Travis
TRAVIS
My head snapped to where the voice had come from to find two masked men standing in the doorway. Heart racing, my legs kicked out as I forced myself to sit up, my arm instantly going out in front of Jasper, who was also now sitting up beside me.
“Who the fuck are you?” I barked.
The man with the gun shrugged, glancing to his friend before looking back at us. “Pirates.” I wondered if this was a terrible practical joke because none of this felt real. Would pirates even announce that that’s what they were?
I frowned. “Pirates?” Pirate attacks were practically unheard of out here on a vessel this size. “I didn’t think there was that much need for deep-sea robots on the black market.” My voice was heavy with sarcasm as anger boiled inside me. How dare they do this? “What can I say? We heard there was a bounty worth travelling for, so here we are.”
“No way. You’re not touching a thing on here.”
“Travis,” Jasper hissed. “Just do what they want. It’s just stuff.”
“Expensive stuff. State-of-the-art, apparently,” the unarmed man added.
“Listen to your boyfriend. Just do as we say, and no one else needs to be hurt.”
I froze, fear cutting off the air supply to my lungs. “Finn,” I whispered, his name slicing my throat like a knife.
“Shame about him. He was pretty.” He twitched his gun to the side. “Get up and don’t try to be heroes.”
I looked to Jasper, his now pale face glowing in what appeared to be torchlight coming from the hall. “Get up, Jas.”
He moved slowly, climbing out of bed as I did the same on the other side, glad that we’d slept in pyjamas and t-shirts last night.
“What did you do to Finn? Where is he? If you’ve hurt him…”
The man didn’t hesitate, striding towards me and forcing the barrel of the gun to the centre of my forehead. My mouth fell open, but no sound came out, but Jasper’s gasp was loud and filled the room.
“You’ll what, pretty boy?” He laughed, and it sounded cold and malicious. “I think you’ll find the hand you’ve been dealt is pretty crappy right now, and I’m playing to win. Don’t push me because I will use this.” Then he eased back and twisted slightly, pointing the gun at Jas. Jasper’s eyes widened, and his hands shot up in the air. “But I think you’ll probably play ball more easily if I threaten Loverboy here. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, yes. Fine, whatever you want, just don’t hurt him,” I stuttered, letting out a sigh of relief when he lowered his gun with a chuckle.
“Follow me and don’t try anything stupid because I will shoot him. And FYI, in case you think I’m bluffing, your other little friend. Fish food.”
My hand flew to my mouth as bile burned my throat, and the enormity of his words hit me like a punch to the gut.
“You killed him?” Jasper whispered from behind me, his pain obvious in the way his voice cracked when he spoke.
The man threw the gun to his friend as he started walking; the now gun-wielding one bringing up the rear as we all moved through the boat.
I couldn’t believe how matter-of-factly he delivered his next words. “He probably wasn’t dead when we threw him overboard, but he will be now.”
I wasn’t sure if we’d make it out of this alive or how long we had left to live, but I knew that I’d never forget the sound Jasper made for as long as I lived.