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I didn’t but now I do, he’s reading a book, ignoring everything we’re saying, his blond hair is pulled back into a bun and his dark eyes hold my gaze.
“He can’t speak a word, he’s mute, which makes him a good listener and watcher. Try anything funny, he’ll end your life with or without the captain’s approval. I’m offering you a branch of trust.”
I just realised that I am in a place with many instruments and tools that could be used to aid my escape.
“Even if you do manage to use something to gain access to the upper deck, there’s nowhere for you to go.” It’s as though he read my mind. “You don’t look to be a foolish woman so I’ll give you a final piece of advice. Stay on the captain’s good side and when he has what he wants, he will release you. This is not our first rodeo. Is that what they say? Rodeo?”
I nod and gulp. “I’ll behave.”
“Good.” I can see all of his teeth with his next smile. “In that case, I’m Geoffrey.”
I take his hand. “I’m Rain.”
“Rain?”
Shifting, I reply, “My mother is a bit of a hippie.”
“Ah.” He chuckles a kind sound and for a moment I forget where I am. Well, almost. It’s the first time since arriving that I haven’t felt on guard. “How fitting. Rain is taken to water.” His chuckle becomes a full-on laugh. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just funny how things work out. Maybe if she called you Sun or Daisy we’d be in a different place?”
Ignoring him, I look around again, jolting when he tosses a pair of safety goggles at me and they clatter on the floor.
“That sheet just won’t do,” he murmurs, moving to a door by the man who is reading his novel but glancing at us. I watch him step into the closet and switch on the light before rummaging through whatever he can find. He returns with a small pair of white trousers, a thin vest and a lab coat much like his own. “No shoes but, these will help a little.” He holds up the shoe protectors.
I thank him quietly and quickly yank on the trousers after dropping the sheet. His cheeks pink when he catches sight of my current lack of dress and I wonder if even at his age he can be so virginal as to blush at the sight of a woman.
I estimate him to be at least thirty at the oldest but definitely no younger than twenty-five.
I pull on the vest over the satin and then the coat before slipping the weird little paper-like bags onto my feet. They don’t do much but they do make me feel a little warmer.
“And this,” he hands me a rubber band. “For your hair. Though I wouldn’t use it on more than the ends. My sister got one tangled in her hair once. It was a tragedy. Maybe braid it?”
“I will.” I try to smile at him but I can’t. I can’t smile at all.
I sit in my scientist cosplay, watching him move around his lab, nodding at all of the right moments as he talks.
We sit and eat together, the same broth as yesterday and I wonder if they have anything else on the menu. Not that I’ll ever ask.
I slurp it greedily, famished after only a tiny breakfast and no lunch but it doesn’t sit right in my stomach.
“We’re expected to go to the mess hall usually,” he comments, his mouth full of stale bread as I still struggle to keep my food down. “The captain must be taking pity on you because I forgot to feed you at lunch.”
“The captain notices things like that?”
“He sees everything. He has spies everywhere.” He nods to the man in the corner who is eating his own food silently. “The men here are loyal to him, myself included. He’s a good captain. Doesn’t take any crap. Keeps us in line which is a hard thing to do considering we’re all mostly criminals, ex-convicts, etcetera.”
Well shit. I probably got taken to the worst boat in the ocean. Fuck my life right now.
The mute man stamps his foot on the ground and Geoffrey winces.
“I’m telling you too much,” he explains, looking at his remaining broth.
I watch the sun slowly set on the horizon. An image that would be beautiful were it not for my predicament messing up my ability to feel happiness.
“Why am I here?” I ask carefully.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Two hours pass, I know this because of the clock on the wall. I wish I could take it with me.
“Come on, wench,” Clunk barks at me. “Time for bed.”
I move away from the table where I’m helping to clean out little glass vials with cotton swabs and some kind of sterilising fluid.
