Page 53 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

The crew area was likewise deserted, with dirty hammocks still strung as though waiting for their earthly occupants to return. Chill after prickly chill ran down Bash’s sweaty spine like warning shots.

They cleared the entire deck, searching for any sign of secret compartments or dusty old chests shoved innocuously into cobweb-covered corners, but there was nothing and no one. Even the rats had fled.

“Captain’s quarters?” Bash suggested and Dutch nodded.

With his guts roiling, Bash led his little party back the way they’d come, Dutch pulling up the rear. He was proud of how stealthily the lads prowled through the dark, barely allowing a single creak in the unfamiliar passageway. Hopefully they’d reach the captain’s quarters and find old white-haired Willy passed out drunk where they could truss him up and deliver him to Mad. Even better if he were sat atop a pot of gold like an Irish fucking leprechaun.

Silently, they turned down another passageway and Bash’s nerves went on the highest alert. Someone or something else was here with them, hiding in its own familiar darkness.

He froze, and Langley tripped into the back of him with a grunt. Then a blinding flash flew out of the shadows accompanied by a shout and a searing pain the likes of which Bash had never fathomed. He fell back onto Langley, who stumbled into someone else.

The party became a tangle of limbs and shouted curses.

Sweat pouring down his face, Bash extracted himself from the jumble and got to his feet. Then the flash of a blunderbuss temporarily lit the passage, blinding him just as he caught a glimpse of wild, white hair careening away.

Then nothing.

Chapter Thirteen

Maggie snapped to attention, straining her ears against the deafening silence. Had she heard a gunshot or dozed off and dreamt it? She tried to take one of Jory’s calming breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, but the air felt too close, and her lungs refused to expand.

Though her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, she could see nothing but walls—walls which seemed to be closing in. They’d soon crush her and she’d suffocate twice over. Where was Bash? How was Bash?

After he left, she had pictured him in her mind’s eye, leading Langley and the others stealing over the side of the Whale, then creeping through the ship searching for stolen treasure. Had they found it?

Her skin was crawling with the not knowing, and remaining locked away, deprived of every sense, for two more seconds was bound to drive her as mad as Captain MacLeod.

Custard scrambled off her lap as she struggled to her feet, legs numb with pins and needles.

“Mrow!” Custard grumped, but Maggie shushed the cat and listened.

How long had it been since Bash had left her down here? She wasn’t hungry, so it couldn’t have been a terribly long time. She tried hard to read the ship beneath her, and it felt… sedate. Not tossed about in a storm or the turbulent waters of war, but not moving either.

It was still, too still to be engaged in battle. Still was good. Still was fine. Probably. Promises be damned, she was going to see what was happening above.

But when she reached for the door, the wall before her felt smooth and solid. Swallowing her mounting panic, Maggie stamped her feet to stop the tingling and ran both hands along the wall, turning in a small circle. The only sound besides her ragged breath was Custard squalling when she accidentally stomped his tail.

Maggie bit back the urge to scream for help and pressed the wall a bit more firmly as she circled her tiny cupboard once more. At last, her fingers snagged on a vertical crack in the wood, and she was able to shove the door wide and stumble out into more darkness.

It would be impossible to get her bearings down here.

“Do you know the way out?” she whispered to Custard, but the feline had already fled, leaving her behind as punishment for his poor tail. “Right,” she whispered to herself. “This is fine. You’re a pirate, Magnus. Figure it out.”

Shoving her way forward, Maggie bumped into a stack of crates and barrel after barrel as she went, like the cattle who once got loose inside a London porcelain shop. Lucky the ship didn’t have much in the way of fragile cargo. Bruised knees and shins were nothing if it meant escaping this infernal darkness.

It felt as she imagined being buried alive might feel, and now it seemed she was wandering in circles. She’d be lost down here forever, and even if Bash came back, he wouldn’t find her. She laughed a little hysterically at the thought of his smug, annoyed face, turning in circles looking for her even as she faded into a specter, doomed to wander the sea for all eternity.

Just when she was ready to weep in despair, she heard muffled shouting, and dim rays of light began to infiltrate the hold. She finally reached a companionway as Dutch stumbled down backwards supporting someone’s shoulders while the barber-surgeon followed holding the legs.

Bash.

His face was ashy, beautiful eyes closed and hair matted down with blood. More blood was smeared across Dutch’s cheek and shirt—Bash’s blood. Everyone was sticky with it.

In that moment, Maggie’s heart stopped, and she wasn’t sure it would ever start beating again.

“To the infirmary,” the Butcher was saying. “Keep pressure on the wound.”

Dutch cursed, but Bash lay still and silent as stone.