Chapter 11, Sarah

  "We're on wash duty tonight."

  A tall sailor approaches, holding a heavy wooden crate full of dirty bowls in front of me. When I stand, they shove it against my stomach, forcing me to grab hold. They pick up another crate and I follow them out the door.

  We set up near the saltwater cisterns on the forecastle. The water inside them sloshes gently with the ship’s motion, a quiet reminder that I’m not on solid ground. No introductions. Scarcely any eye contact. But no tension either. Just the rhythm of two people doing the same job, side by side. We finish and return the crates full of clean dishes to the galley, my partner disappearing into the night before I even set mine down. I have to assume there are plenty of others on this ship who are just trying to survive, same as I am.

  The murmur of shanties and the slap of boots on wood preceding a string of notes crackling from a harmonica fills my ears as I wander out onto the main deck. A rising energy. A flicker of laughter. Then a rhythmic chant.

  “Hell-cat! Hell-cat! Hell-cat!”

  I look over and see a crowd gathered around a contained fire. They’ve stopped drinking and gambling to watch someone… her.

  "No, no." Roberts stands at the edge of the firelight, shaking her head, a lazy grin pulling at her mouth. "Not happening."

  If I had to guess, I’d say they’re calling her Hellcat like it’s a nickname. But I’ve also heard some refer to the ship by the same name.

  I don’t understand. Is Hellcat her? Or the ship? It doesn’t sound like a distinction exists. Like Hellcat isn’t just a name, but a force. It’s the ship, it’s Roberts, it’s both.

  The chant grows louder, insistent. Someone stomps in time, and soon, the whole crew is pounding the deck, hands clapping, demanding.

  Finally, as if gracing them with a gift, Roberts grins and tips her hat. A few effortless steps, a flick of her wrist, a twist of her heel and they erupt, roaring with delight.

  She tips her hat again, reveling in their cheers, and as she straightens, her eyes find mine. Through the fire, across the deck, she sees me.

  I’m nudged from all sides as the crew funnels towards the commotion.

  The fire crackles, spitting embers into the night air. I meant to linger at the edge of the circle, but somehow I’ve been pushed to the front, arms wrapped around myself, hands still damp from seawater.

  Roberts raises her shoulders and pulls her arms back slightly as a crew member steps up behind her holding a midnight-blue coat. They slide the coat up her arms and onto her shoulders and the heavy fabric settles on her like a second skin.

  The broad cuffs are turned back, revealing gold embroidery curling over the edges. A row of silver buttons gleams down the front, unfastened. The high collar stands stiff, framing her throat. She’s taken on a persona that’s still her, but extra, theatrical.

  She reaches out with an open palm. “Margery.”

  A dense-looking figure steps up behind me. Heavyset, with leathery skin and hair shorn close to the scalp. I shift quickly to the side to let them pass and nearly stumble into a barrel.

  “Easy,” someone mutters. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Relax,” another calls. “Gery doesn’t bite.”

  Then a third voice, sly and taunting “But she will, if you ask her nicely.”

  “Fuck off, I’m taken.” She says, grinning as she steps past me.

  “That’s right,” someone adds. “Don’t give Esme any more reasons to come marking her territory.”

  Roberts indulges in the laughter then cuts through it with a wave of her hand.

  "What do you have to offer, that Hellcat might accept the bondage of your soul to hers?"

  “A family heirloom,” Margery says, lowering herself to one knee and slipping a ring from her finger. "A piece of my father, and his father before him." She holds it up high above her head for Roberts and all to see. "I give it freely, Captain, to be swallowed by Hellcat, so that she might know me as hers."

  A murmur ripples through the crew, approval weighted in nods. Roberts considers her silently, letting the moment stretch. Then, finally, she reaches out, takes the ring, rolling it between her fingers like she’s feeling its worth.

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  She speaks in a lilt that rolls off her tongue like scripture, and the crew hangs on every word.

  “Blood and gold,” she says. Her voice is quiet, but it carries.

  “That’s the price of my promise to protect you as my own.

  You’ve already shed blood—not just surviving, but charging headfirst into every stand we’ve made since you joined this crew.

  And tonight, your offering joins the others, sealed in the bones of Hellcat herself.

  You don’t just sail her. You become her.”

  Then she lifts the ring to her mouth and bites down on it. The fire catches the gleam of her grin.

  “Let any officer who objects to sealing their fate to Gerry’s speak now.”

  Silence follows. She tosses the ring into the flames. I hear a faint clink as it lands in a small crucible nestled in the heart of the fire.

  The silence holds for half a second before cheers erupt, hands clapped to Gery’s shoulders. Someone stomps out the first beat of a shanty, and the rest follow, voices rolling into the night.

