The Explorer's Apprentice

60:Metal Between Her Teeth

I do not own these people...

Marley Faulkner

Marley’s heart aches so badly that it physically hurts to move, to breathe, to think. So she doesn’t. She stands in the same spot she had been in when Jack was taken away, holding her breath for a minute and counting. Tiny white spots begin to dance across her vision.

Cal stands in the doorway of her bathroom, unmoving. Marley can’t see his repulsive face, but the terrible, dark, and furious aura he gives off is enough to have her guessing what his expression is. And when she hears his long strides across the wooden floor towards her, she has to swallow back bile. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. Never before has Marley met a human being so vile and so nauseating. And never before has she hated anything so greatly, or experienced what it felt like until then.

Hate. It’s like metal between your teeth.

Her pupils move slowly towards him, and her vision is dazed and blurry. Still, though, she can hear the sound of his sharp intake of breath, and it sends a shiver throughout her tired, exhausted bones.

The sound of his hand whipping across her face echoes along the enclosed walls, forcing her to breath out. Her head has been ferociously jerked to the side by impact, and she can feel the sting all the way from her cheek to her ear. Her very face seems to vibrate and she can’t make it stop. She’s never been struck this hard before, not by anyone. Before this, the most physical pain she’s ever endured with with another was when she was ten, and Nathanial Holiday slammed her against the corner of the dining room table for beating him in a relay race. She punched and broke his nose for it, and eventhough he never again touched her again nor anyone near her after that, Marley's bruise lasted for months.

This is nothing like that, though. Not at all. This time, for the very first time, Marley doesn't even raise a limp hand or her usual sharp tongue to fight back.

She's too tired. 

Too broken.

“It’s easy to be a little slut, isn’t it.”

Marley has never; ever even dared shedding a single tear in Cal’s presence before. He’s not worth it, she always told herself. She'd fight. Long and hard with absolutely everything she had.  Somehow some way, she would not let him win. She’s certain that her tears—solid proof of her misery—would only satisfy him. And she could never have that.

But now, something—everything—seems to have changed. Marley is so tired, so run-down and weak, and she knows that the only thing keeping her alive is the design of her human body, and definitely not the willpower of her torn spirit. Marley has nothing to live for. Absolutely nothing. She knows that she’ll never be able to see her Uncle Brock again, or her mother from 1998, or her little sister P.J. Her one and only hope of escaping is long gone, just like her grandmother and Kate and her Uncle Guard. And worst of all, what really has her bruised and broken beyond repair, is her loss of the greatest thing to have ever happened to her, and the realization that her greatest thing was but a lie.

So Marley doesn’t even try to stop the first tear from falling, or the second, or third. She isn’t strong enough. They fall from her face and onto the floor like little crystals.

“You look at me when I’m talking to you!” Cal’shands latch onto her shoulders like talons as he forces Marley to face him. She feels like a ragdoll, being tossed and kicked about, completely at the mercy of its owner.

There’s a knock on the dark bedroom door—quiet, at first, then increasing with obvious persistency before it just opens. “Mr. Hockley!” Says a small suited man with a look on his face that shows utter urgency.

Cal doesn’t even release Marley’s shaking shoulders. “Not now, we’re busy!”

“Sir, I’ve been told to ask you to please put on your life-vests and come up to the boat decks,” says the man, strolling towards Marley and her monstrous fiancé. Cal lets out an agitated sigh before dropping his arms to his sides, and Marley takes her freedom as an opportunity to nurse her bruised cheek by cradling it in her right hand. The throbbing won’t stop. It pulses and thuds and grows. It feels a bit like death.

But of course it isn't. She could never be so lucky.

“I said not now!”

“I’m sorry to inconvenience you Mr. Hockley, but It’s Captain’s orders.”  And with that, the man turns his heal and walks towards the closet, reaching up to grab the lonely life vests on the top shelf. “Now please!” he calls over his shoulder, “dress warmly! It’s quite cold out tonight! Now may I suggest top coats and hats? ”

Cal sighs, striding away from Marley towards some other area of the room that she doesn’t bother looking up to see. “This is ridiculous.”

The man quickly makes his way over to Marley, brandishing the life-jackets like proud trophies.

“Not to worry, Miss!” he says gently, probably referring to her less-than lively appearance. She can’t even imagine what she must look like to the world. She doesn’t want to. “I am sure it’s just a…precaution.”