Secrets of a Pirate's Heart

Chapter Eight

Once again, Scarlett was thrown into a chair - wrists and ankles bound. The cabin walls were flickering with the light of only two candles, but it was enough to show the faces she despised. But instead of pure hatred like before, the Captain was laughing.

"Did you miss this ship?" He threw his arms in the air. "I missed you! It was beginning to get a little lonely here without you, aye?" His crew gave no response, so he changed the subject. "Care to explain how you escaped?"

"You don't deserve to know anything," Scarlett snared back. Without warning, a pirate stepped forward and whipped Scarlett's cheek with a belt. Scarlett stared at the wall, as the shock of the pain erupted throughout her jaw. It took all she could manage to keep a straight face, and the Captain raised his eyebrows, expecting her to react poorly to the beating. But she wasn't going to give him that satisfaction.

"Let me ask that question again," he said. "How did you escape?" After Scarlett gave no reply, the same pirate whipped her face again, causing the current pain to flare up. "If you don't tell me how you escaped, he'll just keep doing this," the Captain added. He waited for an answer, which ended in another whip. Tears now sprung to Scarlett's eyes. He continued, "You were locked in the cell when we arrived at dock. There was no way you could escape! But the cabin boy created a mess, bringing everyone to see what happened. When we heard screaming above, that's when we discovered you were gone." He paused. "Did the cabin boy help you?"

Scarlett remained silent.

The same pirate whipped her face twice with the belt, while the Captain stared coldly, deep in thought. "Enough," he finally said. "We are finished here." At that, the Captain and his crew left, leaving Scarlett alone in agonizing pain.

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Scarlett awoke the next morning with a throbbing jaw, and found herself lying on the floor. At this realization, she felt her back ache, and remembered falling off her chair in the middle of the night. Her wrists and ankles burned from the rope that had twisted all night. However, it wasn't her aches that woke her. It was the screaming outside.

All her senses jolted awake and she sat up at the realization that something very wrong was happening outside the cabin door. She panicked and struggled to rise to her feet. Once she managed, she stepped through her bound hands so they were in front of her, and hopped to one of the Captain's swords hanging on the wall. After a few seconds of vigorously slicing through the rope, she broke the last strand and untied the rope around her feet. Then, she burst open the door, panting heavily as she saw the Captain with his sword to the cabin boy's throat.

"Wait!" Scarlett shouted at the top of her lungs. Everyone turned to look, the Captain blazing with anger, the cabin boy crying out in horror, and the crew watching. Scarlett ran in between James and the sword.

"Move out of the way!" the Captain shouted, looking down at her.

"You can't tell me what to do!" she shouted back. "And you can't kill an innocent boy!"

"He is not an innocent boy! He helped a captive escape, and needs to be punished!"

"No! You can't do this."

The Captain withdrew his sword and shifted his weight. "The boy claims he offered to help you escape, did he not? He admits to causing the mess under deck to detract our attention from you so you could escape and be well out of our way by the time we came searching for you. He needs to be punished." Scarlett glanced at the cabin boy, and noticed a long cut down his leg that had been left unattended. They looked at each other, him with sorrow and her with astonishment. She quickly turned back to the Captain and stood to meet his face.

"I have a confession," she started. "This poor boy did not help me escape. I forced him to help me. What I have done isn't his fault, but mine, and I demand that you not harm him."