Page 35 of Seven Oars
The pirates surrounded Phex and Nud. The mood in the room had shifted from reckless revelry to watchful aggression. Even the stoner put the pipe down.
Nud, predictably, didn’t like having his head stuffed in a bell. Despite being blinded by the bucket, most of Nud’s swings connected, and he quickly knocked Phex off his dominant position.
Phex was nowhere near his full strength. It was not going to end well for him.
It was never going to.
The bucket crashed on the floor as Nud delivered a breathtaking knee strike to Phex’s midriff.
The cheers erupted.
After that, they simply tossed Phex around like a volleyball, smacking him, punching him, kicking and slugging before passing him on to the next teammate.
The“music” assaulted the senses.
*****
Eventually, the pirates got tired of their game and allowed the women to shuffle back to the Cargo Hold.
Phex arrived moments later, dragged by the leg by the clever-looking Ucai.
“Don’t leave,” he smirked at the women and chuckled at his own wit on the way out.
If before they had been in shock, now everyone was simply numb.
“I can’t take it,” Sassa whispered in a broken voice.“This is a nightmare.”
“Stop complaining. You weren’t even hurt,” Gro snapped.
Eze was checking on Daphne, who appeared dazed.“What can I feed her? And she wet her pants.”
Alyesha cursed but doggedly dug through the pile of garbage in the corner, locating some rags.“Here, make a diaper out of it or something.”
Rosamma went to Fawn, who waved her help away.“I’m okay. Really. His arrival was super timely.” She nodded toward Phex.
Phex.
His face was swollen and discolored, completely unrecognizable. He was unconscious once again, and Rosamma prayed it wasn’t a coma.
They had worked him over but good for that bucket trick. Silly man, what was he trying to achieve, one against so many?
After making sure the women were more or less situated and didn’t need her help, she went to Phex and cleaned the blood from his face as best she could with the hem of her shirt. There was nothing more she could do for him.
Except…
But no, she was too weak.
And if he never woke up again?
Hesitantly, she reached for his hand. She wanted to take it into hers and thread their fingers together to better control the flow, but that would be too intimate.
She settled for wrapping her fingers around his wrist. It was thick, with a healthy layer of muscle over bone, resilient, and a little cool to the touch.
Concentrating, Rosamma let a small trickle of energy leave her fingers and enter him through their skin-to-skin contact.
It was her special brand of healing, the result of her imperfect half-breed nature. A twin with a torn circle of energy she couldn’t retain, yet she could give it to others.
In this, she was more special than Ren, with a quirk so rare there were no records of it anywhere.
