Page 84 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

Working faster, he dug away the earth all around the top until there was almost enough room to pry it out.

Bash held his breath as he knelt in the dirt and worked first one side and then the other to free its handles. When it wouldn’t budge, he attempted to lever it open with his knife, just to be sure it was worth the trouble. For all he knew, this might be a box of rocks. But whatever it contained was locked up tight inside.

“Good work, boy,” Mad’s drawl sounded, low and to Bash’s right. He should’ve known. The captain had probably been following since the moment they slipped off the ship.

He glanced up at his sire, expecting to see a blunderbuss leveled at his heart, but it was so much worse than a blunderbuss. Mad stood about ten feet away, one arm all but choking Maggie, a knife to her throat.

Using only his eyes, Bash tried to tell her to stay calm, not to worry, everything would be all right. He’d make sure of it. Inside, though, his stomach tied itself in the tightest of knots, his mind racing with impossible ideas. All he could think to do was keep Mad talking.

“I always suspected the bitch knew where it was,” Mad sneered.

“My mother? How could she have?”

“Savryna. Amoy’s sister. Your aunt. She must have seen me bury it that night. But over there. She’ll have moved it. I turned this place upside-down year after year, and all along, she knew.”

“You could have come to Lewis any time,” Bash spat. “Asked Ma about your precious gold. Why didn’t you?”

“I knew there was nothing for me on Lewis.”

Bash nodded. It was maybe the most truthful thing his sire had ever said. But then something else occurred to him. “If you thought I knew where it was, why didn’t you keep following me ten years ago instead of dragging me back to the ship?”

Mad’s lips curved into a cruel and calculating smile. “Couldn’t give you an inch, could I? And risk you getting the idea I wasn’t the one in command? Look how well it worked. Tamed you into a perfect little lapdog. At least ’til this one came along,” he added, tightening his chokehold on Maggie, making her grunt. “Now which is it? A boy in girl’s clothing or the other way around? Shall we check?” He reached into her bodice and groped her breasts, squeezing them hard enough she winced.

A fiery rage was building in Bash’s stomach, but again he tried to communicate to Maggie that everything would be all right. Her eyes were locked on his, and she didn’t seem angry or frightened, only sad, but in a way, he thought perhaps she understood.

“I’ll take that back now,” Mad said, nodding to the chest still in the ground. “You’ll forgo your cut, of course, on account of the mutiny and insubordination. But I’ll let you live. For now.”

“A tempting offer,” Bash said. “But you’re not getting anything while your knife is at her throat.”

“You’re not in much of a position to bargain,” Mad sneered.

“You want the chest, don’t you? I’ll trade you the girl for the gold.”

From behind his back, Mad raised his other hand, aiming a blunderbuss. Check and mate. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, boy. Bring my gold over here and put it in the cabin boy’s hands, and if you try anything funny…” he finished the sentence by turning the muzzle of his gun to point at Maggie’s head.

Bash had committed a multitude of sins over the last decade, but perhaps none so egregious as the hate now coursing through him for the man who was his sire, because murder was a sin, and in his heart, he knew they couldn’t both come out of this alive.

Chapter Twenty

The perfect future Maggie had envisioned crumbled before her eyes, as Bash attempted to pry the old chest from the earth to hand off to his father. She was forced to stand by, helpless, immobilized by the captain’s knife, while Bash lost everything and she lost any chance of a life with him.

This was all her fault.

She hadn’t wanted to spend their last hours fighting with each other over her refusal to sail away alone, but now she wished she had fought him. Anything would have been better than this. Instead, she’d gone off on her own, searching for both him and the treasure, and when she found him, sneaking silently behind, ready to emerge for the celebration when he found the spot.

Had he been less intent on solving his mother’s riddle, he’d have undoubtedly noticed her following him. Had she been less intent on creeping after him unseen, she might have noticed the captain following, too.

But she didn’t—not until Mad grabbed her, the cold steel of his knife pressed against her throat.

“If you so much as breathe, I will slice your neck so deep your head falls off and vermin will crawl inside the gaping hole,” he had whispered, pinning one arm so far behind it made her back arch.

Now Bash was staring at them, his eyes ablaze with fury, and Maggie glared right back at him, trying desperately to convey that he shouldn’t, under any circumstances, follow the captain’s orders and hand over the gold. Not on her account.

He seemed to be getting the wrong message though, or else he ignored her, because he kept on digging.

There were two weapons trained on her now, the knife and a blunderbuss, and she half wondered just what Mad intended to do. If he shot the gun, wouldn’t he blow his own knife hand off in the process? Was he too far gone to care?

What a terrible hash she’d made of everything, just like always, when she only ever wanted to help. Well. To help and, selfishly, to run away with Bash, she admitted. Such selfishness was about to be her downfall, and his. That was the unfair part. He didn’t deserve any of this. It was just one more bad thing heaped atop his lifetime of bad things.