Chapter 29 #2
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate their help.” She folded her arms across her chest to mirror him. She even started tapping the toe of her boot like she was bored. “I just don’t think you’re going to win, no matter what you or I say.”
Timmy gritted his teeth and turned forward. “Those of you who would rather see a man captain you, raise your hands.”
Those that had stepped forward with him all raised their hands. A small handful of those who were in the back group also raised them, although hesitantly.
“Those of you who want me to stay as your captain, raise your hands.”
When they did, and the number was obviously greater, she turned to him. “Isn’t that a pity, Tim Tim,” Rosetta sneered, shaking her head at him. It caused her nest of knots, which should really be glossy hair, to crawl across her skin. “It looks like you’ve lost.”
“I won’t be captained by a woman!”
She gave him her own cruel smirk. “That’s fine with me. Was going to make you go for a swim anyway.”
That smirk fell when he pointed his pistol at her. Shit.
She didn’t have time to get her own.
Rosetta was tackled with a thud just as the gun sounded.
She and the person who tackled her flew through the air and she tucked her head in to protect it, rather than looking up to see who had saved her.
They both hit the main deck without ever touching the stairs.
The wind was knocked out of her as her back hit the ground and it tore a painful gasp from her chest. OW!
“Get him!” Naeem shouted, releasing the helm without care for the ship to grab Timmy.
All he managed to do was spook the man until he fell over the quarterdeck railing. He landed against the main deck only a few metres from her with a disgusting crack and let out a small scream.
“Kill him!” one of her men shouted.
They all ran for him as a single unit. She watched as Timmy raised his arms to block a downward swinging sword. He let out a yell as his hand was chopped away, right before someone cut his throat.
The rest of her men, including the prisoners who had voted for her, started circling those who had voted against her. There was a crowd at the front who remained dead frozen, those who were even more afraid than before.
The mutineers lifted their hands, either conceding to the vote and surrendering or realising they wouldn’t win now that they understood how many were on her side.
“Are you okay, Rosetta?” John said above her, raising himself onto straightened arms.
She realised he’d been the one to save her. Such a good man. She gave him a broken smile of reassurance, too conflicted about what just happened to give him a real one.
“Yes, I am. Thank–”
He coughed over her before she could finish, and blood splattered against her cheek. She flinched, her eyes fluttering shut. It had been a light spatter, but Rosetta felt like his blood slapped her in the face so hard, a part of her soul left her.
“S-sorry,” he choked out for coughing on her, then he tried to get to his hands and knees above her so he was no longer crushing her.
“J-John?” she stammered.
Her heart clenched when she realised he’d ended up taking the bullet in her stead. She’d been hoping he’d managed to get them both out of the way.
He rolled to the side, falling onto his back.
Rosetta immediately crawled to her knees, tucking her hair behind one ear so it didn’t shield her vision. She stared down at the man, who had a track of blood running through his always neat, white-and-black peppered beard.
“John?” Her voice broke and jumped an octave.
It can’t be...
Tears welled in her eyes when blood began to pool beneath him. She turned him so she could see he’d been shot in the back on the right side. Rosetta knew by the wheezing, rattling, wet-sounding breath he gave that he’d been shot in the lung.
“Why?” she cried, lightly slapping his chest as if that was the answer to expelling the bullet from his thick torso. “You stupid old man! You shouldn’t have gotten in the way!”
“Couldn’t let it be you, love.”
He raised his hand as he gave her a warm and loving smile that shattered her heart into a million little pieces. He stroked the back of his wrinkled hand, covered in the evidence of a hard-working man’s life, against her cheek.
“I made you a promise.” She grabbed him by the scruff of his tunic and lifted him, despite his wince. She shook him. “You’re not allowed to die, you stubborn fool. I told you I’d kill you if you did.”
He gave a laugh before another cough bubbled more blood to his lips.
No, he can’t do this to me. He was dying, whether she wanted him to go or not. Oh god, no. Anyone but him! Or Naeem. They were the only two people Rosetta didn’t want to see die. She didn’t think she could face the world without either of them.
