Unhooked (7 page)

As the boy filled in the lines and bequeathed to his mother all the things he'd never had a chance to accumulate, he wondered what his brother had felt doing the same. He wondered if his brother's hands had shaken as his were shaking. But then he threw off those dark thoughts and laughed with the rest—for they still saw death as an impossible horizon that, certainly, they would never reach. Though, if they did, what a right and fitting end it would be for brave lads such as they. . . .

I
BARELY CATCH MYSELF AS I stumble through the door and into a large, dimly lit cabin. Most of the light comes from a wall of windows that provides a seemingly endless view of the sun setting over the surrounding sea. Beneath the windows is a large bed that looks as severe as the rest of the cabin, with its drab woolen blankets, flat pillows, and tightly tucked sheets. Everything about the space is sparse, organized, and downright tidy. Everything speaks only of usefulness.

In the far corner, a single lamp burns, swaying softly with the motion of the ship. Its glow is just enough to illuminate the dark form of the Captain. His bare back is turned to me, but the bunching and flexing of lean muscle barely registers. I can't quite see past the roughened skin that covers his entire left shoulder and most of his back.

We all have our scars,
he'd told me. I thought I understood what he'd meant when I looked at the icy white line down the side of his face, but his back is more than simply scarred. The skin there is pocked with angry welts that look like he was shot with burning buckshot at close range or sprinkled with acid. And his arm—

“William, I—” he growls as he looks up, red-faced with frustration, but his words fall silent when he realizes I'm not the person he expected.

Grabbing his shirt, he quickly throws it around his shoulders, but he's not fast enough to hide what he's been struggling with. Not fast enough to hide the fact that his left arm ends just above his elbow in a gnarled mass of scar tissue. Where his arm should be is a prosthetic unlike any I've seen before—an intricate steel skeleton of a hand attached to what's left of his arm by a leather harness.

And his face . . .

In the dim glow of the lamplight, it is more than anger I see in his expression. For less than the length of a heartbeat, I see something vulnerable there as well. Something like embarrassment or guilt, but thicker than either of those things and more severe. Something, maybe, like shame.

“I'm sorry, I . . . ,” But an apology doesn't seem to be enough of an offering for the emotion I've just witnessed. “They brought me . . . ,” I start again, trying to shift the blame, but this is the wrong thing to say as well. When his expression goes thunderous, I stutter another half-formed apology and turn to flee.

The Captain is faster. In two or three long strides, he's across the room, his false arm reaching beyond me to slam the door shut before I can escape, sealing me in. The cuff of his shirt is still unbuttoned, and the sleeve falls back to reveal the steel rods that form his wrist and hand. They're so close to my cheek, I can smell the faint odor of metal and motors. The steel fist whirs and clicks like the gears of a clock as the Captain adjusts his stance and leans in. I understand implicitly in that moment that the arm is not a weakness. It is solid and strong, and somehow it has become a part of him. I'm pinned in place by steel and boy, and I'm not sure which is more dangerous.

“Leaving so soon, lass?” he croons into my right ear, all confidence and rough masculine charm. The warmth of his breath brushes across my neck, and the scent of him surrounds me as completely as his arms. I have the uneasy feeling that he knows exactly what his proximity is doing to me. That he's completely aware of the way my traitorous heart has kicked into a gallop and my skin has gone hot and cold all at once.

I'm too nervous and taken off guard by my reaction to him to resist when he turns me gently, until my back is to the door and his face is mere inches above mine.

He is just a boy,
I tell myself.
He's not a monster.

But he seems set to prove me wrong.

“Why, you've only just arrived, lass,” he says softly, his lips inches from mine. “And you've gone to such pains to interrupt my solitude.”

When I try to speak, the only thing that comes out is a sputtering sound.

His mouth betrays the tiniest curve of a smile at my inability to put together a coherent thought, and I know at once that my discomfort is nothing more than a joke to him. He
does
know exactly what effect he's having on me. He's using my reaction to him against me, and he's finding it amusing.

