Unhooked(25)

Boys—the Captain’s and these new ones—are everywhere, and each is fighting with a vicious skill that takes my breath away. I don’t know what to do, exactly. My mind races as I take in the chaos, and I think maybe if I can get to one of those boats, I could try to get away.

But I’m barely down the steps that lead to the main deck before two large boys corner me against the bulwark of the ship. Their faces are painted with what looks like dark flaking mud, so the only features I can make out are the whites of their flat, emotionless eyes. One of the boys is missing the lower half of his arm. There’s no blood, though. It just looks like the skin where his arm ends has gone black and the bottom half of it has simply cracked off.

Because I’m still trying to make sense of what I’m seeing, I don’t notice another boy dressed in ragged furs moving toward me. In an instant, he has me locked tightly against his rank-smelling body, and his strong forearm is pressing against my neck to hold me in place.

“Captain!” The nearby voice is familiar, but I can’t put a name to the sandy-haired boy it belongs to. “They’ve got the girl!”

Across the ship, I spot the Captain. He is, perhaps, the most vicious of all, his face twisted in rage as his dual blades slash at whatever—and whomever—is in his way. He turns at the boy’s call and, when he sees what’s happened, he stops dead in his tracks.

“William, Wren, Arthur!” He plunges back into the fight, his blade cutting deep into the boy who had been about to attack him. The small body jerks and then falls, bleeding its life out onto the deck, but the Captain merely steps over it. “Get her!”

As the Captain’s boys turn toward the two who have me cornered, I writhe and kick against the ironlike hold of the boy who has me, but I can’t free myself.

The three boys the Captain sent—Will and two I don’t recognize—circle the two attackers. Their small white teeth are bared, and their sharp blades are poised and ready to strike. In any other situation, three-to-two might not have been a fair fight, but the two larger boys fight dirty.

In the blink of an eye, my captors attack the Captain’s boys. Their blades sing with the violence of the battle, and it’s not long before they are beating my rescuers back. With a vicious lunge, one of my attackers paints a bright crimson slash across the chest of the smallest of the Captain’s crew.

The ribbon of scarlet creeps across his shirt as the boy crumples to the deck, his eyes wide with shock. But the fallen boy’s astonishment is more than just from the pain of his wound—it’s like he’s suddenly come to understand that his swordplay has always been more than just a game of pretend.

The Captain’s other boy watches the dark stain spread beneath his friend’s body as Will continues to beat back my attackers. But when the fallen boy goes still, the living boy’s features harden—a subtle shift that narrows his eyes and curls his lips in a murderous sneer. With an earsplitting shriek, he lunges once again into the fray to help Will, his wrath focused less on freeing me than on destroying the boy who’s killed his friend.

His attack is so brutally unexpected that his small dagger easily finds its mark. With a vicious thrust, he forces the blade deep into the belly of the one who killed his friend. Then, his eyes burning with fury, he turns to help Will finish off my other captor.

The one who has me seems to understand that his friend probably won’t win against two of the Captain’s crew, and he begins to back away from the fight. Little by little, he drags me along the deck. Toward the longboats.

I struggle violently to get away from him, pulling with all my strength at his filth-covered sleeve and kicking at his legs. But he’s pressing his arm so tightly against my throat, I can barely breathe. Already my vision is starting to go dark around the edges, and my lungs are screaming for oxygen.

Then, just as I think I can’t stay conscious for one moment longer, the boy’s body goes rigid. All at once, he releases me from his hold.

Gasping for air, I stumble to my knees, and when I turn to look up, I see what’s caused him to release me—he’s been stabbed. The tip of a dark blade protrudes from his belly. Around it, blood blooms. His shaking hands grab at the blade, like he’s trying to push it back through, but it’s too late. His body gives a violent jerk as someone else pulls at the blade, and blood gurgles from his mouth as his knees give out and he falls to the deck.

Behind him, the Captain stands, his blade coated with the boy’s dark blood. His eyes murderously set on me.

“Get her up from there.” The Captain’s voice is rough with exhaustion and barely leashed temper.

The battle is already dying down as thin yet strong arms hoist me up from the deck. But I can’t take my eyes off the crumpled body of the boy at my feet. It doesn’t even matter that he was hurting me, or that he would have tried taking me. . . . I’ve never seen someone die. And his death was so violent, I can’t seem to stop myself from shaking.

“How many did we lose?” The Captain’s voice is brutally cold.

“Just four, including Wren,” Will says, nodding toward the small boy who died trying to save me. “Little Davey’s injured, but he might pull through.”

A tall dark-skinned boy with hair braided like snakes approaches. He’s bleeding from a gash above his eye and seems almost shell-shocked as he takes in the carnage on the deck around him. “Where did they all come from?” he asks, his hand shaking as he wipes at the blood dripping into his eye.