28. Sun of a Beach
Sun of a Beach
The last rays of the day catch the sky on fire, setting the warm tones of Silas’s skin alight. He runs his hands over my face, smoothing down my hair. I want him to kiss me again. I want to taste every inch of him, to savor him repeatedly until I’m sick of him—if that’s even possible.
“So you’ll head to the tavern,” he says, pressing a key into my palm, “and when I’m done here, I’ll meet you in my rooms.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I say.
“Laszlo.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I insist. “Whatever tonight brings, I’m not leaving you. Just give me tonight on the ship. One last night with you here.”
He glances across the deck, but most of the crew have already left for land, leaving him and me alone for the first time on She Deceitful, the last of the crew waiting for me in the second-to-last longboat. I follow his gaze past the bow to the line of longboats being pulled to the beach.
He probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s saved all their lives by sending them to shore. Mick, Astra, Jack, Pip, and even Eddie with his terrible jokes are temporarily safe if they just stay there. Away from She Deceitful.
I can’t save them all, don’t know what’ll happen to them once they step on land, but if we can save even a few of them, then we’ve done something. I don’t know how much it’ll change history, but it can’t possibly be much.
Or so I hope.
Finally, he nods to someone in the longboat, and the splash of their paddles grows quieter as they make their way to shore.
When he’s certain we’re alone, Silas leans forward and kisses me, firm and sure, pressing me up against the rail, the wood digging into my lower back.
It lasts only for a moment, but it’s enough to settle the nerves flitting about in my stomach.
He cups my cheek when he pulls back. “It’s going to be all right. I’m here with you tonight. And then tomorrow…”
Tomorrow, I go home. Assuming we make it through the night.
I cover his hand with mine, nodding. Maybe history was wrong and nothing will happen now that the ship is empty but for us two.
George mentioned they fought back, but if there’s no one here to fight, maybe we’ll be okay.
And then I can just stay here and retire to some small island with Silas for the rest of our lives, content and at peace.
But even I know he won’t let me. He’ll send me back because I don’t belong here, as much as I want to. I would stay by his side for the rest of eternity if he’d allow it, if I knew it wouldn’t change the future.
We stand like that for some time, and I’m just waiting for something to happen, for the day to break and a new one to start, disproving the story I was told of She Deceitful and her crew.
His hand covering mine on the railing, we swivel toward the water and stand side by side. He lays his head on my shoulder, and we look out over the dark water as night twists into day.
“Do you still not fear it?” he asks quietly.
“What?”
“The water.”
I stare out at the inky black. “The fear is technically still there,” I admit. I press a hand to my gut. “Here. A bit of a nervous flicker, if you will, but it’s nothing like it used to be. The ocean is wild, free, and unpredictable, but it’s just nature.”
“That’s right,” he whispers. “It’s the nature of water, to be free.”
I can’t help but think he’s speaking of more than just the ocean.
The first inklings of a sunrise bleed from the horizon, pinks and oranges marking the beginning of another day.
The sky is a canvas of pastels, and it reminds me of the sunrise I saw on the beach when Silas and I had that single blissful day together.
Oh, how I wish we could return to that beach, to those soft moments in the sand when I told him who I am, how I came to be here.
The sunlight catches on the water, making it a churning sea of cotton candy.
A disgruntled meow sounds from the stern, and I smile as I turn toward Silas when a light flares in the distance, no more than two hundred feet away, catching my eye.
It’s followed by a second, and a third, and then a fourth.
“Laszlo,” Silas says, his hand reaching for his belt.
The first thing I see are the flags, distinct red flags with the Union Jack in the upper left that catch the flickering light of the lanterns.
There aren’t three ships like in George’s tale, but the one facing us is certainly more than the two of us can handle on our own.
People move on board the distant ship, silent, bent, and creeping beneath the dim light, and their cannon hatches are already opened.
Pointed right at us.
“Laszlo,” Silas repeats, this time more urgent.
Before he can get out another word, the first cannon is fired. We don’t get any warning as it whistles through the air and crashes into the bow of the ship. The impact sends us rocking, and Silas wraps an arm around my waist, steadying me as I struggle to stay upright.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Me? What about Sir? I heard him right before the cannon blast.”
“He’ll be fine, Laszlo. That cat’s lived through worse.”
Shaking my head, I curl my hands around the railing and squint out over the water. That’s when I see him. Hux. Hands on his hips, chin tilted up, he stands at the bow of the ship, carnivorous grin lit by the lanterns like a monster in the dark.
