Enslaved By The Ocean (5 page)

I find myself the cleanest spot on the floor, and curl up as my stomach turns and protests. I close my eyes; my body is exhausted. I know I need to turn my mind off and rest, but I’m terrified. How will we get off this ship? God, will we get off this ship? What happens after they sell me? Will they kill Eric? Dump him in the ocean? I would never sleep again knowing something had happened to him because of me. And, let’s face it, this one is on me. I was the one who tried to run.
 

I feel my mind spin and I try to count, in a poor attempt to settle it. I need to rest. I need my strength. Everything inside me hurts, and the outside is so battered I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to go home. I want to go and re-make every stupid decision in my life that led me to this point. Would I ever see another person again? Or would these pirates be all I knew forever? Worse, if they truly did sell me, would I spend the rest of my life as a sex slave?
 

I shiver and my stomach coils tightly.
 

I won’t cry.
 

They don’t deserve that.
 

“Police!” someone suddenly yells.
 

Police? I bolt upright, and my body screams in protest. I tilt my head to the side, and try and listen to the noises above.  Beside me, Eric begins stirring.
 

“Get the guns ready,” another bellows.
 

“They’re close, but they know they can’t bring us in,” a pirate barks. “Let them try
. W
e will blow them to smithereens before they get the chance.”
 

There are police close by? I get to my hands and knees, and my stomach turns angrily. Is this our chance for freedom? Can we escape? Eric is awake now, and he’s staring at me, his gaze a little far off. “W…w…what’s happening?”
 

“The police!” I cry. “They’re outside.”
 

His eyes widen, and he gets on his hands and knees too. “We need to make noise, scream for help.”
 

“They’ll kill us,” I cry, shaking my head.
 

“They’re going to kill us anyway, Indigo. Scream!”
 

“HELP!” I scream, my entire body filling with adrenaline. “Someone HELP!”
 

“HELP US!” Eric bellows loudly. “HELP!”
 

We hear cursing and shuffling on board, as well as loud yelling. Every inch of my skin tingles, and my heart is thumping so hard it is making me feel a little ill. This is it, possibly the only chance we’ll ever get to escape.
 

“HELP!” We both yell at the same time, so loudly I have no doubt they heard. We keep going.
 

I hear the cell door swing open, and Hendrix comes storming down. Okay, he is the last person I expected to see. His eyes are wild, and he charges in until he hits the bars. He grips them and glares at me. “Shut up,” he barks.
 

“Like hell,” I croak. “HELP!”
 

He pulls his gun from his jeans, and he points it at me. “Shut it, or I kill you.”
 

“Do you think I care?” I scream. “Go ahead and kill me, it’s got to be better than what you have planned.”
 

Something flashes across his expression for a moment, before he turns his gun to Eric. My body freezes.
 

“But you do care if I kill him.”
 

“Don’t,” I rasp.
 

He turns his dark gaze to me. “Shut your mouth
. O
ne more word, and I fucking blow him to pieces in front of you.”
 

“Just let us go,” I cry.
 

“Didn’t you hear me?” he bellows. “I said, shut up!”
 

I get up to my feet, and everything inside me shakes. I walk over, gripping the bars and glaring through them. “Kill us then, you’ll be doing us both a favor. HELP!”
 

He snarls, rips a key out of his pocket and unlocks the bar. As soon as he pulls the door open, I charge. His arm lashes out and hits me in the chest, sending me flying backwards. I land on my backside, but my body is full of far more determination than anything else he could throw at me. I lunge to my hands and knees, and I crawl forward, hitting his legs so hard he goes stumbling backwards.
 

“Fuck!” he curses.
 

I crawl past him, and hit the bottom of the stairs before he grips my ankle, pulling me backwards. I scream out loudly, and I feel him drop to his knees as he wraps his arms around my chest, pulling me backwards. One, large arm holds me to him while the other presses against my mouth so hard I feel my teeth bite into my lip. I squirm and kick, giving every ounce of fight I have inside. He slams my head back into his shoulder, and his hand tightens over my mouth.
 

