make drugs and sell them. No, they'd just make the drugs, then smoke or inject those drugs themselves.
They wouldn't do anything to help themselves.
Clarke had always found that saying, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" as being extremely insulting and condescending. And that was because it was.
But Murphy, Miller, Jasper, Atom, Monty, Raven, Bellamy and his sister, Octavia, always seemed to be trying to make chaos, instead of trying to make money.
What few dollars they had? They tended to blow it on drugs or on porn.
She really didn't get these people that were her crewmates, not to mention Raven's partner, Bellamy and his sister, Octavia.
To Clarke, honestly, she wondered if any of them deserved to not be killed or thrown into some cell and forgotten about. Harsh and horribly insulting.
But the feeling remained.
All of them…Clarke wasn't sure how anyone could feel even a shred of pity for them.
They didn't understand her and she sure as hell didn't understand them.
There was one time, she had heard that Murphy had used a firecracker and had placed it under the threadbare mattress of an elderly homeless man who was sleeping in an alleyway.
From what she had heard, Murphy had howled with laughter, as the elderly homeless man had screamed and run, crying, as the mattress had caught fire.
That was just how he was. He liked hurting people, even if they were in more need of help than he was.
Murphy was practically an alien to Clarke. Because she didn't see how anyone could derive pleasure from terrorizing a helpless homeless person.
That just sounded like the lowest of the low to Clarke.
She didn't think of herself as some great, moralistic person. She knew she wasn't.
But there were just lines you didn't cross, you know?
And putting a firecracker under a homeless person while said homeless person was sleeping, was a pretty fucked up line to cross.
You could make the excuse that Murphy and the others were just bitter about how the world treated them, but who did they pick a fight with? People that were weaker than them. Just like the people they complained about.
So, Raven said, after everyone settled down, "Anyone find anything?"
There were a series of shakings of heads.
Clarke reached into the satchel and pulled out the compass, making sure that that was the only thing her crewmates had to gawk at and wouldn't question her further. She placed the compass onto the table and nodded to it. "Just found that," she said.
All four Murphy, Raven, Miller and Jasper snorted, snickering. "That's all you're good for, I guess," Jasper said, smirking.
"Yeah, you can keep the compass," Miller said, as if he thought of Clarke as nothing more than a joke, "I mean, that is the best you can do, right?"
Clarke nodded, glared at Miller, but scooped up the compass and put it back into the satchel.
She watched as the rest of the crew snickered still and went back to talking, ignoring her, regarding her as not worth their time.
Clarke cautiously stepped back, not smirking yet.
Good. They had no idea what else she had in her satchel.
As they made plans to spread out again over the ship and investigate more, before camping here for the night, Clarke decided that she'd hole herself up in the room where she had found the Faberge eggs.
Fake or not, the Faberge eggs, she'd like to think, had been meant as a good sign.
After the group's second sweep over the interior of the ship, they eventually got ready to sleep for the night.
It didn't surprise Clarke in the least, that all six Raven, Murphy, Miller, Jasper, Monty and Atom, were going to all stay in the same quarters together, and Jasper had looked back at Clarke and had sneered, "You can find your own sleeping arrangements, Griffin. No one wants you sleeping near us, alright? Fuck off."
Clarke had glared, but honestly was relieved.
She had long since stopped hoping that these assholes would like her.
She had come to realize that they never would. And why should she want people like them to like her, anyway? They were scum.
They problem with her was that she worked harder than they did. And no, that wasn't a projection, that was the truth.
She had seen it in how they had glared at her, whenever she'd complete two or three jobs and they'd barely even finish half of one job, because they'd spend so much of their time slacking off and having fun, goofing off.
It was like lazy high schoolers that deliberately didn't do any work, and so, as they deserved, just got Ds or Cs at the most, being envious over a student who worked their ass off to get an A+.
You could be pissy all you wanted, but if you were given all the assistance you could need to get a higher grade, yet deliberately flushed that help down the toilet, because you wanted to goof off and take drugs or sleep around or drink or something, then you failing your classes, was entirely on you.
And not the fault of the hardworking A+ student.
And in this particular case? You couldn't blame the teacher, either.
Because Dante Wallace? For all his flaws, was a good employer. He paid exactly as much as someone deserved for their hard work. For someone who worked hard for a whole day-for almost ten hours straight? Dante Wallace was willing to pay over a thousand to that person.
And he would increase the payment, depending on the job.
People who didn't do their jobs, though? People like Murphy, Raven, Jasper, Monty, Miller and Atom, who didn't do their jobs, but were enraged when they weren't paid for slacking off?
They'd be lucky if they got paid even two hundred dollars for the whole day. And even then, that was being pretty generous, considering who the money was being given to.
So, Clarke had long since stopped feeling spurned by the six shallow assholes that were her peers.
They were who they were. That would never change.
And them knowing that Clarke's romantic partner soulmates were all dead, only deepened their eagerness to hurt her.
So, she headed up to the bedroom where she had found the Faberge eggs, closed the door, barricaded it with a couple of small tables, unloaded her sleeping bag along the floor, changed into her nightclothes, pulled out her toothpaste and toothbrush from where it was in her pack, brushed her teeth and spat everything out into the basin of the sink that was in the bathroom of this room.
After that, she got under the sleeping bag cover and lay down, her satchel where the Faberge eggs were, laying next to her safely, as she got ready to get to sleep.
It was dark out, and there was barely any light leaking in through the windows of the room, hence why Clarke was glad that there were actual electrical lights in the room, when she had begun to get ready to sleep.
The lights were switched off now, of course. And Clarke was getting ready to get to sleep.
Just as her eyes closed and she could feel sleep already getting close, she felt something against the palm of her right hand, jolting her to become alert, her eyes snapping right open.
Her heart jumped when she felt what she felt against the middle of her right palm.
It felt like someone had just put their mouth on her palm, kissing it.
Clarke gasped hand closing up around where she had felt the sensation, shooting upwards in a sitting position in the sleeping bag, eyes scanning the room.
What the hell was that?
Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she saw nothing to indicate the shape of another human being in the room besides herself.
But those had been lips that she had felt against her palm, right?
Clarke searched the room, her right hand, which she could have sworn had been kissed, reached out and grabbed her flashlight, which she had put down next to her. She switched it on and raised it so as to make the beam bounce around the room, illuminating any shape that wasn't supposed to be there.
Her heart began to slow down, when she saw no one else in the room with her.
She slowly lowered the flashlight, breathing out in slight relief.
That was, until she felt something stroking her hair, and heard what sounded like her name being said right by her right ear.
"Clarke," the voice said quietly.
Clarke gasped, whirling around, holding her flashlight up like a weapon.
Again, she saw no one. There was no one here in the room with her.
Clarke shuddered, feeling the blood leaving her. But she had heard a voice next to her ear just now, not to mention had felt lips on the palm of her right hand. She was sure of that.
But…..there was no one here but her.
Clarke swallowed.
She tried to ignore how the hand gripping her flashlight shook.
It was just her imagination. It was just this place. It was just the dark and being in an entirely new place.
But somehow, Clarke seriously doubted her own silent reassurances to herself.