31 Searing 106
The captain was still bleeding on the deck when they dragged Vanessa to the rear of the ship so she could face the ocean. On either side of her a man grabbed an arm, and her boots dragged across the wood as they heaved her otherwise limp body along. Her dagger had been tossed aside, and blood oozed from a fresh wound in her scalp, causing her hair to stick in uneven clumps along the side of her face.
“I ain't a thief.” Vanessa said, spitting out bloody phlegm. They had beaten her badly when she'd lunged at the captain and dug her dagger through his arm. He'd accused her of taking too many rations as well as stealing from the crew. It wasn't true, and even worse she knew the culprit. A tall, thin man named Jorge with a hawkish, hard face was the real thief, but he had only done so in an effort to save the life of another member of the crew. A cabin boy had fallen ill, but there was no medicine aboard to save him, and so Jorge had begun to steal additional food as well as any personal items that might have alleviated the boy's suffering until they made landfall again. So far it had worked, or at least the boy wasn't getting any worse.
It would have been easy to tell the truth, to sell Jorge out to this fate and let the cabin boy die, but Vanessa didn't. She let them haul her to the keel of the ship, and slumped down to her knees. A rope was brought around her waist and looped three times and then pulled snug. Another line of rope bound her ankles, and then her wrists in front of her. She turned to her left and saw Jorge himself holding the line that connected to her waist. He was standing near the side of the ship, far away from her and was working on getting the rope fet through the necessary pulleys. He caught her gaze, but couldn't hold it and looked away.
“If you plan on killing me, get it over with.” Vanessa said laboriously to the two members of the crew that dragged her to her fate. That outburst earned her a punch across the jaw that laid her out across the deck. The pain shot through her face, but still she didn't remain silent. “Careful, cunt, or you may kill me before the seas can.” The brute stepped forward and put his weight down on her ankle until she screamed.
“Those going to be your last words?” He asked with a snort.
“Oh it's my last words you want, is it?” Vanessa said, managing to get herself back to her knees and look at the stout sailor standing before her with his hand on his hips like he was anything more than a goon. “Fine. Your wife, Maisie? Been jammin' my fingers in her cunt for near two years now. She's got a birthmark on her right asscheek if ya' don't believe me.” And how Vanessa laughed, even when he slammed a boot into her gut and knocked the wind out of her. He stomped on her chest again once she was reeling, but still she hacked a wheezing laugh. The crew member was pulled away before he could try crushing her sternum, and Vanessa pulled herself back up. It was best to go out laughing, Vanessa supposed. Never let them see you fear. Never let them think of this moment as a victory.
Another man silently looped a rope from the other side of the deck to her wrists. This would be the hauling line. Vanessa's punishment was to be pulled across the keel of the ship, from port to starboard. The barnacles stuck to the hull of the ship would rake her flesh to ribbons, and the salt water would agitate the wounds, and that was all assuming she didn't simply drown before the end of the torture. Vanessa knew all of this, and still she accepted the punishment she did not earn. Her only crime was silence, and she would suffer it eternally.
The rope around her waist pulled tight, and Vanessa was dragged backwards across the deck, smashing into the railing with her feet until she was hoisted over the side of the ship by the rigging. A pulley held her over the water, legs and arms dangling down. She looked back over to Jorge, and still he was the one holding fast to the rope that held her aloft. This time, he held her gaze. There was still time. She could have saved herself, but she didn't. She nodded knowingly to Jorge, and was content to let herself hang.
The captain had stumbled to his feet by now, and had wrapped his arm in stripped cloth. He shuffled to the bow of the ship, and just leered at her while Vanessa hung by her waist.
“Useless bitch. Come on, lass. Give us a nice send-off.” He sneered through rotten teeth. He was goading her. He wanted her to talk so he could drop her the moment she tried. Again, Vanessa denied him his victory. Her death would be one she chose. She remained silent, and stared blankly down at the waves. The frigid, blue water was crystal clear, so at least she knew sharks were of no concern.
A minute passed as the captain continued to needle her, but Vanessa heard none of it over the call of the grave. Finally, lauding his victory over sailors who already seemed to despise him became a boring endeavor, and he straightened his back.