“Stop,” he orders.
 

I shove my head forward, and slam it back so hard he makes a loud oomphing sound. He snarls, and lets go of my mouth, pulling his gun from the floor and pressing it against my temple. “Don’t make me kill you, because I don’t fucking want to.”
 

He doesn’t want to?
 

He doesn’t…want to?
 

I begin to shake so violently, I lose all my fight. My body slumps, and his arm flexes as he holds me up. He’s panting, and my entire body moves with each angry breath he takes. He slowly lowers the gun from my head before pulling me back and getting to his feet, lifting me with him. He doesn’t let me go, he simply takes me into the cell and lowers me down onto the floor. Then, finally, he lets go.
 

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he says. “I don’t want to kill you or your friend, so just stay quiet.”
 

I nod, and drop my head. He watches me a moment longer, before turning and storming out. I crumple backwards, and a loud, wracking sob escapes me. There’s no way out. We can’t escape. Eric crawls to the bars, and he gently whispers, “Indi, it’s going to be okay.”
 

“It’s not okay,” I wail, clenching my fists, and shaking my head from side to side. “Eric, he’s going to sell me. What am I going to do?”
 

I lift my head to see Eric’s face fall. “We’re going to get out of this, I swear it Indi.”
 

“There is no way out,” I scream.
 

 “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he murmurs, reaching out and taking my hand. “I swear.”
 

What he doesn’t understand, in his goddamned black and white world…is that there’s nothing he can do to stop this one.
 

They leave us in that cell for another entire night, and all of the following day. They didn’t give us any more food and water. I have never wanted to die so much in my entire life. The idea of dying is so much kinder to my mind than the idea of living and slowly dehydrating, and suffering until my body can’t take it anymore and shuts down. My tongue feels like it’s a thick chunk of sandpaper
.
My throat is so dry I am terrified to swallow, because the pain is too much. My body has gone beyond starving, and is now edging on shutting down.
 

“Indi?” Eric croaks from his spot by the bars.
 

“I’m here,” I whisper. My head is hanging, because it’s too hard to lift
.
 

“Are you okay?”
 

“I’m…getting there.”
 

“We can’t do this much longer
. W
e’re going to die if we don’t do something soon.”
 

“They won’t let me die,” I say, hoping I’m right. “I’m the prize money.”
 

“Maybe they have found something else
. We
can’t rely on that,” he says, his voice so hoarse it’s barley recognizable.
 

“What do we do, Eric, because I sure as shit can’t figure out how to escape this god forsaken ship!” I bite out.
 

“We need a plan, for when they come back down. We can’t see anything down here, we can’t see rooms, or escape routes
-
nothing. We need a way to get up there.”
 

He’s right. Of course he’s right. I know there’s only one way out, and that’s perhaps stealing a lifeboat, or a raft, or hell, a barrel. There has to be something we can escape on, and getting up on deck to see is the only way to know. But how does one get up there?
 

“We’re in a tiny cell, Eric. How do you suppose we get out?”
 

“If you’re their prize,” he says, his voice low, “they won’t want you to die.”
 

“What are you getting at?” I whisper impatiently.
 

“I think you should pretend to have passed out when they come back down. They might freak, and take you above deck. You can scope the place out,
find a way to escape.”
 

“It’s not a bad idea,” I say, nodding. “But they might not come down here for days.”
 

“Maybe not, but if they want you alive, they will.”
 

I close my eyes, focusing on my breathing. “We can only try. There’s no other option for us.”
 

I hope this works.
 

We have nothing else.
 

“I’m yer cap’n, and yer me lassie. For real, that be!”
 

**
 

“Indi,” Eric whispers frantically. “Wake up!”
 

I stir from my spot on the floor and my entire body aches. I blink rapidly to try and focus my gaze on Eric.
 

