"Where are they?"

"I thought you weren't going to ask again." I snapped back at him.

"Are you that eagered to die?"

I tried to shrug at him. "You can't kill me."

I was sure of that. Sure that he wasn't a born killer. He wasn't that cold, not yet anyway. He was nothing like Medusa who wouldn't have flinched at the thought of really killing me.

I was sure of that.

"Fine, we'll do it another way." His tone changed as he lowered the pistol. "Since you enjoy pain so much, how about we do it the pirates' way."

Pirates way?

"Which is?" I asked.

"Sweating."

I frowned. Sweating? I didn't know what that meant. I never heard a pirate do it.

"Which is?"

His grin seemed to light up. His eyes were dark and almost haunting. He turned, looking at one of the saylors standing to the side.

I felt myself get pushed forward, the hands holding me disappearing. What were they doing? Where were they taking me?

It didn't take me long to figure out what Thom had planned.

Hywel stood to the side, still voicing that they should wait and not harm me anymore. He glared at Thom, who simply ignored him. The scarred face man stood before me, wrapping a rope around each of my wrists, making sure that they could move apart slightly.

His voice meant nothing here, at that moment.

Once the scarred faced man had secured my wrists, he tied another rope to it and then to a mast. I stared, frowning at the small amount of rope I was given. It was then that the sweating began.

He took a long thin sword from one of the saylors that wore one. He pointed it at me, the sun glittering off of the dark metal. His twisted grin never flittered.

He swung at me. I tried to move to the side, the rope stopping me. A stinging came from the scrap that appeared on my arm. Not as deep as it could have been.

It didn't stop there. He stabbed. He swiped. He poked.

Cut after cut came as I struggled with the little rope I had to move around with. I had nothing to defend myself with and couldn't avoid all the swinging and stabbing he was doing towards me. My breathing grew heavy, sweat building on my forward.

I had to wait for an opening.

There, as another thin cut was made on my chest, I finally found what I had been waiting for. He was getting too cocky with his ability and finally made a mistake.

As he stepped forward, falling into how far the rope could allow me to reach, I acted. If I hadn't been able to think of something to get me out of this, I wouldn't have still been alive. There had been worse dangers than him I've faced.

My hand wrapped around the blade, feel as the thin edge dug into my palm. My head collided with his as I pulled him forward and into me, my other hand being able to grabbed the pistol he put back into his holster. He should've made sure the pistol wasn't loaded or gave it to someone else before he started the game.

He stumbled backward, his free hand moving to his head. The scarred face man stepped forward with the others, expect for Hywel. He just watched.

I didn't know how long had really passed. It felt like hours but I knew that wasn't possible. Long enough for me to get past my point of annoyance.

"I told you, touch me again and I would kill you." I raised the pistol, my right hand shaking as blood dripping from it. "Now, tell me, how do you want to die?"

I used both hands to hold the pistol.

He looked frozen as he stared at me before a laugh broke out. He sounded half-mad.

"Do you think you'll survive if you hurt me! We outnumber you and that pistol!" He waved a hand at the saylors as if to prove a point. "Plus, I know you never murdered anyone."

"Never trust a smuggler."

"Rachel, don't!" Hywel was too late.

The pistol went off, like an echo of the past. My ghosts appearing before me as another victim joined them to haunt me in the future.

Would it ever end? The killing? The lying?

Could I ever escape from this?

His body hit the ground with a dull thud. The color draining from each of the saylor's faces as they watched his gray coat become stained with blood.

"Sir!"

I watched as his face relaxed and it made me realize that he was younger than I thought. He was barely a man and still a boy. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

What have I done?

The pistol fell from my hands as it dawned on me who this boy reminded me of. As I realized that this time, I had been too rash. I was too focused on getting free, at staying alive, that I didn't think everything through clearly.

I had grown tired of the pain, of avoiding the little I could of the sword. I should've aimed for his leg. For the air. I should have gave a warning shot.

It felt like my heart stopped, my breathing increasing. There was no going back now.

As they knelt before him, trying to find the wound to stop it, there was no going back. It was already too late. There was no saving him. It was over the second the bullet hit him.

Eyes that screamed for blood turned to me. Eyes that demanded vengeance. They wanted me to pay for what I did.

My knees gave in. I had to pay for what I did. I knew the boy. Or I had when he was younger. When he was still a child.

