Page 65 of A Princess, Stolen
That was his curse!
He was afraid.
All those he loves…
Why were my eyes burning?
I ran up the stairs and disappeared into the room where I had slept that night. I collapsed onto the bed and tried to regain my senses, but I couldn’t get Nathan’s voice out of my mind.Even if I wanted to…I’m cursed.
I wanted to bang my head against the wall.It was only that one kiss in the storm and you were confused and scared. Besides, you are about to leave, remember?
Oh, damn it!I couldn’t afford to think about him. And especially not in that way!
Don’t look at me like that!
And why did he have to call me Will?
Sitting there, I shook my head. For many, many minutes.
At some point, I remembered the plan and left the cabin, but Sparta had disappeared as if he had been swallowed up by the earth. When Icarus approached after my tour of the lower deck,I asked him directly about Sparta, repeating that I didn’t want to run into him.
“You don’t have to worry about that. Sparta is on the bridge with Delphi. He took over Nathan’s shift because some gauges in the control room were acting up.”
“Good!” I was genuinely relieved. Maybe Sparta had actually been in the control room earlier, deliberately disabling some devices so that Nathan had to readjust or repair them.
I returned to the cabin and snuck outside just before five. Luckily, there was no smoker at the railing. It was quiet and whoever was on the bridge couldn’t see me on the parapet amidships.
I glanced around nervously. At the stern and bow, fishing cranes reached up into the sky like gigantic fingers, but there was no sign of Sparta. Maybe he was still on the bridge, waiting for a good moment to send out the SOS. Was Nathan still in the control room?
I took a deep breath. I shouldn’t think about him, I’d done enough of that in the last hour.
Restless, I paced along the bulwark, waiting and waiting and waiting, for many minutes, too many.Shoot!It must have been after five. If Sparta delayed any longer, we would soon pass the Outer Banks and help would take longer to reach us. And the longer we waited, the greater the risk that someone on the Agamemnon would notice that we were missing.
Nervous, I felt for the ring. Contrary to my earlier statement, I wore it strung on Nathan’s bracelet, which I had tied tightly around my wrist and tucked under my sweater. Later, I would only pretend to be holding it in my hand; I didn’t want it to actually slip out of my hands and sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Tense, I stared at the sea. The swell wasn’t light like Sparta had predicted, but at least the sea mist hung over the sea like a ghostly veil, white and orangey red as if the water was burning.Somewhere above us, seagulls screeched, so we were close to the coast. That calmed me a little. I leaned over the railing and looked at the raft. It was rocking just a few yards below me.
“Where are you?” I whispered to myself. Had they caught Sparta?
I was about to turn when the smell of camphor filled my nose.
“Final—” I didn’t get any further. A hand shot over my mouth, and at the same time, I was grabbed so hard that I thought my ribs would break. For a few seconds, I was paralyzed, not realizing what was happening to me. Something happened to my body, it was turned around, and suddenly, the railing bar was in front of my nose.
Adrenaline washed through me.
Sparta was trying to throw me into the Atlantic!
No! No!I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t even gasp. Snapshots flashed before me: morning mist, arms in black rain gear, gloves, and the rusty railing. Below me, the waves slapped against the hull. Dark and threatening.
I’m going to drown like Mom!
The thought broke my state of shock. I kicked my legs wildly, thrashed about, and slammed my hand against the railing. With presence of mind, I grabbed hold of it.
The next moment, my mouth was free.
“Help!” I thrashed around and suddenly I saw him.
Panic tightened my throat like a wire noose. He was wearing black and his head was under a pointed hood as if he were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. A man like an executioner, huge and like something out of a horror film, but the worst was the tight-meshed nets through which he stared at me. It was as if he had a thousand eyes.
