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Turned and walked away, tossing the torch to the ground. Away. He’d walked out past the veil of smoke and haze that had hung in the air. Walked until he disappeared.
He never once looked back.
But his face—his grey eyes were seared into her memory. Seared for all time.
Her fingers tightening on the corner brick of the building to her left, Torrie gulped a gasp of air and exhaled it in a long breath, expelling the memory of the pain that was still as harsh in her chest as it had been in those moments nine years ago.
No wallowing.
She’d made that promise to herself when she had left Vinehill Castle.
Put everything behind her.
Everything except for this one man that still lived. This one man—this last memory of those moments that had wrecked her so fully she no longer recognized herself.
It—he—was the one thing she allowed herself to remember from that day.
With a quick shake of her head, she stepped out into the throng of bodies again, moving forward.
She didn't know what she was about to do. But she knew one thing.
She wasn’t about to let him get on that ship and walk away again.
~~~
“Ignore it, Roe,” Des said, his canny hazel eyes set forward, determined not to look at the growing melee in front of them.
Roe looked from his friend and first mate to the crowd gathering at the entrance to the alleyway that sat opposite the dock leading out to theFirehawk.
Des had a nose about these things and had kept Roe from far too many scrapes over the past two years. Of course he should listen to him.
Yet that didn’t stop his eyes from scanning the crowd, curious as to what could be causing the frothing mouths along the edges of the horde. Or the heckling yelps from those further into the thick crush of men.
“We already lost time going to the Golden Goblet to try and find Weston and now I can see you eyeing this mess.” The note of warning was clear in Des’s voice. “We’re minutes from setting sail.”
Roe kept his eyes on the crowd. “Just checking to make sure none of our crew is entangled in whatever it is.”
“Aye. Except there’s not an idiot in your crew aside from Weston. They know enough not to get mixed into a tangle minutes before we leave—lest they be left behind and miss the bounty.”
They reached the outer edge of the crowd and Roe’s feet slowed.
“Don’t do it, Roe.”
“Don’t worry on it—it’s not like the ship is going to set sail without us.”
“If we don’t hit this tide we may as well give up on catching Bockton’s ship.”
“We aren’t going to miss the tide, Des.” Roe came to a full stop, his height giving him a small advantage in seeing into the crux of what this crowd was about.
He shoved his way inward through the bodies, scanning faces, making sure none of his crew was diddling about.
Des grabbed his forearm from behind, tugging it. “Cap, we need to move. Sails are catching wind.”
Roe moved forward, not letting Des stop him. If Weston was in the crowd, he needed to yank the blasted idiot from the fracas. The last thing Weston could afford was to get himself entrenched in another brawl.
He jammed his way past three more men and Roe could finally see the cause of the commotion.
Bloody hell.
