Page 33 of Found at Sea
“You should ask him yourself,” Alek suggested. “If anyone else questioned him, I’m certain he’d gut them, but not you.”
The thought alone sent a chill down my spine. However, then I remembered Captain Flynn saying that I intrigued him. And he’d invited me to his cabin. At first I’d believed he’d try to bed me, and when he didn’t, it only confused me. So while there was confusion as to what exactly the captain wanted with me, there was also validity to Alek’s statement.
“Are you afraid of him?” I blurted out. I’d wanted to ask that question for days, so it was a miracle I’d held it back for as long as I had.
The humor faded from Alek’s blue eyes, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flash of silver, as if his eyes had momentarily changed colors. It was…strange.
“There is a truth about me no one can know,” Alek answered after a long silence. “And the captain knows it. He not only saved me from starvation, but from something more terrifying. I am in his debt.”
“What truth?” I asked.
“I wish I could tell you,” he said. “But I cannot. It’s too dangerous. I’ve already said too much as it is.”
I wasn’t sure what bothered me most; the not knowing or the fact he didn’t trust me enough to tell me. Alek was the closest friend I’d ever had, and I trusted him completely. But he didn’t feel the same about me.
My disappointment must’ve shown on my face.
“Fletch?” he touched my arm and stayed silent until I looked at him. “You’re my best mate. I trust no one as much as you.”
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
Alek was about to answer when Horace shouted for us to get back to work.
Horace usually called us every foul-mouthed name in the book.Scurvy swabsseemed to be his favorite that day. We did as he said, but my mind was elsewhere as I worked.
Whatever he’d been about to say would have to wait until later after our work was finished.
The mystery of Alek gnawed at me. He’d seemed like a regular man around my age when I’d first met him, and then I’d begun noticing odd things about him; like his accent that came and went when he wasn’t conscious of it, the strange connection between him and the captain, and now our conversation.
Ever since Alek had told me where he was from, a town called Black Hallows, I’d been trying to remember something. The name seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. A memory was trying to surface, but right as it began to clear, it’d ripple away like a hand through calm water.
***
Captain Flynn was at the helm again that night; searching for something. He looked up at the clear night sky before focusing on a small book in his hands and writing. Sleep had been far out of my reach, so I’d walked up the stairs to the main deck to get some fresh air when I saw him.
He didn’t see me. He just continued staring at the stars as if they held some answer he sought. Perhaps they did.
My pant leg caught on the edge of a raised plank, and I tripped, landing on the deck with a loudbang.I cursed my clumsiness and lack of stealth. When I got back to my feet and looked toward the ship’s wheel, I no longer saw the captain.
That’s when I felt something sharp press to the small of my back.
“If you were sneakin’ up on an enemy, boy, you’d be a dead man,” Captain Flynn growled from behind me. His warm breath fluttered at my nape, sending chills along my skin. “This blade would’ve found its home in your spine.”
Excitement ran rampant through me despite my current predicament.
“I suppose I am fortunate you are not my enemy,” I responded in a steady tone.
He ran his nose up the back of my neck before I felt the softness of his lips. The blade fell away, but he didn’t move. His body stayed pressed to mine, and I wanted to turn so I could face him.
“Enemies don’t always seem as such,” he whispered at my nape. “It’s wise to treat everyone as a foe in this life.” His hands gripped my hips, and for some reason I pressed back against him and softly sighed.
I’d never felt this before. My whole body came alive.
“If you keep everyone at a distance,” I said, well more like panted, “Then you will forever be alone. That is no way to live.”
“It’s the only way to live, Fletcher,” Captain Flynn disagreed before pulling away from me. “The world is not kind and the men within it are cruel.”
I finally faced him and was momentarily put under his spell. The hard lines of his handsome face were perfectly balanced with the softness of his lips, and the strand of hair that fell across his left eye gave him an innocence I knew he didn’t possess.
