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“It would be foolish to be anything else in this moment.”
He shoved me into the storage room, and we crouched together with the hens. Luc pulled a large kitchen knife from his robe, palming it as he watched the door.
“Luc…?” I asked, suddenly feeling my blood rush frantically through me.
“Don’t worry, little dove,” he replied. “I promised to protect you, didn’t I?”
“I didn’t realize you could fight.”
He looked back at me and smirked, his teeth shining like pearls.
“I wasn’t always a cook, you know.”
Crash.
The ship swerved hard, and I was thrown off my feet and into the wild, noisy hens. I swatted them away as they flapped their wings and squawked.
“What was that?” I asked.
“They’re here,” Luc sang quietly.
There were cries of war as the sound of boots rained down above us. I was glued to the floor, unable to move from my spot, unable to breathe. Luc continued to palm the knife while watching the stairs, his eyes darting around the ceiling as the boots thundered above us.
“This is going to get messy, dove,” he said. “If anything happens, I want you to cut your way out until you make it to safety. And when all else fails, abandon ship.”
“Abandon…you mean jump into the ocean?”
He nodded.
“It’s pitch black! There could be sharks!”
“The sharks are already on the ship,” he replied. “Besides, the water will protect you.”
“How on earth would the ocean protect me?”
A cry from the kitchen stopped Luc from continuing. He jumped out of the room, shutting the door behind him and locking me in. I stood to go to the door, hearing nothing but grunts outside of it.
There was a cry.
Then silence.
My mouth was too dry to say anything, my heart pounding harder than the boots above me.
I reached for the door.
It swung open before I could touch it. A face I had never seen before was on the other side.
“Ah!” the man yelled in satisfaction. “Here you are.”
I stepped back as he stepped forward.
“Stay back,” I commanded, voice cracking.
“Wait, now,” he replied. “I’m not here to harm you.”
I suddenly recalled the crew member with missing fingers that had cornered me months before, and the space in the storage room began to shrink. There was no reason this man wouldn’t attempt something similar. My skin crawled.
I took another step back, looking at the slit between him and the door. There was a blue-and-teal robe laying across the ground.