“Y-you can’t leave me, John. Who will help me take care of Naeem when he’s too drunk to stand? Who will help me navigate the waters? Who will help me count the stocks?”
She didn’t care she was being watched as she placed her forehead against his shuddering chest.
Her voice broke in different octaves, unstable and trembling as she asked, “Who will be there for me when I don’t know the way?”
She knew she shouldn’t be letting her men see her like this, but her heart couldn’t take the sickening ache in it. It felt like it was being squeezed so hard that it would burst.
“Y-you’ll be fine, Rosetta.” She turned her face to him, knowing by how hot it was that it had turned bright red from her tears. “You’re a beautiful woman, inside and out, just like my d-daughter. It’s why I-I’ve always followed y-you, trying to help you find y-your h-happi-ness.”
The more he spoke, the harder it seemed to be.
She wanted to scream for someone to help him, to stop the bleeding, to save him, anything, but she knew, deep down, there was nothing they could do.
John was drowning in his own blood.
He started gasping for breath, each convulsion making her feel like hers was being sapped along with him.
“P-please,” she begged, looking down at him with a myriad of emotions.
She stroked his face by running the tip of her thumb through his beard. She even wiped it over the lens of his bloodstained glasses, wanting him to see this world clearly before he left it. She wanted him to see how much she couldn’t bear to let him go.
‘I’m sorry’ was all he could mouth before he started lightly convulsing, gasping, desperate to breathe when he couldn’t.
Choking.
Then his gaze faded away to turn into a haunting, lifeless stare. He... he’s gone.
Rosetta let out a loud, anguished cry as she curled over him with shuddering breaths. For a few moments, she desperately held onto his body, heaving over it, crying over it, her heart dying over it.
She could hear no breaths, could feel no heartbeat with her hand over where it should be, and eventually, the warmth he had always held started to turn into a coldness. Bitter, bitter coldness seeped into her body to kill her own warmth.
“Rosetta,” one of her crewmen whispered, crouching down to place his hand on her shoulder in comfort.
She knew his voice, someone who had been with her for almost as long as Naeem. Keat.
They knew. They all knew how much this man meant to her, how much she cared for him, even if she had never told them.
“Kill them,” she commanded, turning her tearful face up to the men who had tried to mutiny against her.
“But the ship...” Without them, they’d struggle to sail.
“KILL THEM!” She no longer cared, not when retribution for this could be dealt. She wanted justice. “I want them all dead.”
“W-wait!” one of them said, putting his hands up in surrender. “We said we would concede if we lost.”
Rosetta turned her head to the man with his hand still on her shoulder and gave him a look – one he should know by now.
He sighed, standing to raise his sword. He began the slaughter of the thirty men who were the reason the man in her arms was now gone from her already sad and dreary world.
She thought it would satisfy her, that it would help to take the worst of the weight crushing down on her and ease her pain, but it didn’t.
All it did was stop her tears while her heart weighed down so heavily, it felt like an anchor had dragged it all the way to the floor so she could trample over it with her own feet.
Rosetta, covered in blood, shakily got herself up from the floor. She left Mr Smith where he was and walked up the quarterdeck steps so she could take the helm of her ship.
She didn’t say anything to anyone, didn’t give any orders, and no one tried to speak to her. They started going about their normal duties without her directive. Naeem was the one to issue commands, but she didn’t care enough to listen.
Eventually, she saw two people carefully lift Mr Smith’s lifeless body.
She finally spoke. “If you toss him, you’ll miss having hands,” she warned, unsure what they were planning on doing with his corpse. “Take him below deck and wrap him in a blanket.”
“What do you want to do with him?” Naeem asked as he came up the stairs to stand beside her, worry obvious in every creased line of his face.
It was an odd expression from someone who usually held humour, even in times when he shouldn’t. She knew he must be as upset as she was about John’s death and was trying to hide it.
Rosetta started to steer their course from their current heading.
She couldn’t face Alister, didn’t care to face him with how hollow she felt inside. A big piece of her had been taken this day, and she wanted to do nothing more than fall into the ocean and peacefully float away.
Turning her head to Naeem but refusing to meet his eye, she said in a soft voice, “I want to bury him.”
He at least deserves that.