22. Yeah
Shell Yeah
I launch up with a gasp at the sound of someone screaming. Sand falls away from me as I blink against the glaring sun and come face-to-face with Astra.
“What’s going on?” I ask with a yawn, wiping a hand across my face. My breath tastes abysmal, that burning liquor still lingering. I run my tongue over my teeth as Astra works their jaw.
“Our Captain is having a bit of a … just see for yourself.” They stand and cross their arms, turning pointedly.
I stretch, feeling only a slight ache in my hand from the cut as I stand and cradle it to my chest, following Astra’s gaze. Charlotte and Silas are set up across the beach, a small barrel sitting alone in the sand about twenty feet away from them, rope snaking from it and stopping at their feet.
The sight of them together makes my stomach drop. I feel sick even thinking about the look he gave me by the fire last night. Despite my—terrible—lying, he’d known I had heard them, and he was angry about it. And he meant to make me feel it.
He and Charlotte have a past, I can accept that, but that past is creeping into our present. Silas is becoming the man I had thought he was when we first met. Up until now, he’s done nothing but disprove that initial impression.
Now, he’s fulfilling it.
Silas snickers as he bends and lights the fuse in the sand, and within moments the spark hits the barrel, and it explodes with a boom.
The small explosion sends sand and shards of wood flying everywhere, and Silas and Charlotte cackle as they motion for another.
There’s a mountain of discarded bottles at their feet, and I recognize the way Silas sways.
Did he even sleep? Has he stayed up all night to wreak havoc on this beach, drunk and giggly with his old friend?
Astra and I scan the beach and the water.
Despite the noise, Sir is sound asleep on Pip’s chest, as unbothered as the rest of the crew.
The ship bobs innocently in the bay. The foremast is nearly repaired, the sails practically finished, but Silas is making no move to leave.
He is comfortable with Charlotte at his side once more, comfortable here.
I shake my head. “He won’t listen to me, Astra.”
“Of every person I have seen Captain Night with, you are the only one he will listen to.” Astra places a hand on my arm, and it is so featherlight, I’m not certain they’re actually touching me.
“You have a lot of undeserved belief in me. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”
They shrug, dropping their hand. “I think perhaps you should be impossible.”
I frown. “Why do you say that?”
“Before you arrived, we were simply floating by, the wind in our sails, but directionless, and then you appeared out of nowhere and fixed us. Plus, you have this uncanny ability to make anyone enjoy your company.” There’s no fear in their gaze as they ask, “Are you a witch, Laszlo?”
“What? No, no, I’m not.”
Part of me wishes I were; I can only imagine all the problems I’d be able to fix if I had even an ounce of magic in me. A warm breeze wraps around me as I run a hand through my hair, shaking out the sand.
Astra sighs, expression blank as they watch Silas and Charlotte, and I want to say, Yeah, I feel you.
Because I know what they’re thinking. Staying here reminiscing about the good ol’ times is holding us up.
We stopped here to repair the ship after the storm, to fix the foremast and get a move on, but the longer we stay here, the further our lead on Astra’s ex-fiancé slips.
And that would be on me.
“I’ll talk to him, okay?” I relent. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll talk to him.”
Astra waves a hand as if it’s nothing, but I can see what it means to them. “Thank you. You’re the only one who can get through to him.”
I turn away from Astra before they can see the blush blossoming up my neck and face. With a nod in Astra’s direction, I start toward Silas.
Most of the crew is still asleep, curled into balls, hugging their knees to their chests or sprawled out across the sand, snoring the early morning away. I tiptoe around them, careful where I step. How can they sleep through all this noise?
“Silas!” I call as I near them.
He claps as he bends at the waist, mouth open wide as he laughs. Charlotte snickers beside him, slapping him on the back as she reaches down in the sand for a nearly empty bottle of liquor.
“Silas?” I say again, stopping a few feet from them.
His head snaps up, and he glowers at me. Charlotte throws back the last of the liquor, burping as she tosses the empty bottle to the beach.
Silas’s features slacken into something neutral as he takes in all of me. I don’t know what I look like, what he sees when he stares at me, but I hope he sees my genuine concern.
After a moment, he straightens and opens his mouth as if to say something, but Charlotte slings an arm over his shoulder, grinning. “Are you joining us, Laszlo?”
“No.” Crossing my arms, I nod to the ship in the bay. “No, the ship is almost ready. We did what we came here to do. Shouldn’t we be preparing to leave, Captain?”
He doesn’t miss the way I use “Captain” and not “Silas.”
“I thought we could stay for another day or two,” he says.
I scoff. “If we don’t leave soon, that lead will be inconsequential.”
“’S not my problem,” he slurs. There’s something calculating in his expression, but it’s gone quickly. He’s so drunk that he can hardly string together a complete sentence.