“I should have known,” Silas hisses, hand wrapping around his pistol. “I should have seen it.”
The betrayal.
The betrayal George spoke of was never about Peter, never about the raid.
This means Silas has been betrayed twice.
Was Hux putting on a front all this time?
Is he as incapable as he was as our master rigger?
And where the hell did he get a ship? After all the effort Silas has put into his ship, all the love and support he has given his crew, this is how he’s thanked.
“What a little snake,” I mutter.
“If you surrender now, you’ll be granted a pardon by the governor of New Providence,” Hux calls. His voice cuts across the water, booming against the quiet of the early morning.
Silas looks at me, expression inscrutable in the dim light.
Maybe Silas will accept the pardon, but would he be forced to hunt down his peers?
Would he be bound to the very government he despises?
When I picture him standing at the helm, his blue jacket draped over his shoulders as he looks out at the horizon, I cannot see him anywhere else.
He told me people were not born to be pirates, but rather made into them, but I think he’s the exception.
Silas was born to be a pirate. He would never step away from it, not even for me.
“I will if you tell me to,” he says. “I’ll surrender for you, Laszlo.”
But I can’t do that to him. I can’t be the reason he loses this part of himself.
“Silas, don’t.”
I hear it before I see it, cannon fire blasting through the top of the foremast we fixed only a week ago.
Silas shoves me out of the way, and I crash into the deck, breath whooshing out of me.
I roll over to watch as the foremast goes toppling, slicing through the air where Silas and I were standing.
It slams into him, pinning Silas down, his head knocking back against the deck.
“Silas!” I scream.
There’s a beat, my ears ringing, the sharp sound muffling Silas’s voice and the creaking of the ship as it begins to split, and when I crawl to the railing, my chest and hip aching, there’s a spark of a flame on the deck of Hux’s ship, and a cannonball whizzes across the distance and smashes into our hull.
The ship rocks violently beneath us, water splashing me as I stand on shaking legs and make my way to where Silas is.
Before I reach him, a cannonball flies past me, crashing into the mainmast. I barely roll out of the way as it falls, the deck splitting apart beneath my feet, creating a chasm.
Crying out, I cling to the railing, trying to pull myself to stand when I notice the chunk of wood lodged in my calf.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I grasp the piece and yank it out, hissing at the stabbing pain that lances up my leg and into my hip.
I blink, my vision hazy as I stare down into the water.
I still fear the ocean, fear the things that lurk in its depths, but now I also love it.
I like the sway, I like the sounds of a tide lapping against a quiet, secluded beach.
I like the way the water reflects anything and everything on its surface.
I like how the ocean brought me to him.
And I am going to miss it.
I shiver as my gaze catches on the ship in the distance. I never wanted anything to get this far or this bad, but it has, and it probably always would. We were never meant to have a happily-ever-after. I’ve known that all along.
Before I can regain my footing, I feel the cannonball before I see it, a rumble under my feet.
I scream at the top of my lungs as one, two, three, and then six are fired on She Deceitful.
Silas isn’t moving, still pinned by the foremast as his ship splinters around him.
I can’t see Sir in the wreckage. We should already be sinking, but somehow, the ship is still afloat, careening from each hit.
This reminds me so much of my first few moments aboard She Deceitful, death looking me in the eyes, my future balanced on the edge of the blade or a thin plank of wood.
But there is nothing I can do to stop it.
“I love you!” I cry out over all the noise. I hope he hears me; I hope Silas knows.
My next words die on my tongue as something slices into my stomach.
I teeter, staring down at the red blossoming across my white shirt and the large piece of wood sticking out of my gut.
It is a splicing pain, enough to knock me out, but I try to focus through it, try to stay awake.
I sway on my feet, my hands reaching for purchase, slick with blood, with my blood when something wraps around my ankle, dragging me forward.
My body slams into the deck, teeth clanking together, copper coating my tongue.
The cannon the rope is attached to flies through the air, tipping toward the railing, and I try to grab hold of a sharp object, something, anything to cut it with, but then it crashes through the railing and over the edge, and I’m falling.
“Silas!” I scream.
I hit the water. I struggle to swim to the surface, but my wet clothes and the cannon drag me down, the rope cinching tighter around my ankle.
My blood floats around me in odd little bursts of red like watercolor on canvas, and I realize this is it.
This is the end of our story, the end of our love, sunk to the depths of the sea.
And I never even got a chance to say goodbye.