Page 48 of A Princess, Stolen
Dad!I looked out with a pounding heart. The sea suddenly seemed calmer as if it had ejected its greatest anger. We were standing perpendicular to the crests of the waves again. Maybe the worst was over.
I looked at the men, but they still seemed uneasy. With his back to everyone, Sparta looked out. Nathan stood next to a box with black levers next to the wheel; the greyhound-faced guy and Troy were trying to reattach a detached panel; Taurus, Delphi, and Pan were fiddling with the lodged head of the crane while the rest of the crew came up to the bridge. Either they didn’t know I was here or they didn’t care. There were a handful of men in blue overalls wearing orange life jackets.
“Most of the windows on the lower deck are broken,” one reported, who reminded me of a hobbit. “Water in all the corridors and chambers.”
“Fuck!” Nathan turned to the speaker. “How high?”
“Knee-deep.”
“Knee-deep?” Taurus looked at the top of the smaller man’s head. “Maybe for you.”
Someone snorted and sparks flew from a broken cable.
Nathan walked over and examined the cable. “We need to turn off the electricity until the lines are fixed. Completely.”
“If we do that, we won’t be able to run the pumps,” the one with the greyhound face who did the magic tricks interjected. “And we need the pumps for the water.”
“If we don’t turn off the electricity, we might have a nice little fire on the Agamemnon. Then you can spread your wings, Icarus.”
I wanted to remember the name Icarus for the greyhound man, but all I heard was fire. The black fogman forced his wayinto my thoughts, but luckily, someone disrupted the beginning of the mental imagery.
“Boss,” a tiny man with a dark bowl cut shouted breathlessly, who had just come in the door and was almost drowning in his life preserver like the hobbit. “Ilias is injured.” He pronounced it as Iliad like the famous epic by Homer.
Dismayed, Pan jumped up.
Nathan looked from him to the smaller one. “What happened?”
“His back…a cupboard was ripped from its foothold and fell on him. He can hardly move.”
“Okay.” A grim determination appeared on Nathan’s face. “We don’t have much time. You”—he nodded to the hobbit—“take care of Ilias. The rest of you, bail the water with buckets! Troy, turn off the power to the entire cutter.”
He gave further orders while I grabbed the bucket, which had now rolled forward as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It stank horribly, so I rinsed it out with water.
“What are you doing?” Nathan asked, irritated.
“Helping. You said we needed to bail water.”
He stared at me strangely before nodding weakly. Apparently, he had no problem with me acting as a crew member, so I marched off after Pan.
“I should be with Ilias, not anyone else,” Pan growled to himself. Then he turned to me. “We in eye of storm. You pray no start again.”
My stomach seemed to turn inside out. “I thought the worst was over,” I replied, confused, which only earned me a shake of the head from Pan.
In the corridor where my cell was, I searched for a place between the men who formed a work chain from inside to outside. I passed bucket after bucket. I was invigorated by all the adrenaline and unable to think clearly. Everything hurt, but Ididn’t complain, not about my sore icy fingers, my numb feet, or my exhaustion. I didn’t even think about home. A little later, the lights went out in the corridor too, and shortly afterward, Troy appeared with a flashlight between his teeth and helped with the bailing. It was eerie and dark, the shadows of the men dancing across the walls in the dim light. It was far too quiet. No one spoke, and only now and then, Troy would give a brief order. Apparently, he was in charge when Nathan wasn’t around. That surprised me, but there was no time to think about it. Doing something kept the fear at bay.
At some point, the hobbits carried a semi-dry mattress past us. Then they fetched Pan and Taurus to help Ilias up. Just like Pan, Ilias was huge, and when Troy shone the flashlight on him to see how he was doing, I actually recoiled. It was as if I was seeing Pan, who was standing next to me, in the mirror. They looked identical, from the Medusa curls to the dimple in their strong chin to the mole on their left cheek. I groaned inwardly. Why did colossus Pan have to have a twin brother? Why not Troy, Icarus, or Delphi? At least, they had been nice to me from the beginning.
Ilias’ tortured groan ripped me out of my thoughts and Sparta fished a hip flask out of his rain jacket.
“Cognac…helps with pain,” he stated simply, and Pan poured the alcohol into Ilias’ mouth, sip by sip.
I waited silently, the water now only up to my ankles. Nobody looked at me with hatred today, but nobody spoke to me either. Still, it would be progress if we ever got out of this storm unscathed. I wasn’t interested in fraternizing with my captors, but it would still be advantageous if these men liked me—or at least, no longer hated me. Especially since Isaac would be coming on board at some point and I had no idea what he was up to. It would be good to have advocates.
We continued to bail until the rocking became too much and I staggered back to the bridge followed by Pan and Troy.
The storm regained strength with the Agamemnon still battered, full of water, and listing. Although the engine was running again thanks to the emergency generator, the cutter could barely cope with the mountains of monster waves. Breakers repeatedly pounded the hull, pushing the Agamemnon deeper into the sea. Deeper and deeper.
Wide-eyed, Pan stared out in horror as he sat on the mattress with Ilias and held him tight. I crouched in my seat, thinking only about how I wanted to survive. That was it. Then, I would never ask for anything again in my entire life!