Before I and his mother grew apart because of her promotion.

Heavy footsteps seemed to echo across the deck, from behind. I wanted to look but I couldn't stop staring at him.

I'm sorry, Scarlet.

"Untie her." Something heavy hit the ground as Velwyn's voice came from behind me. "What happened?"

The sound of footsteps grew closer before a woman knelt next to me. A knife was in her hand as she reached for the rope, cutting it in the middle so my wrists weren't tied together. Her black eyes were unreadable.

"Done, Captain."

Even without looking, I knew his amber eyes would be staring at me, with a hard look. A shiver passed through me. Everything felt different from when we had been in the bar.

"I won't repeat myself again so someone better answer," Velwyn words were as cold as ice as he talked. "What the hell happened on my ship."

Hywel stepped forward, a disappointed look on his face. He looked down at Thom before at me.

"She killed a Lieutenant."

I flinched. He was so young to be a Lieutenant. Had his mom pulled strings for him? It was hard to imagine the boy that I remember wanting to follow his mom to be part of the military. He used to be afraid of violence.

What happened to that boy?

"Why?" Velwyn demanded.

A different saylor answered. "She was resisting arrest and our questions. So the Lieutenant got a little rough and she didn't like it. So she killed him."

Hywel looked away as my eyes finally shifted. He didn't try to say anything to correct what the other saylor said. He left it so that I was the one that sounded like the bad guy.

Of course, they would be right.

"Really? He only got a little rough with her. You call that a little rough?"

The saylor that spoke looked away. Hywel sighed.

"We have to take her back to Carlisle, where she'll be hanged for the crimes she committed," Hywel said looking almost as if he didn't want to say what he was. "If you try to stop us, we will arrest you too."

I looked at my hands. It was only right. At least I would be able to be free before his ghost could haunt me in my sleep.

"What right do you have to claim one of my crew?" Velwyn demanded, sounding angry. "From what I can tell, that Lieutenant was being more than a little rough with her. It's only fair that she's able to defend herself."

"She killed him!"

A scoff escaped from someone behind me.

"Would you have allowed yourself to do nothing if someone was cutting or stabbing you?" Velwyn words cut through the air like a knife. "Well?"

"I would still be expected to pay for the crime," Hywel fired back. "I would accept that I would be hanged if I killed someone. Which she did. She could have done something else, besides killing the boy!"

"You speak such high words, but do you really think that? Do you really believe that you would be okay with being hanged if you were only defending yourself!" Velwyn words grew closer. "How about we try it? I'll do the cutting and you get to be tied to the mast."

Hywel didn't back away, though his expression did fade for a second. I could swear he looked as if he was in pain.

"She has to pay for breaking the law."

"Did your lieutenant not break the law! Or, is Carlisle so far from real civilization that the laws there don't matter!" Velwyn stopped right behind me, his legs almost touching my back.

I looked over my shoulder and up at him. His face was collected and didn't show the anger that seemed to radiate in his words.

"If the lieutenant was still alive, he would also be facing the law! But he's not, and that's because she killed him," Hywel continued to hold his ground. "It's that law that we're following. We're not changing it to suit us."

"What law says you have rights on this ship. This is my crew you are messing with and if she hadn't killed him, I would have." I flinched, looking at Thom's body. "Take that body and get the hell off my ship before I throw you overboard."

For a second no one moved. The saylors stayed, staring at me with blood-lust feeling the air around them. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy.

"And if you even think about approaching her, you'll have to go through thirty of us. And we're nowhere as nice as she is."

Danger.

Everything told me that I had surrounded myself in danger at that second. As Velwyn's tone changed. He sounded so cold, so heartless at that second.

He didn't sound like the captain in the bar.

Hywel looked as if he was debating something. A sigh escaped him after a few long tense minutes. He turned, his back looking so big from where I saw.

"We're leaving. We're no match against them."

The others looked reluctant but slowly followed. Three of them picked Thom's body up, carrying it with them as they went to where they must have left their boat to board. I watched as they walked away, the weight of killing a boy I had watched grow up for a few years hit me.

It would have been better if that storm never broke me free.

"Masque, take her to the infirmary. Anyone else who was injured needs to go as well," a different voice ordered as a hand fell onto my shoulder. "Let's hurry up and load what we got. We need to get out of here before they return with warships. Where to next, Captain?"

The cost for joining them felt like it was more than I could handle.