Page 32 of A Princess, Stolen
But the life preserver hadn’t helped Mom!
Suddenly, my plan didn’t seem quite so risky anymore, on the contrary. Maybe I should jump straight overboard. The security of the preserver would keep my panic at bay, and even if it didn’t, it would keep me safe. Plus, it would shoot white or red flashes into the sky like crazy. Even if I didn’t manage to reach the trawler’s lights, even if the men on the cutter spotted me in the water first, the other crew would definitely contact them and want to know if the rescue had been successful.
But what would happen to Dad then? Wouldn’t I be putting him in harm’s way by doing that? I shook my head vigorously.No!No sniper had been lying in wait for weeks. They had only threatened Dad to get me. And once I was on board that trawler, I would immediately call him from there on a satellite phone and warn him. If I didn’t make it, I would have to worry more about my well-being.
I listened again. My heart was racing. Everything was still quiet. Dead quiet. For a brief moment, I actually thought they had jumped ship and left me and the cutter in the ocean.
I ran back, picked up Mom’s wedding ring, and untied my braid. With flying fingers, I tied the ring to the bracelet and wove the band back into my strands. Then, I turned the key slowly so the thing didn’t squeak so loudly, wondering at the same time if I hadn’t lost my mind after all.
If they catch you before you reach the railing… You’re alone and there are at least seven of them.
Most importantly: Where were they? Why was it so quiet?
Trembling, I slipped into the corridor. Wind whistled down the stairs through the passage, icy gusts laden with salt and moisture. I tiptoed to the narrow steps, took the life preserverfrom its rack, and climbed clumsily up the steps. I felt every single bone.
Before I stuck my head out the open hatch, I paused to collect myself. It smelled of disgusting oil and fish. Still, I heard nothing, no men’s voices, only the wind. I carefully climbed another step. In front of me was the stern of the cutter, but I wasn’t quite sure because it was a platform, a little bigger than a normal living room. Masts and miniature cranes protruded into the darkness like warning fingers. There were bollards, ropes, nets, and loading winches everywhere as well as a few buoys and some stuff I didn’t recognize.
I clung to the railing of the gangplank with all my strength. I couldn’t see the left side of the deck because there was a wall next to the ladder. Probably the bridge tower. It protected me from prying eyes, but I couldn’t see if anyone was in the area or even keeping watch.
Hesitantly, I climbed the last bit onto the deck and the icy wind immediately whipped around me. It howled across the platform like a ghastly chorus of deep-sea ghosts, fluttering a loose tarpaulin in front of me and spraying a load of foam over the railing. Instantly, I realized that the wind would swallow my every scream, just like on the coast of Staten Island. I had to jump without calling out first!
I glanced at the railing. It wasn’t far away, I just had to go around a few bollards and jump down a few steps. From up here, I could also see the trawler better. Its bow, which could crush me, would pull me down if I came too close. I swallowed. Seen from the stern, the Atlantic appeared much stormier than from the cell. Restless, unconquerable.
Have you ever watched anyone die, Willa Nevaeh Rae?
I had to get off this boat! Without a second thought, I ran, but as I left the protective wall to my left behind me, my heart skipped a beat.
I paused, my hand clenching the life-preserver rope. I couldn’t tell how many men were sitting on crates with more standing. Maybe there were ten or twenty, in my state of shock, it didn’t matter. I hadn’t heard them talking because the wind had swallowed their voices. Now, it suddenly seemed deadly quiet again.
So quiet. Much too quiet.
Especially because one of them was looking directly at me. And without remembering or making comparisons, I recognized him immediately.
The boy from Louisiana.
Nathan.
Chapter 8
He was standing less than ten paces from me, his face in darkness while cold starlight streamed over his shoulder-length hair. He wore black from head to toe; even his headband was black. He looked wild and unruly, like a pirate. Yet, what frightened me most were his eyes. Anger burned in them. Dark and light, blazing like gray phosphorus.
I swallowed. The others turned their heads to me too and a face immediately bonded to my synapses: a broad, beefy one with a conspicuous bull’s head tattooed on his forehead.Taurus. That was how I would have drawn him anyway. Next to him stood a gaunt man with glowing eyes and yard-long dreadlocks, someone who seemed as huge to me as a colossal tree trunk. He wore an oxblood-red bandana from which thick, black locks curled out from underneath like the bodies of fat snakes.
I blinked and glanced from one to the other—the stupidest thing I could have done.Close your eyes!everything inside me screamed, but I was paralyzed, frozen like a deer in headlights, completely unable to act.
In my fear, I only now noticed that most of them had risen.
“I think we have a problem,” I finally heard Nathan say, his voice darker, rougher, and more strained than ever before.
His words hit me like a tidal wave. I suddenly understood deep down inside and wholeheartedly what this, this moment under the cool Atlantic sky, could mean for me. It was a moment of fate, an endless moment between life and death. Desperately, I rushed to the railing, but Nathan leaped over the bollards and ropes and cut me off. I ran headlong back and jumped down the steps I had just climbed.
I fell far, farther than I imagined, and landed on my hands and knees with a pain-filled cry. Pain erupted in my wrist and I let go of the life preserver, sending it shimmying across the deck like a drunken car tire before it hit the steps at the other end of the corridor. I scrambled blindly to my feet, pulling up my skirt, not knowing where to go. I heard the men yelling from above, but in my fear, I didn’t comprehend what they were shouting to each other. My reflex was to flee even though my mind was already figuring out the bottom line: hopeless, futile, and pointless. In those seconds, I understood the flight instinct of antelopes fleeing a pride of lions. They ran, no matter how hopeless their situation was. As long as they ran, they were alive; so I ran down the corridor, past my cell with the bars when a thud shook me. Someone had jumped after me.
“Stop or do you think you stand a chance?” someone yelled down the corridor.
I recognized the casual voice.
Instinctively, I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a young man with a too-long crew cut who almost seemed youthful. Younger than me.
