“Anything …”
“Reach into my shirt pocket. There’s something in there I’d like to hold …”
With a nod, I wipe my hands on my pants, then wiggle my fingers into the pocket, pulling out a tattered patchwork doll with button eyes and soft pink stitching that’s come loose in places. I set it in his palm, wrap his cold fingers around it, and hold it up so he can see.
His glassy gaze clings to the sight for a few stretched seconds before he nods, and I lower it over his heart. Another tear slides down his cheek as his knuckles whiten with strain, the doll swallowed within the clenched confines of his hand. “Now,” he croaks, throat bobbing, “… loosen the tourniquet.”
My gaze drops to the bloody knot suspending the inevitable, but my hands suddenly feel like boulders.
I look at his eyes—watching me, more present than I’ve seen them since he handed me that piece of charcoal weighing down my pocket.
In case you want to add some shading to your scratchings.
“Please …”
I nod.
With trembling fingers, I ease the material’s hold on him, then slowly unpack the wound. Blood oozes—a silky river of red gushing to freedom.
Gage begins to sing, his deep, abrasive voice carving out foreign words in such a way, I don’t even want to know what they mean. What the song’s about.
They bleed me anyway.
A man limping past stops, slowly looking at Gage from beneath a mess of flaxen curls, then swiftly at the ground. He sets his vial of water on the floor, bows his head, and salutes.
Acaptain’ssalute.
He harmonizes the chorus with his robust voice, joined by another. And another. Each saluting the man pooling around my legs.
My throat tightens as I watch Gage’s blood flow free. Close my eyes as the song draws to a close without him, warm tears sliding down my cheeks. When I find the courage to open them again, I see his own are wide and lifeless.
I whip my stare across the ocean—so smooth it doesn’t look real. So extraordinary.
The beauty is lost on me.
All I can see is the barrel Kavan tried to clamber on top of in a desperate bid to salvage his life; the too-pink tinge to the water that doesn’t seem tofade.
Footsteps thud across the deck, heavier than the others. I let my gaze pan to the Captain, his brow stitched as he surveys the deck with grim eyes that eventually land on me.
His navy shirt is ripped in places and rolled to the elbows, revealing thick, weather-worn forearms splashed with blood.
He scans my face, my hands, the pool of blood I’m sitting in.
The man stretched out on the deck before me.
His chest inflates, lips part, breath spilling out in a rush. Then he kneels beside me, hand coming up to brush down Gage’s face, closing his eyes. “He was a good man.”
I nod.
His gaze drops to the makeshift tourniquet, the edges still loose in my hands.
“I … ah …” My voice is not my own. It’s cold and vacant as Vanth’s words chant through my mind.
Killed us all.
Killed us all.
Killed us all.
