There was another bang as Amanda stuck her head out into the hallway. She stumbled out of the door and followed the sounds all the way to the hold with the pegasus. He was tied up tighter than she’d left him and she watched as he suddenly bucked and booted the ship’s wall behind him making the exact sound she’d heard.

“Oh, it’s you,” she cooed softly as she walked across the floor to meet him. “You’re the ghost.” She paused. “That’s not a bad name for you actually, Ghost. How do you like that huh?”

He whinnied as she approached and then blew a raspberry through his nose.

She laughed and then stroked his soft coat. “Oh, you poor thing. Someone’s tied you up so you can barely move.” It wasn’t the first time she had found him like this.

“That’s so he won’t fall over and injure himself.”

She turned to find Michael sitting on a crate watching her. He held a cup in one hand and she could smell the alcohol from here. Truthfully she kind of wanted a drink herself right about now but she wasn’t about to ask Michael for one.

She put her hands on her hips and felt the pegasus restlessly nudge her hair from behind. “If you knew anything at all about pegasi you’d know they have excellent balance, better than most people. They aren’t just horses with wings. He’d do find with this sort of movement and if you really were trying to make him stable you wouldn’t have just tied his head.” Furiously she turned away from him and started loosing the lead. “He needs room to roam.”

“If he has room to roam then he just kicks when we come to feed him,” Michael drawled lazily.

“He doesn’t kick me. I’ll do the feeding then,” she told him without turning around. “Not that I haven’t been doing most of it anyway,” she mumbled under her breath. Michael was often late or forgetful with the food, not just for the Ghost but for the two other pegasi on the ship. They were only foals though and, Amanda thought, far too young to have been taken from their mother. Something must have happened to her for them to be on their own. She hoped it hadn’t been during their capture.

Suddenly she felt something grab her by the hair from behind and yank her backwards. The next minute Michael had his face thrust up next to her ear and was whispering furiously, “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us don’t ya?”

Right then, Ghost, as he was now called, stretched his neck forward and bit Michael right on the shoulder.

“Arrgh!” Michael shrieked and then he whacked Ghost right in the face.

Amanda tried to grab his arm. “Don’t you hit him!”

Michael turned and grabbed her instead. Then with one hand around her neck he dragged her away from the reach of the pegasus. Ghost whinnied mournfully.

Michael pushed her up against the wall of the ship. “I think you need to be brought down a peg or two,” he growled right in her face. He was so close she could smell the onions he’d had for lunch.

She tried to push him off but he was so much stronger than she was.

“Hel-!” She screamed out, hoping to get someone’s attention but Michael pressed one hand tight around her throat cutting off the sound.

She thrashed and kicked and fought but he held her still, her feet barely touching the ground.

With his free hand he slowly slid it up and under the edge of her shirt.

That was it. That was as far as she was letting him get. It was enough. Fear of any other repercussions be damned right now she was fighting for her life. She called upon her powers and she summoned fire. Even in the position she was in she could control it well. She didn’t burn him whole as he might deserve. Even now she used her magic carefully, subtlety. Into her neck and her belly, where ever his hands touched her she summoned a hot burning flame. Nothing like a normal flame, not wild but tightly focused, and with all the heat facing him and only him. Not even her clothes would be singed.

“Arrrgh!” he screamed, even louder than she had and he pulled back. He looked down at his hands. Each of them was lobster red. “Arrgh! What did you do to me you bitch?”

“What’s going on in here?” a voice asked from the doorway.

At the same time, while Amanda was trying to get her breath back, Michael raised a closed fist and he struck her sideways across the face.

She crumpled to the floor from the force of it.

Nearby, two pairs of men’s boots scuffled about violently.

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Amanda hesitantly touched one hand to her left temple where Michael had struck her. It stung and the world took a moment to come back into focus. When it did she looked up to see Bob-bee beating the life out of Michael. Bob-bee seemed to keep he feet much better with the rocking of the boat and he was using it to his advantage to throw Michael around the room, getting in punches where he could. He’d throw him against the wall in order to keep himself upright and then catch him again as the boat tilted the other way.

“Oi! What’s all this?” another voice cried from the doorway.

She recognised Shiv’s voice this time. Two more men followed him into the room soon after. It took her a second to register that it was Sirius, and Jimmi, the big bearded guy who was one of the few of the crew who was taller and bigger than Sirius.

Shiv grabbed Bob-bee by the back of the shirt and yanked him off Michael. Bob-bee was taller than Shiv but Shiv was stronger.

Michael stumbled backwards away from Bob-bee with his hands raised. He pointed to Amanda.

“That bitch burnt me.”

Bob-bee pointed to Michael. “He hit her. I saw him.”

Shiv looked at each of them in turn.

Sirius met Amanda’s gaze. She could see his jaw tense and eyes darken. There was a cool rage growing there somewhere beneath that calm outer surface.