  I can justify Roberts' confidence, her power, even her cruelty. But this is cultish. And that’s saying something, because I was raised in one. What does a person have to do to inspire this kind of obsessive loyalty?

  It’s not just fear. Fear makes people obey, but it doesn’t make them offer up pieces of themselves, as if they want nothing more than to sell their soul to it. Roberts goes beyond their captain. She’s their myth. Their living legend. Their saint.

  Kill the captain, become the captain. Or so I’ve heard. But everything I’ve seen tonight tells me that’s a lie. This crew wouldn’t just follow the next strongest hand. They wouldn’t turn on her for power, or gold, or fear. They love her.

  If I so much as think about taking her down, claiming this ship, setting my own course, they’ll gut me where I stand.

  I tell myself I’ll figure it out tomorrow. How long I’ll be on this ship. How long before I can get off and set things right. Tonight, I just need to rest.

  I wander below deck, following the path Roberts showed me earlier. My feet move on instinct, my mind too wrecked to do anything but let them.

  The moment I step into the room, I freeze. It’s already occupied. This isn’t my room. Was it ever meant to be? For a brief, humiliating second, I think maybe this was a joke. That Roberts let me believe I was getting a bed just to watch me realize I wasn’t.

  Whether it’s cruelty or indifference, I don’t have a place here. And no one cares where I sleep. Whoever they are, passed out snoring and drooling, they’ll just have to share.

  I sit against the wall, arms around my knees, head tilted back. The ship rocks beneath me in a slow, ceaseless motion that might lull anyone else to sleep, but not me. Sleep has been my enemy for as long as I can remember. And Trish... she was the only thing that ever worked. Without her, I doubt it will find me at all.

  I close my eyes anyway and fall hard into a dream. The only thing stranger than the fact that I’m dreaming, since I never do, is that I know I’m dreaming. It’s not one of my usual night terrors, formless and faceless. This is vivid, like I’ve been transported to another place, into another body.

  I’m weak, crawling through underbrush, painfully aware of a gnawing hunger. I freeze, zeroing in on the rustle of a small creature. The gerbil squeaks, but it’s already sliding down my throat.

  I climb a tree, slurping up a few frogs on the way. Next, a snake that thrashes and resists, sharpening my hunger for something bigger. The branch beneath me groans. Before it snaps, I take flight, wings slicing through the wind.

  I dive, cutting the sky in half with a shriek so violent it warps the air before my face. My veins swell with hot blood. My teeth gnash, desperate to tear into something that can fight back.

  And then I see a girl, standing below. A different kind of hunger gnaws at me now. The jungle dissolves, heat twisting into candlelight and the hush of the sleeping quarters at the academy. The dim light blurs the edges of the memory, but the heat of it remains.

  I’ve seen this before. The angry red welts striping her back, the way they stand out against her skin, mesmerizing, drawing me in when I should look away. I can feel her hand closing over mine, guiding it lower, pressing it against her, into the slick heat between her legs. The shock of it, the raw intimacy, igniting a searing heat between my own legs that I almost give into.

  My surroundings shift. The warmth of the room fades, cool damp rising up in its place. Pebbles crunching under my boots. Salt on my lips. Sweat on my skin. Roberts circling behind me.

  Another shift. We’re on the ship and now I’m standing behind Roberts. She reaches back, finds my hand. My lips part, and a name spills out like a confession. "Darlene."

  I wake with a sharp inhale, the name still echoing in my mind. I can feel the shape of it on my tongue, like I just spoke it aloud. What time is it? It’s still dark. I usually wake from my night terrors around three a.m., but whatever just pulled me from sleep was nothing like that.

  I sit up slowly, pulse still uneven. Why the hell would I be dreaming about Darlene?

  Dreaming about Roberts, I can brush that off. Just my mind trying to make sense of the mess I’ve landed in. And the hunting, the shrieking, the flight. I think I was a dragon. Even that, I can rationalize. But Darlene… she was a long, long time ago.

  I press my palms into my face, exhaling slowly. It doesn’t matter. Having dreamt at all is the real mystery.

  I don’t know how long I walk. Long enough to make a full lap around the ship, but not long enough for anything to change.

  The deck is nearly empty except for a few sailors leaning against the railing, blowing puffs of smoke out at the dark horizon. The night air is cool, salty, and thick with damp. I breathe it in deep, trying to settle something in my chest that doesn’t want to be settled.

  I glance up at the sky, searching for some sign of time, but the clouds swallow the stars, and the moon is nowhere to be seen. Still the middle of the night, I decide. Has to be.

  The galley door creaks when I push it open, the warmth inside curling around me like an embrace. The stove still holds onto the heat from earlier, and before I can talk myself out of it, I settle onto the floor beside it. I don’t remember closing my eyes.