Annabelle was sprawled in his bed, naked and smiling with the sheets cast aside. He was fully aroused by the time he crossed the bridge into his loft. She traced a finger down her perfect stomach, inserting it into the cleft between her legs. "I got tired of waiting."
He slipped out of his coat, tore off his shirt, and lowered his breeches. He leapt on top of her, spreading her legs and thrusting himself within. "Are they dead?" she gasped beneath him. "Ogle and the others?"
"Dead or dying," he answered, thrusting dutifully.
"Good," she said, reaching for his face. He seized her wrist and held it beside her head. She whispered, "I have another name for you."
"Oh?"
"Gabe Jenkins."
His molars gnashed. "I don't know who that is."
"I'll show you."
He slapped a palm over her mouth. "No more talking." A nasty look flashed across her face. He wondered if she would be his last, before Teach's men found him hiding away in some dark cave. There was always Katherine Lindsay, of course.
As he imagined Lindsay's vibrant red hair splayed about the pillow, he released unexpectedly. He lowered his head and groaned. Annabelle shoved his hand away from her face and stared at him expectantly. "That was fast. My turn?"
"Your turn," he replied. He scooped his arms under her and lifted her out of the bed. She squealed in delight. "But first, my pretty strumpet, I want to show you the view."
Her smile wilted as he carried her toward the edge, and her eyes began to dart frantically back and forth. "What are you doing?" she demanded, placing a hand on his chest.
"I'm sending you off, my dear. You seem an adaptable sort. Mayhap you'll sprout wings on the way down."
"No, wait!" she cried, raking her nails over his chest as she curled her fingers into a fist. He winced as she tugged at his curly auburn hairs. She kicked her legs, glancing frantically at the approaching edge.
"You've fucked me," he answered. "I must return the favor."
"I can set it right, whatever I've done."
He laughed. "That's the second time I've heard that today. Nothing can set Edward Teach right."
The edge was near. He walked slowly, allowing her time to process what was about to happen. Her frantic expressions shifted rapidly through denial, fear, despair, and renewed determination. "There's no way he could know!" she bleated, eyes wide and resolute.
Vane chuckled softly. "And yet he does."
She writhed in his arms like a cat, small sinewy muscles emerging beneath her dark skin. Her body was elegant even in struggle, her face beautiful even in distress. It would be a shame to destroy something so lovely. Then again, it would be less shameful than allowing her to grow old, withering into a hideous hag. She would never be more beautiful than she was now.
Better to shatter a crystal cup than let age chip away at it, one piece at a time.
The scar wedged in her cheek was only the first of many chips. A sign of things to come.
"You don't want to do this," she pleaded.
"I really do," he replied.
"You'll need me when Teach arrives. He'll want to see me punished. He'll want to do it himself. He'll be furious if you've killed me!"
"Then I'm doing you a favor," Vane said. "You might buy yourself a little extra time, but Teach will kill you slowly, and then he'll kill me anyway. He's no fool." He smiled down at her. "I rather like you, so I'll do you the honor of killing you promptly."
"This is insane!" she said, eyes swirling desperately in their sockets, arms and legs flailing. "With me alive at least you'll have a chance!"
"You mean you'll have a chance to escape before Teach gets here."
"Where would I go?"
He shrugged. "You're resourceful. I'd rather not find out."
"It will look even more suspicious if I'm dead and you've taken the treasure for yourself!"
"You might be right," he said as they came to the edge. His biceps ached as he held her over the precipice. The mist had crept between the docks, surrounding the ships in a milky blanket. "Mayhap it's in my best interests to keep you alive."
She locked eyes with him. He tilted her legs downward, setting her just before the edge. Relief softened her muscles, tense knots withdrawing into smooth mahogany. She crumpled against him, sobbing softly into his chest. "Thank you."
He cocked his head, as though a thought had just struck him. "Then again, you've brought me a redhead to replace you. That was either very thoughtful or very foolish."
"Katherine Lindsay is worth nothing dead!" she reminded him, cheeks blooming with rage. "Would I have been wiser to murder her?"
"Yes," he stated bluntly.
