Page 67 of Evil Hearts

Now we wait. If the tissue is rejected, she wasn’t meant to be mine and will die in my arms. But if it isn’t rejected…

Oh, I don’t dare open my heart yet. It just started to beat again…

Jane

Idied, didn’t I?Why am I having thoughts? Are these dead-people thoughts? A chill raises goose pimples on my arms, so at least I’m not in hell. So much for all those fire and brimstone preachers who damned pirates left and right. A mug smile pulls my lips as I think of my father’s reaction to outsmarting the men of the cloth and avoiding hell…unless I just avoided hell and he’s not here.

“Hello?” I yell as my eyes fly open. Panic burns along my ribs, and shoots pain up my sides. I try to sit up, but my vision goes white with agony as my waist bends. Did I hit rocks or coral at the bottom? Can you have pain if you’re dead?

I better not be on that naval ship after my swan dive into the abyss.

My eyelashes flutter as I clear my vision of salt. Waves lap around me, so I’m not on a boat—I’m ashore. But where? I scrunch handfuls of dry sand between my fingers. If I were on a sandbar, it would be damp. No sun heats my face. Is it night or are those storm clouds that darken the expanse overhead?If it were storming, it would rain on you, pudding head. I grind my eye sockets with my fists despite the pull at my sides when I lift my arms. Why are they so heavy? I’m definitely alive with this bombardment of cold, pain, and fatigue.

“Hello? Anyone around? I think I’m injured,” I shout. My echo calls back to me.

“Lie still, little human,” says a rumbly voice from above me. “Your body heals. If you move suddenly, you will interrupt the process.”

“Where am I?”

“My lair beneath the Atlantic Ocean—”

“Oh, good, like an underwater grotto,” I say with a chuckle that sends a fireball around my middle. “I was afraid I was lying on an island beach at night or in a storm. Both are on thetoo dangerous for Janelist.”

“Too dangerous for Jane?”

“Yeah, I’m never allowed to parlay on the islands,” I reply. “Me hearties are too scared someone will grab me and force me to be a tavern girl or worse—a wife.”

“You don’t want to be someone’s wife?” The voice sounds sad, like the other landlubbers who hear my ideas on marriage.

“Not if it means losing my freedom,” I snap, trying to sit up once more. My arms flop to my sides, kicking up sand, as I give up. I might as well stay put since I’m not in immediate danger. This guy has stolen me from the ocean and the captivity of both boats. It’s the safest scenario…even if I’m at his mercy—except my father’s shirt is gone. “Where’s my shirt?”

“Safe with me,” the voice replies with a purr. “Do you wish to cover yourself? Will it make you more comfortable?”

“No, my dairy can hang where it pleases. I’m a true pirate and don’t need to cover my dairy for delicate eyes. What’s good enough for a man is good enough for me. It’s just that shirt belonged to someone special and now it’s all I have of him.”

I hate the quiver in my voice and the sobs clogging my throat. Father wouldn’t appreciate me crying over him, not when there’s my safety in the balance. The man keeping me hasn’t come near me—to hurt me or help me. My focus must be on figuring out his game. Is he part of the sweet trade, a landlubber waiting for some sheriff to hang me, or a lobster soldier waiting to hand me over to the navy?

“Someone so special you refuse to mate with him?”

“I’d laugh, but it hurts,” I grouse. “It belonged to my father, and he’s no longer of this world.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the voice says, closer than before.

“So am I,” I reply with a sniffle. “I never realized how he protected me just by existing. You know, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til they’re gone.”

“Yes, I do know this, tiny human,” says the voice, alarmingly close. “I lost my companion many sun cycles ago. My world lost its color that day. I loved how she lit up my world, but didn’t see how dark it would be after she died.”

I shiver with the implication in his words. I have to shoot his ideas in the keister before he hears chapel bells.

“Before you go thinking I’m wifey material, let me dock that dinghy,” I snap. “I swear, I spit, and I wear trousers. No white wedding dress will fit around my attitude. In fact, I’ve never worn a dress, stepped on land, or bathed in a real tub.”

“But those things don’t matter—”

“Hell’s bells, don’t I know it! I eat fish, hardtack, and the occasional stolen treat. The one time I tried to bake, I nearly blew my father’s boat to kingdom come. Fire blazed twice my height and took the hair from Cook’s arms before we doused it. The stove sat on the wall of the gunnery too. If the heat had reached the cannon—kaboom!”

“I don’t know what hardtack is. Your lack of cooking skills doesn’t both me. I never cook the fish I consume. If you aren’t responsible with fire…well, it scares me too. Could you eat your fish raw?”

“Gross,” I whisper. “So what’s your game? You can’t be hitched—no little lady would let you drag another woman into her grotto. You don’t mind I’m not ladylike and can’t cook. What’s wrong with you? Are you missing an eye, arm, or all your mouth’s pearls? Is that why you hide in the shadows? Because I don’t judge a matey for what he’s missing, only what he does with what he’s got. You could have a face as ugly as the bottom of a boat with twice the barnacles and smell of bilge sludge, I’d still give you the time of day. That’s how I was raised.”

---