24. A of a Time #2
Settling beside me, he hooks his pinky with mine. “I’m entirely lucky this all worked out for the best. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome than this.”
“And what about the group of privateers who surrendered? What will happen to them? Will they sail with us forever?”
He taps his thigh, weighing his next words.
“I have already offered places on my crew for any who want to join, you know that. The others have chosen to go with Charlotte. They could have kept the ship and sailed it themselves, but they did not want it. They could have fought like the others and died. There were any number of outcomes they could have come to, but most have chosen to live.” He sighs and drops my hand, pulling his knees up to his chest.
Like this, he looks almost boyish.
Innocent.
“It is a harsh reality of this world we live in,” he says after a long moment.
“I could have lived an easy life in Boston, but instead I have fought for decades to sit in this sand beside you, sailing with my crew, taking lives when absolutely necessary. For many pirates, the sea is the only safe place, the only free place. But privateers work both under the law and over it, oftentimes falling to piracy when they want, with papers to protect them. Papers that a crew like mine don’t have.
I refuse to work with the British, to do their bidding all for a paper that forgives me of my actions.
I refuse to live in their world, so I’ve forged my own. ”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That nothing is as easy as it should be, for you and your crew.”
He doesn’t respond, and my throat constricts, my tongue suddenly too heavy, my lips dry. Swallowing, I look out to the water, where the last rays of the sun bounce off the sea.
“You know, I’ve always been terrified of the ocean,” I say.
He chuckles. “That explains so much.” He’s quiet for a beat. “What changed?”
I shrug, searching the tide. “You, I think.” When I turn back to Silas, the hues of the sky are dancing in purples and pinks across his skin. “I think I was always terrified of the ocean because I felt like I was drifting. But with you, the world doesn’t seem so scary.”
I lean forward and press a kiss to his bare shoulder, tasting salt.
“The storm is shifting,” Silas says, running a finger down my arm.
“How do you know?”
He covers my hand with his and points to a spot of particularly dark clouds with our joined hands. “The purple. It’s often a sign of a coming storm.”
“Do we need to prep to leave?”
Silas shakes his head and drops my hand, falling back in the sand with a sigh. “Not until tomorrow. The ship is nearly ready. For now, let’s take a moment to just … be.”
I turn onto my side, cheek resting on my knuckles as I draw lazy circles across his skin.
He closes his eyes, a soft smile curving his lips, and it’s in the stillness that I realize with a jolt that I want to tell him.
I want to tell him about me, about when I came from, and how I came to be on his ship.
There are moments on the ship, on the beach, with our crew, and in his arms that make me forget who I am and where I should be.
But I can’t play pretend forever.
And I know he has questions. Between the phone, my accent, and my obvious lack of knowledge of anything in this world, I have been nothing if not obvious, and he’s caught on to some of it, even if he isn’t asking.
His eyes flutter open, long, dark lashes sweeping over his cheeks as he cranes his neck to look at me. “What is it?” he asks quietly.
“Why didn’t you ask me about the phone?”
He frowns, propping himself up on his forearm. “The … what?”
“The phone—the thing I used to take photos and videos.”
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“Silas.” My pulse thunders as I lean toward him and take his hand in mine. I run my thumb over his turquoise ring, catching my reflection in the band. “What if I told you I’m not from here?”
“Laszlo, you have made that abundantly clear. We had an entire conversation around it.”
“No, no.” I sigh and run a hand through my hair, pushing the mess of curls from my eyes. “I’m not from … here.” He stares at me silently, lips quirked. “Like, here here.”
“Laszlo, I’m not understanding.”
“You know the phone? The weird rectangular thing I showed you yesterday?” He nods slowly. “That is not from … how do I say this?”
“I’m not sure,” he quips.
“I’m not from this time.”
He blinks.
“Did you hear what I said?” I ask.
Smoothing a hand over his stubble, Silas squints at the horizon. “This time?”
“What year is it?” I ask instead.
He swallows before he says, “It is 1717.”
My hands shake as I dig my fingers into the sand, the pieces fitting together. “And the month?”
“December, nearing the end of the month.”
December 1717. No. No, it can’t be. George’s words come back to me, and I press a hand to my chest, vision blurring with tears as I struggle to catch my breath. What was the date? Damn it, what was the date?
“Laszlo? What’s going on?”
January 6, 1718. The day New Providence gets a new governor, the day pirates lose their stronghold. Silas watches me with a mix of confusion now, brow knit in worry.
The day he dies.
I stand, my chest squeezing tight, making it difficult to breathe. What did George say? Something about a deception, a pardon, and three ships in the harbor. But what can I do to stop it? What power do I even have? Can I change the trajectory of this crew? Can I save him?
Or will that mess with time?
It’s worse knowing when he’ll end, when all of this will end. I’d forgotten, somehow, I’d forgotten, and the thought of this reserved, kind man being killed to protect his crew and ship makes my heart snap in two and my knees go wobbly beneath me.
No more Silas. No more She Deceitful. No more us.
“Laszlo.” He stands and crosses to me, and then his hands are on my shoulder, tilting my chin up. “Laszlo, what is it?”
I want to tell him, but how do you tell the love of your life that they are going to die? That you know precisely how it will happen—
Love of my life. I blink at him, the words caught in my throat.
It’s true, though, isn’t it? Even though I’ve only known him for a brief time, I can feel it.
In every touch, every caress, every kiss.
In the way I hold him, the way he holds me.
I want to spend every waking moment at his side. I love him desperately.
There are no words for this, though, nothing to tell me how to move forward. Where is Time Travel and Other Complicated Discussions When You Fall in Love with a Pirate for Dummies when you need it?
I stare at him in silence. Heat builds behind my eyes, my face flushing as I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from speaking. But before I can stop myself, my lips are parting and—
“This isn’t going to make any sense, but I’m from the future, and you and everyone aboard She Deceitful are going to die, and I think there’s a way to stop it.”