"She'll slice off your manhood before she lets you betwixt her thighs. Remember what happened to Jonathan Griffith? She's poisonous. You should lock her up with the rest of the treasure, until such time as you can trade her."
He smiled. This one was cunning when she needed to be. Unfortunately, it was the kind of cunning that arose from desperation rather than deliberation. Vane grasped one of her breasts, which was somehow soft and firm. "I must admit, there's more to you than a fantastic pair of tits."
She smiled gratefully up at him.
"If I were a wiser man, I'd take what I have and sail away with you right now, to some tropical isle where we would fuck like rabbits for the remainder of our lives. Or at least until you grew ugly, or my cock went niggardly, though I suspect the former before the latter."
She stood on her toes and drew her lips toward his. "Then be the wiser man," she urged.
He sighed, swirling the tip of his finger around an areola. "Sadly, I've never been very good at resisting base inclinations." He pinched her nipple and twisted hard, as if he was tightening a loose screw. She cried out, face racked with sudden pain. He gave her chest a light shove. It was just enough to tip her balance. She flung her hands at him, but she had already tipped too far, and she toppled over the edge, unleashing a terrible shriek that echoed off the opposite canyon wall. He leaned over the edge, watching her naked body spiral downward, toward the schooner at the western dock. Three men working on the deck scattered in separate directions. Annabelle impacted the planking like a meteor, splintered bits jutting up around her. The sound of the impact reached Vane's ears a moment later, silencing her warbled scream. Bloody stakes protruded from her torso, legs, and arms. Her wide, terrified eyes were fixated on Vane from within a garbled ruin of pink and red flesh. Her broken body slowly bent inward at the middle, sinking into the hole she had punched in the deck. She slipped through the gap, into the dark hold below, and vanished from sight.
The three men surrounded the hole, peering within. They looked up at Vane, then each other, and then back up at Vane. "The fuck are you looking at?!" Vane bellowed down at them. "Clean up that mess!"
She pushed herself forward, moving faster and faster despite the ache of her bruised and bleeding legs, and the light at the end of the passage grew brighter and brighter. She emerged into the gloom of pre-dawn, with the endless ocean spread out before her. A wonderful breeze swept over her, cool against the sweat that layered her entire body. She crumpled to her knees, not caring as they gnashed into gravel. She had already scraped them many times in the pitch black of the tunnel, which she thought she would never leave. The sun wasn't up yet, but it might as well have been. Her eyes had grown so used to the darkness that the early gloom caused her to squint.
She suspected she had come out somewhere on the far eastern side of the mountain. It was ugly and grey, with no plants or white sand. The mountainside sloped into a slim rocky beach that lined the base, stretching in either direction around the island. The stars shimmered in a moonless sky, fading eastward into an increasing violet ambience.
She skittered down the rocky hillside toward the beach, feet sliding on rolling gravel. Waist-high waves broke over the pebbled shore below. She wanted nothing more than to submerge herself. Of course, it wouldn't quench her thirst, but maybe she could find a pool of fresh water somewhere afterward. She didn't care. Her body sweltered from nonstop movement. She hadn't taken the time to rest in the tunnel. She was terrified that if she had stopped, her burning muscles would cease to muster, and she would be forever lost in the darkness. Her lungs seared with every breath, and she wheezed hoarsely.
She was halfway down when she spotted a dark blotch out of the corner of her eye. It was a large three-masted ship, moored to the north. At the top of its mainmast a black flag with a horned skeleton fretted in the wind. One skeletal hand raised a chalice in toast, while the other aimed a spear, threatening to skewer a red heart.
A chill shuddered through her. She tried to skid to a halt, but her legs slid out from under her, and she landed hard on her ass. She slid a bit further, teeth chattering as she bounced along. She grabbed hold of a boulder that was twice her size and huddled behind it, pressing her face against the cold damp rock.
In the relative silence between crashing waves, she heard voices. They had to be coming from somewhere along the beach.
"Didn't get a look at his face before I put it through his skull," one of them said.
"I got a look," said the other. "He's prettier now."
Both howled laughter.