“They’re coming down!”
 

I try to move my body, but it really is stiff and sore. I hear the thumping above deck, and the sound of the cell door being unlocked. He’s right; they’re coming down. How many days has it been? I don’t know.
 

“Pass out, Indi,” Eric whispers. “Don’t get up.”
 

I stay in my position, trying to relax myself so that it looks real. I have to steady my breathing to make my body look less stiff. I hear the sounds of boots, and then the room seems to brighten. I can tell this, even though my eyes are closed.
 

“Please,” I hear Eric beg. “She won’t wake up. Please help her.”
 

“Fuck, I told you to give her water,” Hendrix barks.
 

“I did, Cap.”
 

“I meant enough to fuckin’ make sure she didn’t end up like this. Did you fuckers even give them anything the past few days, like I instructed?” he bellows.
 

Silence fills the room.
 

Hendrix wanted them to feed us? He wasn’t trying to kill us slowly. My chest swells with hope.
 

“Sorry Cap, I thought…I thought Jess gave it to them and…”
 

“Fuck, incompetent idiots!”
 

I hear the cell door open, and a moment later I feel arms go around my body and lift me. I keep myself as floppy as I possibly can.
 

“Get Senny and Jess, they need to see to her.”
 

There are women on the ship? My heart flutters. Women could mean hope. They might help me.
 

Hendrix carries me out, and I hear him order the pirate to get Eric water and food, and I’m thankful for that. More than anything, I want to make sure he’s okay. When we get up and out into the halls, I crack my eyes open, frantically trying to take in my surrounds. Some doors are open, and in one I can see a window. A window is good. I see inside the dining room, with its long tables and chairs scattered about everywhere. We pass a small kitchen; knives…knives could be good.
 

“I know what you’re doin’,” Hendrix suddenly says.
 

I quickly peer up at him to see he’s looking down at me. Shit. He busted me scoping out his ship. He busted me pretending to be passed out. God, I am so stupid. I didn’t even fool him for a minute, not even a damned minute. How am I supposed to escape when I can’t even make him believe I’ve passed out for five minutes?
 

“Can’t blame me for trying,” I croak.
 

“What were you plannin’ on doin’?” He smirks. “Overpowering me with your impressive strength, then running off with a knife and jumping overboard?”
 

Okay, well now that he puts it like that I feel stupid. I frown, and turn my eyes away from his.
 

“It wouldn’t have worked for more than one reason, but the main being that we are in the middle of the ocean, a long way away from anything civil. You’d be dead in a day.”
 

Asshole.
 

“I could have gotten overboard
.
I
t has to be better than just sitting here and waiting for you to sell me as some sort of sex slave,” I snap.
 

He suddenly drops me to my feet. My knees buckle and it’s only because of his tight grip around my arm that I don’t crumble to the floor. I’m so weak. He begins to drag me,
his pace angry and determined. He leads me down the hall, and up the stairs onto the deck.
 

It’s late afternoon, and the sun is just beginning to lower on the horizon. I squint, even though the sun isn’t high in the sky. I’ve been in a dark cell for days, and it burns. He pulls me toward the railing and shoves me against it, pressing a hand to the back of my neck and pushing my face over the side.
 

What the hell?
 

“W…w…what are you doing?” I cry, struggling as much as my weak body will allow.
 

“Watch,” he snarls, and then he turns his head. “Drake, get out here and throw some bait over!”
 

A minute passes, and then a chunk of thick meat is flung over the side of the ship. It lands in the water, making a small splash. Hendrix keeps his grip on the back of my head, and my chest begins to constrict. Then I see them. My vision blurs a moment, and my bottom lip trembles. At least six sharks, big ones, come up to the surface. One of them launches out of the water, snapping up the piece of meat as if it was no more than a bite sized snack. I begin to cry. My entire body shakes, and panic fills me. Even if I find a way off, those sharks are deadly. I’d likely never get far.