“Wait!” I scream.
“Lass?” He cocks his head at me.
“Don’t kill her!” I shriek.
“Why not?”
I flounder around, my words not forming anything intelligible. “B-because you can’t just kill her like this!”
“Why not?” Anne asks, confusion coating her words.
“Are you serious?” I gawk at her. “Do youwanthim to kill you?”
She blinks, clearly thinking over her answer.
I shake my head vehemently. “No. Nope. No killing. You can take her prisoner or something, but don’t just do a murder right in front of me.”
Hook and Anne both look perplexed, as if I’m speaking an entirely different language I made up five minutes ago.
“But lass, she tried to?—”
“I mean it!” I rub my eyes again. “No more!”
Hook makes a frustrated growl, then backs up and gives her a hard kick to her ass. She goes flopping at my feet, and then Widow and Shiner are on her, dragging her out of the cave as she spits and screams curses.
“Are you all right?” Hook kneels in front of me.
“You were going to cut her throat? Just, ‘wham bam, you’re dead, ma’am’?”
“Aye. That matters naught. Tell me you’re all right.” He takes my hands in his. “Please, lass.”
The concern in his eyes make my own water. “She didn’t hurt me. But I think … I think I might be giving up,” I admit. “I’m just so tired.”
“I know, lass. But you’re stronger than you know.”
“Am I?” I shake my head. “Anne didn’t seem to think so.”
His jaw clenches. “If the Jolly Roger were still afloat, I’d keel-haul her sorry ass until she drowned.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Oh, I love a good keel-haul.” Cookson chortles as he limps up with an armful of driftwood and starts setting up for a fire. “It’s when we tie a rope ter the brigand, then drag them from port ter starboard, you see?”
That gives me a somewhat amusing mental image. “You just drag them back and forth across the deck until they get tired or something?”
Cookson bellows a laugh. “Goodness, no. We pull themunderthe ship. Haul them right past the keel again and again.”
“Through thewater?” I think my eyes must open wider than they ever have. “That’s … that’s torture.”
“No less than she deserves.” Hook turns to the pile of driftwood and begins striking a flint at the base of it.
“Bit more kindling. Here, Cap’n.” Cookson pushes some sort of hay-looking stuff beneath the logs. It catches quickly, sending wisps of smoke into the air. In only a few moments, a decent fire is started and Cookson is perching a pot over it. “Can we still keel-haul her once we’re back at sea, Cap’n?” he asks, hopefulness in his tone.
“If I don’t kill her on the shore, perhaps.”
“All right. Fair enough. I don’t want ter go getting me hopes up.” Cookson nods and pours some water into his pot as Starkey and Cecco show up with more wood.
“No killing.” I know my words fall on deaf ears, but they don’t argue with me, just go about making the fire.
