Page 33 of A Princess, Stolen
“Come on! We won’t hurt you!” Troy raised his hands in a placating manner, grinning disarmingly. In his loose jeans and oversized burgundy hoodie, he reminded me of a skater boy; oneof the cool guys at a normal high school. But, despite his sincere-sounding words and his reassuring gestures, I didn’t trust him.
Without answering, I kept moving and discovered an alcove next to my cell with a door leading outside right to the railing.
My pulse skyrocketed at the irony. If the life buoy hadn’t lured me to the right, I would have noticed this entrance sooner and would already be free. I rushed outside without retrieving the preserver and spotted Nathan, who was obviously trying to cut me off. He had run toward the bow, probably heading for the other staircase in the corridor, but when the door slammed shut, he whirled around.
My heart was pounding. For a few seconds, I couldn’t move under his piercing gaze. He radiated a threatening authority that would have made even the officers in Dad’s private army pale. It hung over me like a veil, and for a few seconds, I was unable to move even though I wasn’t tied up.
“The game is over! Come here now!” he hurled at me.
Sequences of that moment burned irrevocably into my mind, memories for the span of a human life: his face, which was now narrower rather than wide with a subtle jawline, his wild black hair that framed it, and the headband that he wore exactly the same way my blindfold was now. Horizontal across his forehead.
It was nonsensical, insane, and childish, but to me, it seemed as if he had betrayed me and the summer in the Palace of Shards. I shook my head, transfixed. “No,” I whispered and clenched my hands.
“No?” He approached and laughed somberly. “In all seriousness, no?” He was tall with an athletic build. He was not a colossus like the tree trunk guy, rather slim but definitely fit. It would be pointless to resist.
Fleetingly, I considered jumping over the railing, but he was too close. He could jump after me and fish me out immediately or throw one of the nets over me. Or jump after me and drownme like a kitten before anyone from the trawler even looked.Problem solved!
So, I just turned and ran along the railing with no destination in mind.
“Damn it, I told you to stop!” Now he was shouting. I heard him running but I didn’t know where to go. Clumsily, I climbed the steps to the deck, stumbling over my dress, still barefoot, but caught myself in time. I had reached the stern deck, but men were lurking here too. They had formed a chain and were blocking my way to the ladder.
As if hit by a ricochet I staggered sideways and heard Nathan bounding up the stairs. Suddenly, I was trapped with him as if in the Colosseum arena.
As he approached, he looked like a young fighter for a just cause and I suddenly recalled a story from the Vietnam War that my dad had once told me. A story about the power of a smile. An American officer suddenly found himself facing two Viet Cong soldiers in enemy territory. Something on his rifle jammed and he simply smiled. That prevented the Viet Cong from firing first. The American officer reloaded and killed them both.
So, I smiled now even though I wasn’t holding a Glock or an assault rifle.
Unfortunately, it had no effect because Nathan’s face grew even darker. “Are. You. Completely. Crazy?” The words flew past me in the wind. I stood there frozen, only the corners of my mouth drooped. “Hey, talk to me!” It seemed like he was about to explode like a load of forgotten dynamite. “What were you planning to do? Jump into the Atlantic?”
“There…there’s a trawler over there…” My blind panic turned into a deep fear. My focus jumped back and forth. I only saw details, no longer grasping the bigger picture. I saw men in dark blue overalls, some in jeans and a burgundy hoodie like Troy. Slender men, strong bulky ones, but all still young,between twenty and thirty, strong, in the peak of their physical performance and strength. Men like the bull-headed one with the bald head with bizarre tattoos on every patch of skin.
“You wanted to swim to the fishing boat?” Nathan sounded absolutely stunned.
“It…it’s behind us, parallel to us…I had the ring with the emergency light…I can…I can swim well…it’s not far away…” I realized that everyone was staring at me. “It’s not far away,” I whispered to myself. The aroma of liquor and cigarettes permeated the damp sea air between which the smell of rotting fish, wet rope, oil, and camphor lingered.
“Girl, do you know how far that actually is?” I heard someone ask, sounding like the voice of reason. It belonged to a man who immediately made me believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He had long brown hair and a beard like the Son of God on the cross, and he looked like a preacher. “On top of that, it’s pitch black and the trawler is definitely not moving parallel to us! Besides, the ring’s emergency light is far too weak! It would have been swallowed like a fly by a frog. What were you thinking?”
“Delphi is right.” I glanced from him to Nathan, who was now speaking. My life was hanging by a thread—that much was certain. “The captain and crew of the trawler would neither have seen nor heard you in the dark. I have been on such deep-sea fishing boats for years. You would have drowned.” Nathan stared at me sharply. “In that dress anyway.”
“I was going to take it off first,” I said. Thank God I had waited, otherwise, I would be standing here in front of them in my underwear.
“She completely crazy.” A gigantic shadow moved toward me from the darkness of the circle. “Why she not tied? How you do it?”
“Pan,” I whispered. It was the behemoth with the black curls and the oxblood bandana.
Nathan held him back with his arm as a barrier and looked at me with a strangely emotionless expression. “You know we have to make a decision now, don’t you?” I blinked, my heart beating far too fast. “The blindfold was there to protect you. Didn’t Isaac tell you that?”
“Yes.” I still felt Nathan’s anger since he wasn’t hiding it. However, there was something much deeper underneath. Fear. He was afraid of the decision, at least, that was what my overactive senses told me.
“What you did was basically suicide,” he said, crossing his arms.
“I won’t betray you,” I whispered, raising my hands defensively even though no one came closer. Something delicate vibrated between me and this crew. It felt like my life depended on not ruining this delicate vibration. It was perhaps the last thing that could save me even if I didn’t know what it was. “Please, I won’t betray you,” I repeated more urgently and looked from one to the other. They looked back and I saw my own shock reflected in some of the faces. They hadn’t expected the situation to escalate like this.
“She lie!” Pan growled into the silence, in which only the wind whistled his howling song. “She corrupt like filthy Hampton bastard. First chance, she stab you in back.”
I looked fearfully from Nathan to Pan. The latter towered like a mountain behind the leader, his black curls like Medusa’s hair. Everything about him seemed dark: his hawk eyes, his crooked nose, his bushy eyebrows, and his strong chin with the large dimple.
“I’m not lying,” I said softly but firmly.