I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped last night in the trees, and I know he and I are not exclusive—or whatever the equivalent is here and now—but this has become completely irrational at this point.
Silas has skewed this so far out of proportion, and I don’t know how to steer him back to the path he’s so carefully carved.
“Silas,” I start slowly, “can we talk in private?”
“You can say what you came to say in front of Charlotte.”
“Okay, well, you’re being a jackass, Silas.” I motion to the beach behind me, to the scattered, sleeping crew. “Astra and our crew rely on you, I rely on you, and you are letting every single one of us down right now to frolic around on the beach with an old pal.”
“Do you know what all I’ve given up to get here?
” He steps away from Charlotte and toward me.
His footsteps are hesitant, his feet dragging drunkenly in the sand.
He stops just before me, and the bottom of my stomach drops out at the way those familiar, dark eyes are shining.
“The sacrifices I’ve made to help people like Astra—you wouldn’t understand. ”
I cup his face, smoothing my thumb over his stubble. “Then tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
He wraps his hands around my wrists, and for a fragment of a second, I enjoy the touch.
But then he tightens his grip, and terror shoots through me.
He is still not the Silas I know; he is Captain Night.
This is the man who pressed his blade to my throat on that fateful day, the man who threatened to throw me overboard.
This is the man who ordered the shot on the captain of that trading ship, the same man who sliced a blade across Peter’s throat. How did I ever think he could change?
“Laszlo, you could never understand what I have—”
But his words are cut off as cannon fire splits through the otherwise quiet morning.
We turn and watch in horror as the bow of a ship appears around the line of trees and a chunk of She Deceitful’s bow snaps off with the cannonball’s impact.
There’s a line of open gunports along the side of the new ship.
They have nearly double the number we do.
A large crew runs across its deck, more below firing the cannons.
Instantly I know: We will lose if we fight. There are still a few crew members manning She Deceitful, and even as they prep the cannons, I can feel Silas’s grip loosening as he crosses around me.
“It worked,” he whispers, starting down the beach.
“Silas?” I ask.
“By the stars, it worked,” he says, grinning.
“What worked?” I say, scrambling after him. “What did you do?”
Both crews are up and running, reaching for the weapons at their belts.
Sir sprints into the brush, disappearing from the action.
The longboats are being pushed into the water by a bleary-eyed, half-asleep crew.
I step out of their way as they hurry past me, and Silas is farther away now.
The crews run between us, yelling and calling for orders, sand flying everywhere.
But I’m not watching them, I’m watching Silas as he steps toward the water’s edge. He stops at the tide, water lapping against his bare feet as he looks out over the bay to his ship. What is he planning to do?
“Raise the white flag!” he calls. But they can’t hear him—the noise on the beach is too much, the cannon fire too loud. His lips move silently, and he pulls off his white shirt with a bit of trouble and raises it over his head, waving it back and forth in large, clear movements.
Surrender. He is waving for surrender.
This is highly unusual, especially for Silas. I’ve seen the renowned pirate Captain Night battle men. We are all well aware of what he’s capable of, of the lives taken at his hands, but this is something else entirely.
And he is sober. It’s in the sureness of his stature, the steadiness of his frame as he stands on his tiptoes and raises his arm in the air. But how? He was drunk moments ago, wasn’t he? Was he just trying to fool Charlotte, to play at ease on this island?
Charlotte shoves past me and the frozen crew, stomping toward Silas. “What are you doing?” she yells as she skids to a stop in the wet sand. She gestures violently to the water. “We have two ships! We can destroy them!” She grabs his shoulders and shakes them, but he slips easily out of her grip.
Silas turns to Astra down the beach.
“No, don’t do anything. Not yet, anyway.”
I cross slowly toward them in a haze. The pieces fall into place with each sinking step. Silas led us into that storm on purpose. He took us to this island of all places because this was the lead all along. It wasn’t some other port.
This was always about a route.
And we have been waiting patiently in the middle of it.
The new ship comes to a stop as the anchor is dropped, and a white flag is raised above She Deceitful.
It is a sight I never thought I’d see, one that sends a shiver down my spine.
Silas swivels toward me. There is still something straining between us, but I know now what he has done, what he was trying to tell me without tipping off Charlotte and her crew.
Last night when he argued with her, he was arguing in favor of this quest, of standing up for his crew, for Astra, and for all the others who were hurt by careless people.
And though there was betrayal in his eyes when I ran from the trees, and though there is a strange air between us, the jealousy that poisoned me is dissipating, and when I smile at him, there is a gentle tug at the corner of his lips.
Just enough to give me hope.
Two longboats begin their row to the beach, and I know without a doubt that Astra will find peace today, one way or another.