Bloody Mary

Chapter Twenty Two~A Woman Fights With Her Left

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape mentioned.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was a night well spent for the crew. They had certainly had their fill of women and drink, laughing jovially all through the night (amongst other things). The morning came and the harsh light piercing through the windows did nothing to hamper their mood but instead lifted it. It was a new day, and a new day brought more pay. By now their money would have been sorted and the cargo sold. Each was itching for their earnings. One by one they made their way to the ship, joking of the night well spent. No man expected to come across what they did.

Blood trailed across the planks from the Captain's cabin to the main mast. That was where they saw the body tied securely, bloodied and battered, to the ground. The man that sat there just barely breaking on consciousness was one of their own, they knew. A quill hung from one eye, dripping with ink and blood. It was all they could do to stand and stare. A the figure of the youngest crew member sat across from the bloody mess, her eyes meeting each crew member. The very stone in her eyes instilled fear into their hearts, but there was also exhaustion. Her hair hung to her shoulders now, tangled in knot and stained and dried with splotches of blood.

They were forced to wait until their captain came aboard, and when he did he was just as silent. His shock was in the stiffness of his stance.

"Percy. What is this?"

"He raped me."

No sense in delicacy, she got right to the point. No one even breathed.

"So I blinded him. So I beat him. So I cut off his cock." In her fingers she twirled a dagger, Carlisle's dagger. Blood caked its edges. Carefully she pushed herself to her feet, wincing as pain gripped her. The struggle was evident on her face. "And the same will happen to any man who tries what he did." She dragged her feet as she stepped toward the man. She took the quill and ripped it out of his eye. The scream of his pain did nothing to her as she made her way back to the cabin.

"Clean him up." She ordered, and disappeared inside.

When they did not move, Carlisle shouted the order and the crew went into action to free their mate. His own orders brought him to barge into his cabin. The sight of the room and his Quartermaster brought his heart to plummet. He slowly closed the door, stepped over the blood on the floor, and kneeled before Marianna. She hugged her knees to her, forehead pressing into them.

"The coin is counted." She said. "Edward can distribute it, but I haven't sold the silks yet."

"Christ, you bring that up at a time like this?" Carlisle shook his head and sat himself across from her. "How are you feeling?"

"It hurts. More than I thought it would."

"Aye. That happens when... uh, you do it wrong."

A bitter laugh escaped Marianna. "Yes well, I don't even know how it's rightly done."

He was surprised at first, that she would be a virgin. Carlisle quickly reminded himself that she had been, not all that long ago, the daughter of the Governor of Kingston. She would have been preserved for her husband to be.

"Here's to hoping the lucky man to earn you knows how to do it right then." She didn't reply to his assumption. The twinge of humor to his tone flew straight over her and she refrained from saying anything else. "I'll speak to the crew."

As he pushed himself to his feet, she leaned her head back against the wall behind her. "You do that."

It was safe to say that no man dared say a word to Marianna after she presented her handiwork. As for her victim, he was sent back to the docks and sent off the ship. In his bound hands they had found his bloody appendage, brutally sliced from his flesh. It was their captain that sent the man- no, he was not a man. Not in Carlisle's eyes certainly, he was more of a rat than he was a man. Vermin. Nonetheless, Carlisle's orders were to send the man away without any medical attention. The crew was silent. They did not ask for their pay that night.