“Now.” The captain snapped, whipping his arm down in a swift arc.
Jorge released the rope, and Vanessa plunged down ten feet into the water below. The temperature difference made her entire body seize, and already she lost some air when she instinctively gasped at the cold. Water rushed into her mouth, but thankfully she stopped herself from swallowing. Down she sunk, past the hull of the ship. It was a slow, lazy drift downward, and she begun to wonder what they were doing. If her punishment was to be drowning, why not simply bind her limbs and toss her overboard? She pulled at her bindings, but still found them tight. She rubbed her wrists together in an effort to slip the binds, but there was nothing to be done.
Her eyes burned through the salt water as she watched the port side of the vessel drift past her , and she was left dangling below the ship entirely. She saw the barnacles jutting out like rows of teeth from the hull. Then she looked up to see the sun through the water. Her lungs begged for air, but still she endured. She held to life like a drunk to the bottle. Her vision begun to tunnel, and she could feel her thoughts getting so very, very far away.
Her thoughts then begun to betray her. She could see the surface just inches away, begging for one last fight. She heard the laughter of a tavern and the wind through the trees. Her mind did all it could to distract her from the fact that she was dying.
And then, the line around her wrists pulled tight, heaving Vanessa starboard under the ship. The crew above were pulling with all of their strength in savage hauling yanks, sending Vanessa clear under the ship in less than half a minute. Vanessa was limp now, though still conscious. Her limbs felt deadened, and her eyes could no longer focus. The pain was gone, replaced by an all encompassing numbness. At least it was until the crew got her under the ship's wide hull and dragged her up along the starboard side.
Jorge had been able to give her the best chance of life he could. He'd dropped her low and under the ship to avoid any concussions or early lacerations, but once he'd let her go, it was out of his control. So when the crew fiercely pulled at the rigging lines to bring her back above water, Vanessa's back was dragged across the barnacles and detritus. The flesh tore like carving through a roast, and salt water rushed into the open wounds Blood muddied the waters around her, blooming like an orchid of death. Scraps of flesh clung to the barnacles and floated in the water like chum.
Vanessa screamed.
Bubbles flurried from her mouth and saltwater surged into her lungs. She tried to expel it, but there was nothing for it. She gulped in lungful after lungful, suddenly desperate for life. The pain was incredible, but it was something. Every heave from the crew above sent new agonies screaming through Vanessa's body, but she no longer had the strength even to thrash helplessly. Finally her head breached the water. She shuddered, blood drooling down her back. The wounds lay open and burned as the salt sunk into them. They pulled her out of the water, and she hung by her arms while the crew looked on.
Over the railing again, and this time dumped onto her stomach on the deck when the rope was cut. The slam onto the wood shocked her senses, and pain overwhelmed her once more. She tried to scream again. Bloody saltwater gushed from her mouth by the bucket, and she thrashed impotently on the deck. Her legs kicked and arms floundered. Agony seared her mind, overwhelming everything else. She was deaf to the crew watching her.
“Drag her again.” The captain said darkly, crossing the deck to inspect the carnage he'd ordered on Vanessa.
This time, Jorge did not obey. He ran a hand through his wild black hair, and took an unsteady breath. “Captain, look at her she's already-”
“I said drag her again, damn you!” The captain snapped and jabbed at finger at Jorge. The rest of the crew looked on at Vanessa's ruined body. She was not an easy woman to call friend, but even so it was difficult to watch as she wailed wordlessly in abject agony and her tears mixed with blood.
Jorge took a deep breath, drew himself up to his full height, and strode over to the captain. Along the way, Jorge grabbed a large harpoon that was stowed away near the lifeboats.
“I'll have you strung up next, you fucking cretin, don't think I won't!” The captain howled at Jorge, who continued forward with grim resolve. “Suddenly grew a heart, huh? There's room enough in the sea for all of you!” the captain barked, snarling.
Jorge cracked the captain across the head with the wooden haft of the harpoon, knocking the captain onto his back once more. The captain sputtered, but when he tried to rise back up he found the point of the harpoon pressed to his neck. On the un-sharpened end of the harpoon there was a long length of rope used for reeling in catches, and Jorge used it now to hogtie the captain.
