Page 8 of The Withering Dawn
She shook her head, but the gesture seemed uncertain that time. Then she sat up again and her eyes dropped intentionally to my crotch. I followed her gaze, giving my groin a glance before catching her pointing at herself and repeating the choking motion.
“Someone raped you,” I said, that disgusting word leaving a sour taste in my mouth. She shook her head again and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Someonetriedto rape you,” I corrected.
Her eyes fell to the floor and she nodded, pulling up the same strap on her dress.
“Someone tried and so they decided to put you on a ship?”
Once more, her shoulder bobbed as if acknowledging a half-truth. But even half of the truth gave me some insight. My eyes roamed over her small frame, and I hated looking at her that way, especially considering I didn’t know how old she was. And I’d put her behind bars, so the condition she was in felt like it was somehow my doing. Siren or not, she appeared human. But my eyes were untrained. Hunters likely knew all the tells, whether or not a woman appeared normal. I was inexperienced when it came to those things. My business was with men, but it seemed natural, the farther northeast we sailed, that sirens and talk of sirens and monsters became more prevalent.
I stood with a sigh and left the holding area, finding a small corner of storage where we stacked things we were planning to sell at port. Sheets. Trade goods. Clothes. I found a trunk full of men’s shirts for a larger frame. I pulled out a faded green chemise with long sleeves and walked it back to the holding cell. It would have to do until I was able to find something more appropriate.
The woman was standing, slowly pacing her confines like a bored animal. When she heard me approaching, she turned, picking at her nails. I stepped up to the bars, holding the folded shirt toward her.
Warily, she reached for it, taking the item out of my hand and unfolding it. As I expected, the shirt was long. It would be like a dress on her, but a less holy, stained dress than what she had on.
The slightest hint of a smile graced her full lips and without waiting for me to leave, she turned her back and pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders. The worn material slid down her body and pooled at her ankles, revealing her bare backside to me.
On her buttocks and upper thighs was a crosshatch pattern of slightly raised scars. Scars I knew very well. The ones on my forearms burned like someone was taking a thin, wooden stick to me again right then and there. The only difference was that I’d only been whipped once. This woman had not been whipped once. That was evident. She’d been whipped countless times and in ways that were meant to leave marks.
Once the fabric fell over her body and covered her back, I returned to myself. She’d turned her back for a reason. Likely so I would see her scars and sympathize. Another manipulation, no doubt.
Slowly, the woman pivoted to face me, gathering her red hair and pulling it out of the shirt. As expected, the blouse covered more than her tattered dress did. She tucked her hands into the long, slouchy sleeves and gave me a hint of that illusive smile again as if to say thank you.
If it was my weakness toward frail, abused things that she wanted to exploit, I feared she would win that little game. I swallowed hard before opening my mouth to speak, only I did not have time to say anything.
“Cap’n!” Cathal said, making it halfway down the steps to peak in on me. “It’s Olly. We may need you.”
Mention of Oliver broke the mild trance I found myself in. I cleared my throat and followed Cathal out of the hold, rushing to aid the doctor in whatever way he needed to see our youngest crew member healed.
I marched into the crew cabin to the sound of Oliver whimpering and the smell of alcohol and blood. Cloth that had once been white was in a heap in an oak bucket, soaked through with his blood. Henry sat beside the cot on which Oliver was laying. When he saw me, his ashy expression turned pleading.
“Cap’n,” he whined. “He wants to take it! He wants to take my leg!”
Henry was wiping his hands, his glasses balancing on the tip of his nose. He shot me a look as if to say there was no other way and even if I was no doctor, I could tell the options were limited. Oliver’s leg was a length of gnarled meat barely hanging on to his bone. The fact that he was awake was surprising enough. That he knew what was happening, even more so.
I strolled toward him, dawning a half smile.
“Are you complaining about being a peg leg like the great capitán Luis Corazón de Oso?”
“I don’t know who that… ah!” He wailed, his eyes screwing shut with agony. I grabbed hold of his hand and he squeezed, clenching his teeth.
“Have a drink, eh?” Cathal said, pressing a bottle to Oliver’s lips and pouring a mouthful of rum into his mouth.
He coughed half of it up, but once he swallowed, Cathal was giving him another swig. Henry pulled off his own belt and wound it around Oliver’s thigh, pulling it tight and eliciting another scream. Oliver began to thrash, sweat beading on his forehead.
“I don’t feel good,” he mumbled, seeming more incoherent.
“Do ye have to be so rough with it, doc?” Cathal said, putting a cork on the rum bottle. “This is our Olly. We’ll not have ye fuck it up.”
“If I’m going to cauterize his leg and wrap him up, this part has to go. He’ll bleed out. With any luck he’ll pass out from the pain.”
“Fuck,” someone said, leaving the cabin, hands scrubbing his face.
“What do we need to do?” I asked, anxious to get it over with.
“Hold him down.”
Henry reached into his leather satchel. He’d been carrying the thing since he first stepped foot on my ship. In it was an array of instruments, but the one he pulled out was a fine-toothed saw.
