Dark of the Moon, continued...

[dwgm]

~ Dark of the Moon ~

Part 1
Part 2


Oh, bloody hell.

Jack leaned back against the door, closing his eyes for just a moment. But the distraction of vision was required, really, in order to cope with the grating sounds of feminine distress (bordering on hysteria if he was any judge) and the pain of the cut on his shoulder (shallow, but seeping, and ruining his favorite shirt). So he looked again at his… prize.

Pretty, in a washed out sort of way – or he’d thought so before, when she wasn’t weeping -- but too young and tremulous to be of much interest to him in the way she feared. She’d been married though, even young as she was – he could still see the husband’s face in his mind’s eye, livid with agony, then going slack as the life went out of him, blood pooling beneath the body. Bit of an ass, challenging pirates when he’d a wife to protect. It was her screams that’d alerted Jack to the fight, and when Knacker finished the husband and went for her, well, he couldn’t let that pass, could he? Not knowing Knacker’s proclivities as he did.

Her sobs were growing less. He groped for a handkerchief, found it, and straightened, holding it out.

“Here.”

She peeked up, her pale blue eyes swimming and rimmed with red. Saw what he was holding and let her hands fall, revealing mottled cheeks, quivering lips, and a nose desperately in need of that handkerchief.

She took it from him, and then took her time, blotting her face, blowing her nose, her breath hitching and shuddering all the while. Eventually she glanced up, looking him over again, uncertainly. She cleared her throat a bit and said, “Are you… don’t you like women?”

He stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. He was tempted to say, “God’s teeth, girl, shall I fetch a mirror?” but, in view of the fact that they would likely be sharing a cabin for some time, he said only, “I like ‘em – when they’re willing. Which, I presume, you’re not. Or have I misconstrued the sudden attack of vapors? Is it just that you don’t like tea, then?”

And offended her anyway. She said in a shaking voice, “I have every right to cry. You’ve killed my husband!”

“Have not. ‘Twas Knacker – and it was your fool of a husband that provoked ‘im.”

“He… he…” But she broke off in evident consternation, unable to acquit her spouse of this accusation. For a moment Jack thought she was going to commence weeping again, but instead she surprised him by changing the subject all together. “Your mother! And what would she say about you being a pirate? But I daresay she would not object at all and was some… some horrid low creature.”

Jack’s good humor vanished. It must’ve shown, for he saw her cringe in alarm, her brief defiance at an end. “You,” he stated in voice of quiet menace, “will never mention my mother again. Savvy?”

She nodded quickly, biting her lip to stop its trembling.

He went on. “I’m going out, to have this seen to.” He turned the arm so she could see the wound he’d taken in her behalf, and was pleased when she seemed startled and concerned. But he continued severely, “You’ll bolt the door and let no one in ‘til I return. I’ll knock twice, then twice again, so you know it’s me. And if you’re slow to open it for me, or get up to any tricks while I’m gone, you will deeply regret it.”

She stifled a sob.

He pointed an accusatory finger and snapped, “And no crying while I’m in the cabin.”

She nodded again, looking a bit frantic.

He nodded, too. “I’ll bring you some tea.”

He left, then, and shut the door, and was pleased to hear the bolt being set a few seconds later. But then a wail of despair was heard, followed by a fresh series of loud, choking sobs.

Bloody hell.