The first thing I did was get my damned shoulder back where it was supposed to be. I was grateful for the wind and rain, because without it, I might have heard a sickening crunch when I snapped it back in. As it was, all I heard was my own voice, in pain, as it happened. I leaned forward against the lines, still barely holding myself up, my legs hooked through and my good arm holding on for dear life.

The ship swayed back and forth in the waves and I dared not look down. I stared at the mast in front of me, taking deep breaths, willing the pain to die away. Willing the fear to subside. I could not pick a single thing to think about that would not send me into a spiral—the swaying, the pain, or Cort.

Cort, who had pulled me from the brink of death. Cort, whose eyes had nearly glowed with the reflection of a flash of lightning. A human’s eyes should not glow like that. But I should be glad he was not human. It meant there was even a sliver of a chance he was still alive.

I tried to move my left arm. It felt slightly numb, and radiated still with pain, but it would move. I grit my teeth, and through the pain, I forced myself to move. I could reach the deck, and then I would let myself panic.

And yet when I reached the deck, I held the panic off further. I located him first: shattered, and laying in a heap. Broken. He had hit the deck rather than the water, mercifully for him. I wondered why I didn’t wish he had landed in the water. If he had, perhaps I would finally know a little peace. And yet, I was glad he had not.

I would get him below deck, and then I would panic.

My arm still thrummed with waves of numbness and dull aching. A barrel slid past me as the ship pitched and rolled, and I dropped down a bit, staying closer to the deck. I stumbled still, but I reached him eventually.

If my shoulder had been all at the wrong angle, this was worse. He had landed on his head—on the back of it, snapping his neck. Even though I knew it was unlikely that he would not recover from this ordeal, I was puzzled by the way I felt cold all over at his apparent death. I hated it, the way his eyes were frozen open in shock and his neck was wrenched out of place. I had seen him as a corpse so many times before but I had not been forced to look. I had simply made him so, and walked away. I had not touched his cold, clammy skin. I had not felt how he was limp like a dead man would be.

What if he was really dead, this time?

I did not feel the relief at the concept that I had thought I would.

“I will get you below deck,” I said under the rain, closing his eyes gently with my thumb and forefinger and then gingerly moving some of the wet hair out of his face. “And then, I will let myself panic.”

I was lucky that he had fallen fairly close to the hatch that we had come up through. Straining against his weight and the pain in my shoulder, I wrapped my arms under his shoulders and around his chest, dragging him best as I could toward safety. The danger was different now—not only would the sun kill him if it rose before I got him below, it would also set him ablaze, and he would certainly take the whole ship with him.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I lay his body down softly once more to open the hatch. My arms stung with the effort of climbing, pulling up the sails, tying knots, and carrying him. I begged myself internally to go a little longer.

“We’re almost there,” I said, half to his body and half to myself.

I’m ashamed to say I mostly just shoved his body through the hatch. If I hadn’t been so worried about the storm and the sun that would follow it, I might have found it funny the way he tumbled down. I followed quickly after him, though I had to give him one more good shove to get him to the bottom.

After the hatch was secured I leaned heavily on a post, staring at the body and wondering where I would put it. The brig, I thought, it’ll still have to be the brig. Damn, but that feels like it’s miles away. I had no other options, though. I simply could not abide by leaving him free to roam, whether I was willing to admit that my attitude toward him was changing or not.

I took a moment to breathe. He wasn’t getting up any time soon.

When I felt like I could even stand to think about lifting him again, I did so. Slowly, taking frequent breaks, I finally got him into the brig and slammed the door shut, leaning against the door heavily when I had. I fished the lock and key up from where I’d thrown them to the ground in my panic, then stared at them. Looked down at him. He was soaking wet, hair and clothes still dripping, a puddle forming around him in the straw. I frowned.

“Damn it,” I muttered to myself, and slid the lock through the latch but left it unlocked as I stumbled through the still violently rocking ship toward the bunks. At times, I was almost walking sideways against the leaning of the ship against the waves.

First I found some dry clothes for myself, even going so far as to take a moment to revel in the feeling of dry cloth against my damp skin. My shoulder gave me a new shock of pain as I raised my arms over my head to take off my shirt, and again when I put on a new one, but soon I was a good sight warmer and drier than I had been. I turned my attention to finding Cort’s things.

I actually already had. The first day I’d had the thought to poke around a bit, I’d looked until I found the clothes I was certain belonged to him (mostly because I’d seen him wearing some of them before). I knew which hammock was his. I’d even known his name. I just … I hadn’t let myself even think about it.

James Harcourt the Third. It hadn’t said ‘the third’ in the little journal he’d kept. I hadn’t read beyond his name, I hadn’t dared. His name was already more than I’d wanted to know about who he’d been before. When I came across the journal now, I carefully lay it aside.

I rummaged around his things until I found a clean shirt and pants, and made my way back to the brig.

With clean clothes folded next to him, out of reach of the wet on top of a bed of straw, and him laying flat on the ground, I finally locked the door to the brig. I nearly collapsed to the ground, lying down on my back, and letting out a deep sigh from the bottom of my chest.

I had done it. I could finally panic. I could panic on and on, as much as I wanted, until the sun rose and set again.

Panic would not come. I hadn’t the energy. Instead, what finally came for me was something I’d been longing after for days. I finally, finally, fell asleep.