My fingers tangle in my bucket rope, and my survival instinct has me gripping.
Hard.
Palm burning with the fire of an angry ember, I feel a painful pop blaze through my shoulder an instant before I collide with the deck.
Thwack.
I can’t feel a thing.
Not my toes, fingers, heart …
It’s a peace that seems to hold its breath, as though death is wielding a scythe to my throat, deciding whether to slash.
Live or die? Live or die? Live or—
Pain strikes like hands gouging through my ribs with the force of their violent punch. They snatch my organs and squeeze.
Hard.
Mouth agape, I try to suck air down my too-tight throat.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe.
Can’t scream for help.
Wild panic finally erupts as a shadow shifts across the smiling moon, and I watch the silhouette tip a bottle. Hear a full swallow, then a hissed release.
“Are you afraid,witch?”
Vanth.
My heart takes short, sharp punches at my battered ribs.
“Hewas. He was fucking petrified.Do you know how I know?” He crouches, bringing his face so close to mine that I can feel his stale breath hitting my cheek. “He hated the water. Ma couldn’t bathe him as a child without listening to him scream.” He pushes a lock of hair off my face and cocks his head to the side, voice cracking as he says, “Kavan died screaming, and you will, too.”
My stomach rocks.
I pull the smallest breath—fuel for a pitiful, half-croaked whisper. “Va—”
He tips the bottle, filling my mouth with a deluge of rum that sprays the back of my throat.
I choke and sputter and heave.
“Are you not going to scream?” he drawls, tipping …
Tipping ...
I rock my head, but he grabs my jaw and locks me in place beneath the blazing waterfall.
“Try harder, witch.Scream!”
A gurgling sound bubbles up my throat. A drowning plea.
He stops the spill, snatches my ankle in a vice-like grip, and drags me along the deck, my head smashing against a barrel.
The stars and the moon blur and sharpen.
Blur and sharpen.