Calloway slowly crept down the hillside to another boulder. She peered over it to the beach below. A hundred paces north, she saw two men standing before a small wooden shack with a smoldering campfire just outside it. A body was slumped beside the fire, blood gushing out of his gaping skull. He had stringy grey hair and was wearing black rags.
"'You're not supposed to be here,' he says," laughed a lanky man that leaned awkwardly on a bum leg.
"Aye, that's a new one," agreed a compact man with a fat belly bound by a red sash. "I'd wager he'd been out here a while. He wasn't very sprightly."
"Vane got what he paid for," said the other.
Calloway saw a small boat bobbing in the water, tethered to a stake. These two must have come from the ship offshore. Was there nowhere safe on this cursed isle?
The squat one stretched his neck and looked Calloway's way. She ducked low, heart thudding rapidly. "Must be a way in somewhere around here," she heard him say.
"Maybe. Or maybe Vane shipped him over and left him out here."
"Rotten job. Almost feel bad for bashing his face in."
"Almost," said the other, and they both laughed.
They were silent for a few minutes. Calloway waited, hands flat against the boulder, listening to the waves crashing over the pebbled shore. When one of them spoke again, his voice was alarmingly close, and she jolted in shock. "Has to be a way in. Why else would Vane put a lookout all the way over here? He was meant to warn Vane if he saw anyone, and he probably would have if he hadn't been asleep."
"He shoulda stationed two out here," said the other, also very close. It sounded like they were just on the other side of the boulder. "That's what I woulda done. One to watch while the other sleeps."
"That's just commonly sensible. You heard what Teach said. Vane's getting sloppy."
"Oy, what's that?"
"Eh? What's what?"
"Looks like a hole in the mountain."
"Hello! Told you!"
She heard their feet shuffling in the gravel, on either side.
They're coming around!
Calloway flattened herself against the rock, closed her eyes, and prayed that they would walk right past her.
"What have we here?" A hand snatched her by the collar and tossed her onto her back. The squat one set his foot on her chest and leered down at her. "It's a boy. Second lookout?"
"That's not a boy, you oaf," said the lanky one.
The squat man scowled. "Hair's cut like one."
"Oh, then it must be a boy then," said the other sarcastically.
"Teats are too small. Maybe I should check between its legs." The squat man bent down and reached for Calloway's crotch. She seized his foot and shoved hard. He collapsed against the rock, growling furiously. "You'll pay for that, whatever you are!"
The lanky one drew a dagger and circled behind her, shuffling on a bad limp. "How is it you came to be out here?"
"I killed one of Vane's men," she answered quickly. If these were Teach's men, she had best ally herself fast. "Didn't think he'd appreciate that, so I ran."
The lanky man lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "How old are you?"
"Fifteen," she chirped quickly, hoping youth would encourage their sympathy.
The squat man shrugged. "I've killed younger."
She licked her lips, thinking fast. "You want to get through that passage, you'll need me. I just came through. It was very long and confusing."
The squat man glared at her. "If you stumbled through it so easy in the dark, I wager we won't have no trouble finding our way with torches."
"I was lucky," she said.
"I wouldn't call this a lucky outcome," the lanky one chuckled.
"Let's see if you really are a girl," the squat man said, drawing his knife and advancing.
"Now hold on a minute, now," the other interjected, stepping between them. "Let's not be hasty, Hemett."
"Yes," Calloway agreed, setting her hands on the lanky man's shoulders and taking refuge behind him. "Let's not be hasty, Hemett."
"And why shouldn't I be, hmm?" Hemett said, puffing his chest. "It's been months since I had a woman. I'm throbbing, Ned. Strapped Bodice was my favorite whorehouse, you know that! And Rogers took it away from me when he took Nassau! Now I have to go all the way to Tortuga for my pleasure. I can count on two fingers how often we been to Tortuga in the past year."
Calloway shrank behind her human shield, skinny though he was. She had probably met these two during her time at The Strapped Bodice, but there were too many men to remember. She was thankful they didn't recognize her. Her shortened hair apparently worked wonders in altering her appearance.
"You didn't even know this was a woman till I told you it was," Ned replied.
"He makes a good point, Hemett," Calloway said, peeking over Ned's shoulder.