She dropped her hand from her temple down to her lap and from a quick glance, realised there was blood on her fingers.

“Put him in the brig,” Sirius commanded.

Jimmi moved forward to take Michael.

“Oh, come one!” Michael cried. “I was provoked! Look what she did to my hands.”

“I don’t see any burns, mate. They just look red.” Jimmi remarked as he took a hold of Michael’s shoulders.

“That’s cause they’re burnt!” he screamed.

“Where’s the singe marks then?” Neko asked as he too joined the group in the room. Behind him, Amanda could see Alice and one brown-haired crewman that she didn’t recognise.

Shiv was still looking from Michael to Amanda. Amanda could see that Shiv didn’t trust either of them.

Neko crossed the room toward Amanda. He glared toward Michael the entire way. Then he offered a hand out to Amanda. “You alright?” he asked as he helped her to her feet.

She nodded although truthfully she was a little shaken.

“This is ridiculous!” Michael screamed. “I’ve had to put up with derision and disrespect since the moment I set foot on this boat. Every day some arsehole puts an egg in my shoes or my bed and then this wench who keeps getting in the way of my job has the audacity to try to claim what isn’t hers. She acts like the ground she walks on is paved with fucking gold. Well I’m fucking sick if it! When we get to Scarlett I-”

“That pegasus was hers to begin with and you damn well know it,” Sirius told him in a voice that was almost a growl. “That’s stolen property that we’re shipping for your boss. Don’t pretend like it ain’t. And given the way you’ve acted I’ve half a mind to give it right back to her right now.”

An unsettling silence descended upon the rest of the crew. Amanda watched as many of them looked surprised and maybe even a little worried at Sirius’ words. Jimmi was hard to read, staunch and silent as always but she saw his eyebrows twitch down briefly at the mention of giving her the pegasus. Neko had placed himself slightly defensively in front of Amanda and was still glaring at Michael but even he looked surprised at the threat. Alice was frowning.

The crewman she didn’t recognise shared a look with Shiv. Then Shiv glanced at Amanda. She felt like she was being put under scrutiny. From the thoughtful look on his face she felt that her powers would not be secret for long if they even still were. She got the distinctive feeling that maybe he already knew.

Sirius didn’t appear to notice the reactions of the crew. She could see he was angry from the look in his eyes and the tension in his jaw, angrier than she’d ever seen him look but physically he still remained calm, his body relaxed, mostly. He was focused on Michael.

“When Sirena-”

“Fuck Sirena!” Sirius told him plainly. “Jimmi, take him to the hold. Put him under watch. Don’t let him out or give him any food unless I say so got it?”

She noticed Shiv’s mouth twitch but it wasn’t upwards. He wasn’t happy with his captain’s actions. She could tell.

Jimmi did as he was told and started dragging Michael toward the door.

“You stupid fools!” Michael cried. “That girl’s a firestarter. That was fire she burned me with. I fucking felt it.”

“You’ll feel my fist in your skull if you don’t shut up,” Jimmi told him in a bored tone.

“Oh, come on,” Alice added. “If she were a firestarter how come only your hands are red and nothing else hmm? Ain’t no firestarter that precise.”

“Besides,” Neko added, “Amanda’s a good person. She wouldn’t endanger us by keeping a secret like that.”

Amanda felt her stomach curl in on its self as Neko’s comment landed a square kick in the guts. Across the room Sirius was looking at her thoughtfully and beady-eyed Shiv was giving Michael a similar look as he was dragged from the room. Alice followed Jimmi and Michael out.

Neko turned to Amanda. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

She put on her best poker face and nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

The others stood in silence for a moment and a couple of curious new faces appeared at the door. Sirius noticed them and then commanded, “Alright, back to work everyone, shows over”

Shiv made for the door calling to the unnamed crewman as he did. “Fallon, a word?”

Fallon? The infuser? That Fallon? Shit! Could he tell what her powers were? He hadn’t been there when she’d used them but maybe he’d been close enough?

Neko hesitated.

“It’s alright,”Sirius told him, “I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

Still Neko hesitated but only briefly. Then he walked towards the door. He glanced back only once, just in time to see Sirius raise a gentle hand to brush Amanda’s hair out of the way so he could see where Michael had hit her.

“Come on,” Sirius told her. “We’ll go get that fixed up.”

At first Amanda thought he was leading her to the medical closet but he wasn’t. He took her to his cabin instead. He told her to wait there and then he left.

She took a seat on the bed and waited. Now he had to ask her what she was surely? It was no longer a game. Another of her father’s mantras entered her head then.

‘All of life is a game. There ain’t nothing you can do about it except play the hand you’re dealt.’

A lot of her father’s mantras related to cards in some way. Cards and horses and booze.

It didn’t feel like a game though. It felt like her heart was at stake, or maybe her life. She wasn’t even sure which was worse.

Okay then, so how did she play this hand?