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“Sleep well?” Captain asks, hanging upside down like a bat again like the first night I entered.
I nod once. “May I shower?”
He drops like before, dangling from one hand for a moment as he looks at me. “You may.”
“May I have a razor?”
Hesitating, he scratches his jaw and looks me up and down. “I have your word you’ll be good?”
“Will my word mean anything?”
“It will to me,” he replies as he passes and digs a fresh razor out of a grey bag in the back of the cupboard he retrieves from under the basin. “Here.”
I take it from him, ignoring his kind gaze. How can he be kind to me now? After all he has done?
“This will be over soon.”
I tense at his words. “You’re going to kill me?”
“If Niall doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain, we have no reason to travel back to return you.”
My breath catches in my throat and my heart aches with pain. “Thank you for your honesty, I guess.”
His green eyes sparkle with intrigue. “You’re not going to cry?”
“I just want to shave… at least I’ll be bald and beautiful when you throw me overboard. Maybe I’ll be saved by a merman and we’ll live happily ever after.”
Laughing through his nose, he exits the bathroom while calling over his shoulder, “Come out when you’re done. I have some jobs for you.”
I ignore the fact that laughter comes so easy to him in the face of my end.
“Jobs?”
Silence is all that follows my question.
Whatever.
I bathe slowly and thoroughly, scrubbing and shaving every part of it until the remainder of my hair and resignation swill down the drain. I hope it clogs it.
When he said jobs, I didn’t realise he meant mopping.
I do it as choppy waters gently rock the boat and roil my stomach. The clouds above are grey and I’m terrified there will be a storm. I don’t like storms while on land but I’ve seen enough movies to know that a storm in a boat is a bad thing. No matter how big it is.
Most of the men on deck avoid me as I mop around them. I’m grateful. None of them touch me or even try to speak to me, not until I’m done in this area and Geoffrey sends for me.
I’m escorted to his lab where we make friendly conversation as we mix together some kind of concoction that requires a glass chamber in which gloves sprout within. I dab his head as he sweats from concentration and pray the storm doesn’t come and rock this up, effectively fucking this up.
“So, you and your partner?” he asks cautiously. “Is it love or a fling?”
“Love,” I reply, not wanting to talk about life outside of this retched existence but also not wanting to anger the only person who has shown me any kindness since I arrived. “He’s it for me.”
He chuckles nervously. “I hope he feels the same.”
“He does.” And I know he does, he told me so and showed it in the ways he touched me, held me, protected me, kissed me, spoke to me.
There isn’t another man alive who can fill Niall’s boots. The man is my own personal god.
“From what I’ve heard, he’s doing what he can to get you back.”
The man in the corner stamps his foot aggressively but Geoffrey doesn’t seem to care. He frees his hands of the long shoulder-deep gloves and grins at me as though caught doing something naughty.
It makes him look so boyish and friendly.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t say, but just know, he hasn’t abandoned you.” He places his hand on my shoulder. A friendly gesture. “Maybe now you can find a little bit of peace aboard this here vessel? Hmm?”
I bite my lip and shrug his hand from my shoulder. “I’ll never find peace here. I’m a captive and I don’t even know why.”
“Oh look.” Geoffrey beams and claps his hands. “Dinner is here.”
The thought of eating still makes me nauseous but I need to regain my strength and try to keep something down.
“You should start getting used to the seasickness soon. Every time you feel ill, just spend an hour on deck doing odd jobs and the nausea will pass.” He nods to the man in the corner. “His brother had seasickness so bad he almost died too. You don’t realise how dehydrated constant vomiting can make you until you can hardly walk.”
“I find it odd that they bothered to keep me alive at all,” I murmur.
Still smiling he replies, “You haven’t yet served your purpose.”
“Well—” I have no more words.
I don’t think Geoffrey has a filter.
As we’re cleaning up around the lab and putting things back into their proper places, the door opens and the mute guy, whose name is Chatterbox of all things, stands with hands by his sides and his legs parted.
