Page 8 of Wicked Tides
“Both,” I sighed. “And neither. They’re only good when they’re not breathing.” I turned to look at him. “And I won’t be part of a slave trade, no matter who I’m trading.”
“Is that your morals or your caution speaking?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anymore, Gus. I just know this whole thing is wrong. Bringing them on land for people to play with, with or without tongues, will end in a lot of blood and I doubt it will be theirs. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But when you play with fire, eventually it catches something you don’t intend and by then, it’s out of control.”
His eyes fell on my gloved hand as he took a drink from his mug.
“You know what I think?” he said, nodding toward my missing fingers. “I think you’re terrifiedshe’llshow up one day and tear this whole damn world apart trying to get to you.”
A slow chill rolled down my spine and I straightened, rolling my shoulders back.
“I haven’t been scared of a siren since the day they ate the crew.”
“Nah, I’m not talking about being afraid of what they’ll do to you. I think you’re afraid of what they’ll do tous. Whatshe’lldo to us. Don’t think I haven’t seen it, boy.”
“Seen what?” I asked though I knew what he was going to say.
“You check the face of every damn bitch we behead.” He ran his fingers along his cheek from his ear to his mouth and raised his brows. “You’re looking for the thing you left. So? Would you be relieved if one of them was her? Or would you be—”
“Overjoyed. Maybe I can cut what she took from me out of her stomach,” I joked, holding up my hand.
We both shared in laughter, shaking our heads at the stupidity of it.
“Aye,” he said, pointing at his eye. “I’d do the same, but you already killed the one that took my eye.”
Nothing about it was amusing, but over time, all we could do was laugh about it.
When we started to wind down, I found myself leaning on the railing and staring down the long street to the pier. The Rose was out there, waiting. My enthusiasm was waning, though. Perhaps I’d do what Whitton wanted for the sake of my crew and their pockets. Perhaps, once I was sailing in the black water again, I’d change my mind and we’d hunt like we normally did, with nets and harpoons. I wouldn’t know until I was out at sea again.
All I knew was that things were changing and not for the better. Things were going to get darker than they’d ever been.
“I’m going to visit Agnes and her son for a day or two,” I said, straightening off the railing. “I need to have a talk with David.”
“Ahh, how’s the young boy now?”
“Not a boy anymore. He’s getting eager.”
“Going to talk him out of sailing with us, then?”
“How’d you know?” I smirked.
“Because you tried to talk all of us out of it,” he said, a solemn tone to his words.
“Yeah, well…”
Gnawing. The ripping of flesh. The slurping of fresh blood and pleasured moans of hungry mouths. Teeth scraping on bone. Tendons snapping.
“Go, then,” Gus said, slapping me on my back. “Take a few days. We all need it.”
I nodded, heading back inside. “We leave in a week. Tell the men to start restocking the food supply and to get more hemsbane oil to clean our blades.”
“And nets?”
I hesitated, biting the inside of my lip. “And nets.”
. . .
Sitting at the dinner table across from Agnes was a bit torturous with the way she kept eyeing me. The lonely woman wasn’t in her right mind. She needed a husband. An old man with money who would stay home and be with her. Not me.