“Now lads-” Jorge said as he walked over to Vanessa's side and crouched down. He inhaled through his teeth. The wounds were bad, jagged and uneven. They wouldn't heal well, if at all. “We're all going to say he went mad at sea and we had no choice but to throw him in the hold.” Jorge concluded. There was little objection, and even the man who had taken such glee in hurting Vanessa seemed traumatized by what he saw before him. He had thought he wanted her dead, but presented with that reality, he had gone pale and was at the verge of losing his lunch.
The few that seemed ready to defend the captain were kept at bay by sheer virtue of being outnumbered, and none made a move for Vanessa or Jorge.
Jorge rolled Vanessa over, and she screamed again, her throat raw. Her breathing grew fevered and frenzied, but finally she saw Jorge standing above her. Her eyes still struggled to focus and the pain never truly subsided. She merely grew used to it
“I...” Jorge began, but Vanessa shook her head.
Vanessa forced herself to speak, words broken with shallow gasps“ It's nothing. Did what you had to do. You'll do it again if it means letting me die to save the boy. Promise me.” Vanessa weakly rose her hand, though she could only manage lifting it a few inches from the deck and it wobbled terribly.
Jorge took her hand and shook it. “...Aye, but it won't come to that.” he said firmly. Then he cut her bindings, and then looped his arms around her waist where the wounds were fewest. He lifted Vanessa out of her pool of blood and over his shoulder like she were cargo. The crew watched on as Jorge marched her below decks and straight into the captain's quarters, laying her on her stomach on the bed there.
Fever and infection set in after the first few nights, and Vanessa spent most of their voyage back to port in a blood mad haze. They bathed her in salt water nightly in an effort to keep her wounds clean, but she begun to resent the pain that came with it. Even when she tried to assault Jorge, he tirelessly worked to keep her stable, and did his best to coax her out of her delirium.
Weeks in a delirious haze unfit to utter her own name, and finally they made it to shore. It was only under the care of a cutter that the infection was staunched and her fever broken. Another week was spent recovering, and even then she wasn't fit to work aboard the crew. Her hands still shook, and she walked like a drunkard, but she was alive.
The boy lived, too. His fever broke alongside Vanessa's, and he rebounded far more quickly. His muscles had begun wasting away from so much bed rest and he needed now to walk with a crutch. No one knew if he'd recover fully, but for now it was enough.
“I ain't a thief.” Vanessa said, spitting out bloody phlegm. They had beaten her badly when she'd lunged at the captain and dug her dagger through his arm. He'd accused her of taking too many rations as well as stealing from the crew. It wasn't true, and even worse she knew the culprit. A tall, thin man named Jorge with a hawkish, hard face was the real thief, but he had only done so in an effort to save the life of another member of the crew. A cabin boy had fallen ill, but there was no medicine aboard to save him, and so Jorge had begun to steal additional food as well as any personal items that might have alleviated the boy's suffering until they made landfall again. So far it had worked, or at least the boy wasn't getting any worse.
It would have been easy to tell the truth, to sell Jorge out to this fate and let the cabin boy die, but Vanessa didn't. She let them haul her to the keel of the ship, and slumped down to her knees. A rope was brought around her waist and looped three times and then pulled snug. Another line of rope bound her ankles, and then her wrists in front of her. She turned to her left and saw Jorge himself holding the line that connected to her waist. He was standing near the side of the ship, far away from her and was working on getting the rope fet through the necessary pulleys. He caught her gaze, but couldn't hold it and looked away.
“If you plan on killing me, get it over with.” Vanessa said laboriously to the two members of the crew that dragged her to her fate. That outburst earned her a punch across the jaw that laid her out across the deck. The pain shot through her face, but still she didn't remain silent. “Careful, cunt, or you may kill me before the seas can.” The brute stepped forward and put his weight down on her ankle until she screamed.
“Those going to be your last words?” He asked with a snort.