This time when my face goes warm, it's not because of any unwanted attraction I might feel. I square my shoulders and keep my eyes steady and—ignoring the thundering hoofbeats of my heart—I say, as clearly and calmly as I can, “You ordered them to bring me here. It's not like I had much choice.”

His grim mouth twitches, and his eyes flash with admiration.

Or maybe I'm misreading him. Maybe it's impatience.

He eases away, so I no longer feel the warmth from his body. But he doesn't give me room to escape. “That's true enough, isn't it?” He backs up a bit more then, so he's no longer pressing the door shut behind me. “My apologies,” he says, inclining his head in a small bow. Then he looks up at me, and after a moment he speaks. “I'd take it as a great favor if you'd not be mentioning what you've seen to anyone, aye?”

“They don't know?” It's so unexpected that the question comes before I think better of asking it.

He raises a single dark brow in my direction, as if to question my impertinence. “They don't,” he says simply. “Well, Will does, but I'd trust him with my life.”

I wonder why he doesn't trust the others, but I remember the wary look in the boys' eyes and I think maybe I already know.

Anyway, I'm not stupid enough to ask. I've pushed him enough as it is.

With an almost elegant sweep of his gleaming steel hand, he gestures toward a pair of barrel-shaped chairs, inviting me to sit down. I hesitate, because I want to keep what little ground I've managed to gain in the last minute. Ultimately, I know I'm stuck. There's nowhere to go but where he's directed me. Not that I go easily—I make my way as slowly as I can across the cabin.

Once he's satisfied I'm seated and stationary, he turns and, in an amazing flurry of motion, buttons his shirt quickly, using the steel hand as dexterously as the other. As a final touch, he pulls on the pair of dark gloves he was wearing earlier, hiding the mechanical fist beneath the supple leather. In a matter of seconds, he's back to being the boy I first met—the formal buttoned-up Captain.

Propping himself on the edge of his desk, he picks up a small jeweled knife, examining it as he speaks with a casualness that does not hide the threat. “Now then, I'm thinking it's time for you to be telling me just who you are and why it is you came to be here.”

All I can do is watch him twirl the glittering knife effortlessly between the fingers of the mechanical hand. Not even the most sophisticated computers can make anything move as fluidly and naturally as that hand is moving.

He clears his throat and gives me a pointed look.

“Gwen,” I choke out, answering his question in a heated rush of embarrassment. “My name is Gwen.”

His mouth turns down. “Would that be short for something?”

“Gwendolyn,” I say, but my voice breaks, so I try again. “Gwendolyn Allister.”

He repeats my name, dragging out the syllables as he studies me, and I force myself to ignore the fluttering warmth I feel in my stomach as his voice makes my name sound almost musical. Then he gives a dismissive shrug, and all the warmth that had been threatening cools as quickly as if it had been doused with a bucket of ice. “I suppose it suits you well enough, though it doesn't answer my question.
Who
are you and
why
have you come?”

“I told you, I'm just Gwen. I'm no one. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't even know where here is.”

But his expression never wavers as he take two menacing steps toward me, the glittering knife still in his hand. “I doubt very much that you are no one, Gwendolyn, else you'd not be here.”

“Please . . .” My voice breaks at the sight of the knife so close, and I have to start again. “I was taken by . . .” But I can't make myself say it. Just thinking about the creatures, and I feel like it's happening all over again.

The Captain regards me with narrowed eyes. “Well?” he asks expectantly.

“They were monsters,” I say, hating the way my voice falters.

His face doesn't betray any emotion. “Great, dark, creatures with enormous black wings, aye?”

I nod, refusing to look away from his steady gaze. “You rescued me,” I realize, remembering more clearly now the dark eyes hovering over me as I floated back up toward the light. The firm hands that pressed the life back into me.

He quirks that annoying eyebrow of his again and gives a small nod in my direction. “In a manner of speaking, though I wouldn't be getting too far ahead of yourself, lass.”

