Page 60 of Ship Happens
“Sorry, boys. My career doesn’t exactly encourage strength training.” Eve sits up. “Not many models walk about with guns for biceps, you know?”
I swat the brim of Eve’s hat, sending it over her eyes. “No worries. You did great, and we weren’t last.”
Aven sits up and drapes his arms over his knees. “Would’ve been, if that old geezer hadn’t kicked off about the guy on his team.”
I glance down the deck, to where a pirate lies in a pool of blood. Another fed has been ferreted out and dispatched, and the noose tightens around my neck. Well, it tightens around Frankie’s neck, but it might as well be mine. Despite the absolute irrationality of it all, I’ve grown entirely too fond of her. I see her as an extension of myself, much as I see my other friends. The fierce need to protect her began as an assignment but has turned into something much more complicated.
Speaking of protecting Frankie, I haven’t seen her since before the second game started. Worry nips at my heels as I glance around for that purple feather and find it missing. Jim said she went to the bathroom, but she should have been back by now.
I hurry over to Jim as the crew cleans up the deck for the next game. Well, they remove the bodies, but the bloodstains remain. Jim said it “gives the old girl character.” He stands at one of the smaller masts, with his arm around the tall wooden post as he stares at the distant island.
“Frankie still hasn’t come back. Do I have time to check on her before the next game starts?”
Jim pouts and leans his head against the mast. “I’m starting to think you people don’t appreciate my games.”
“We love the games, but things have a habit of happening during them. But hey, the sooner I find Frankie, the sooner we can start the next one.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll need to adjust the next two games to make them work for two people, anyway. I didn’t expect Grim to discover his teammate so quickly.” Jim sighs and hugs the pole a little tighter. “Just make sure you’re back in time for the fourthgame, hmm? I’ve brought along a surprise for Frankie, and my day will be positively ruined if she isn’t here to see it.”
“She could be hurt, Jim. Don’t you care about that?”
He pins me with a look as the melancholy leaves him. “If you felt she were in real danger, why on earth would you require my permission to save her? Have you ever tried thinking for yourself, son? My indifference is a direct result of your lack of concern.”
I’ll tend to my bruised ego from that tongue lashing later. He has a point. Why am I wasting time when she could be in trouble?
My heart hammers a little harder in my chest as I turn for the stairs. I pick up the pace as worry nests like a bird in my chest. Wing beats flutter against my ribcage, and I realize the bird isn’t nesting. It’s trapped. It’s panicking.
“I wish I were a bird,” I mutter under my breath. “I’d fly into the first window I saw. Repeatedly. Anything to end this.”
I’m about to turn toward the hallway lined with cells when I pick up a feminine voice in the other direction. It’s hard to make out, and it could be a crew member, but I want to believe it’s Frankie. It has to be her because the sooner I find her, the sooner this growing ache in my chest will recede.
When I reach the door, I spot a small sign to the left that says it’s a supply closet, and there’s no mistaking that the voice on the other side belongs to Frankie. Her cadence rings through, easing my worry. I raise my hand to knock on the door separating us, but I freeze when a male voice reaches beneath the door and grabs me by the throat.
“So you’re buddying up with these shits?” the man says.
“Castle...it’s more complicated than that. Look, I appreciate the intel, but I’m just trying to fit in so that they don’t kill me. The moment we dock at the end of this cruise, I’m turning in every single piece of shit I’ve laid eyes on.”
This isn’t new information, but it hits me like a slap in the face. I was wrong to worry she was getting too comfortable in her new role. She certainly fooled the fuck out of me.
“I saw you with that pretty boy,” the man—Castle—says. And what a dumb fucking name. I’d love to meet his brothers: Skyscraper, Townhouse, and Quonset Hut. The man scoffs, and the disgust in his voice makes my skin crawl. “I saw the way you looked at him, Ghost. Typical whore moves, using your dirty snatch to get your way. King will hear about this shit. You’re fucking the enemy, and it’s gonna cost you the job.”
Despite feeling destroyed about what Frankie said, I hold my breath as I wait for her to tear this asshole a new one. She can be a real bitch, which I find refreshing.
So imagine my disappointment when she self-flagellates instead.
“You’re right,” she says. “I agreed to be the killer because I thought I could use my femininity to my advantage. I was wrong, Castle, and now I need your help. Let me tie your hands so that we don’t get caught. Once you’re on deck, I’ll cut you free so we can kick all their asses. Regardless of what you told me, we’re still federal agents.”
So that’s her fucking game? And I fell right into it.
The blood heats in my veins and rockets upward until my head feels like a furnace. Castle says something else, but I can’t hear him over the thunderous rush of my heartbeat in my ears. How could I have been stupid enough to believe we were getting closer?
Something bumps against the door, and a whimper from Frankie clears my head in an instant.
“Castle, personal space, dude,” she says, but the slight quiver in her voice betrays her. She’s scared. “Just turn around and let me tie your wrists.”
“What, you think you can just fuck everyone else over and avoid getting fucked yourself? It doesn’t work that way, slut. I’ve hated you since the moment King brought you into our division, and I’ll continue hating you while I choke you to death with my fat cock, you filthy cunt.”
“Doubtful. You’d need more than two inches to accomplish that.”