“But the fire, and . . . You pulled me from the water,” I push, remembering now the strong hands that grabbed me from the depths, the steellike arms that hoisted me up to the air.

“Aye. The Dark Ones came flying over us from the west, as they often do, but when we fired upon them, it was you who fell from the sky. It seemed the least I could do.”

“You've seen them too,” I whisper, relief and dread warring within me. “I didn't imagine it.”

“No, lass. You didn't.”

Something shifts in his eyes, and suddenly he closes the distance between us and raises the knife. I jerk away to fend off the cut, but the pain never comes. Instead, with a quick slip of his knife, I'm free from my binding.

I rub my sore wrists as the Captain settles himself on the table in front of me. There is a wary amusement in his eyes. “As the Dark Ones were those that brought you, I'd say you've more to worry about than me, lass.”

“Please . . .” But I'm not even sure what I'm asking for—an explanation? An ally? A way to wake from this nightmare? “I need to get home,” I say finally, settling on the one thing that matters.

From the way his expression goes grim, I know before he speaks what his answer will be. “Were there a way to get back to where you've come from, none of us would be in this fine mess, now would we?”

“I don't know,” I whisper, as dread settles in my stomach.

“Don't you, then?” His gloved hand reaches for me, and I think he will touch my cheek, but he stops short. Instead he grabs one of my hands and pulls me, not so gently, to my feet. “Come.” It is not a request, and I don't have any choice but to follow him out of the cabin, out into the cool night air.

The sun has gone down by now. All around the ship, the sea has turned a dark sapphire-blue in the dimming twilight, and the sky has taken on the purple-red of an angry bruise.

“It's best for all that you understand this now,” he says softly, dropping my hand and gesturing to the sea beyond. “As you can see, lass, the place you came from is very, very far away.”

I step closer to the bulwark, closer to the Captain. Far off in the distance, so far off and so small that I missed it earlier, a bit of land that's too small to be England disturbs the level line of the horizon. I stare out across the darkened waves, trying to gauge the distance between the ship and the island. If I could get there, maybe I could find someone to help. If I could make it that far, maybe I could find a way home.

“If you're thinking of visiting,” the Captain murmurs close to my ear, “I'd advise against it. The island is a difficult place to survive, you see. It's constantly changing, and an unaware traveler might find herself quite lost. Or dinner for one of the beasts that roam there.” He hands me a spyglass and gestures that I should use it.

Its leather-covered body is solid and heavy in my hands, and when I raise it to my eye, the island comes into sharp focus. At first glance it looks like any island might, though its topography
is
extreme for such a small place. Most of the shoreline is nothing but sheer cliffs rising out of the sea. Here and there, tufts of vegetation cling to the craggy bluffs like daredevil climbers, but most of the rock face is flinty and bare. Above the rocky shoreline, the sharp hills and mountainous terrain reaches high toward the ever-darkening sky, and most is covered with a wild green that speaks the hidden dangers of jungles.

Which can't be right. I know I was unconscious for a while, but we couldn't possibly be far enough away from England to find jungles. Still, there they are, plain as day.

Then I notice something that makes my stomach feel like I've swallowed a ball of lead—the island is moving. It's not moving in the water or like a ship. Instead, it's the land itself that is shifting and changing before my eyes. The mountainous terrain ripples in the evening light, the rocks slowly shifting and rearranging themselves moment by moment. One peak steadily shrinks while another grows.

The lush green of the jungle, too, looks unbearably alive. It shakes and shifts with a constant, steady movement. Trees melt into the earth only to be replaced by different types of vegetation as the jungle ruffles and shakes itself into a new tangle of overgrowth. The whole island continually changes, like a great sleeping beast breathing on the horizon.

“What—” My brain isn't even close to catching up to what my eyes are seeing. I lower the heavy glass and look to the Captain. “Please tell me you see that.” I hesitate. “The way it's moving, I mean.”

He raises his brows quizzically. “And why wouldn't I see what's right in front of me?”