“Oh it's my last words you want, is it?” Vanessa said, managing to get herself back to her knees and look at the stout sailor standing before her with his hand on his hips like he was anything more than a goon. “Fine. Your wife, Maisie? Been jammin' my fingers in her cunt for near two years now. She's got a birthmark on her right asscheek if ya' don't believe me.” And how Vanessa laughed, even when he slammed a boot into her gut and knocked the wind out of her. He stomped on her chest again once she was reeling, but still she hacked a wheezing laugh. The crew member was pulled away before he could try crushing her sternum, and Vanessa pulled herself back up. It was best to go out laughing, Vanessa supposed. Never let them see you fear. Never let them think of this moment as a victory.
Another man silently looped a rope from the other side of the deck to her wrists. This would be the hauling line. Vanessa's punishment was to be pulled across the keel of the ship, from port to starboard. The barnacles stuck to the hull of the ship would rake her flesh to ribbons, and the salt water would agitate the wounds, and that was all assuming she didn't simply drown before the end of the torture. Vanessa knew all of this, and still she accepted the punishment she did not earn. Her only crime was silence, and she would suffer it eternally.
The rope around her waist pulled tight, and Vanessa was dragged backwards across the deck, smashing into the railing with her feet until she was hoisted over the side of the ship by the rigging. A pulley held her over the water, legs and arms dangling down. She looked back over to Jorge, and still he was the one holding fast to the rope that held her aloft. This time, he held her gaze. There was still time. She could have saved herself, but she didn't. She nodded knowingly to Jorge, and was content to let herself hang.
The captain had stumbled to his feet by now, and had wrapped his arm in stripped cloth. He shuffled to the bow of the ship, and just leered at her while Vanessa hung by her waist.
“Useless bitch. Come on, lass. Give us a nice send-off.” He sneered through rotten teeth. He was goading her. He wanted her to talk so he could drop her the moment she tried. Again, Vanessa denied him his victory. Her death would be one she chose. She remained silent, and stared blankly down at the waves. The frigid, blue water was crystal clear, so at least she knew sharks were of no concern.
A minute passed as the captain continued to needle her, but Vanessa heard none of it over the call of the grave. Finally, lauding his victory over sailors who already seemed to despise him became a boring endeavor, and he straightened his back.
“Now.” The captain snapped, whipping his arm down in a swift arc.
Jorge released the rope, and Vanessa plunged down ten feet into the water below. The temperature difference made her entire body seize, and already she lost some air when she instinctively gasped at the cold. Water rushed into her mouth, but thankfully she stopped herself from swallowing. Down she sunk, past the hull of the ship. It was a slow, lazy drift downward, and she begun to wonder what they were doing. If her punishment was to be drowning, why not simply bind her limbs and toss her overboard? She pulled at her bindings, but still found them tight. She rubbed her wrists together in an effort to slip the binds, but there was nothing to be done.
Her eyes burned through the salt water as she watched the port side of the vessel drift past her , and she was left dangling below the ship entirely. She saw the barnacles jutting out like rows of teeth from the hull. Then she looked up to see the sun through the water. Her lungs begged for air, but still she endured. She held to life like a drunk to the bottle. Her vision begun to tunnel, and she could feel her thoughts getting so very, very far away.
Her thoughts then begun to betray her. She could see the surface just inches away, begging for one last fight. She heard the laughter of a tavern and the wind through the trees. Her mind did all it could to distract her from the fact that she was dying.
And then, the line around her wrists pulled tight, heaving Vanessa starboard under the ship. The crew above were pulling with all of their strength in savage hauling yanks, sending Vanessa clear under the ship in less than half a minute. Vanessa was limp now, though still conscious. Her limbs felt deadened, and her eyes could no longer focus. The pain was gone, replaced by an all encompassing numbness. At least it was until the crew got her under the ship's wide hull and dragged her up along the starboard side.
Jorge had been able to give her the best chance of life he could. He'd dropped her low and under the ship to avoid any concussions or early lacerations, but once he'd let her go, it was out of his control. So when the crew fiercely pulled at the rigging lines to bring her back above water, Vanessa's back was dragged across the barnacles and detritus. The flesh tore like carving through a roast, and salt water rushed into the open wounds Blood muddied the waters around her, blooming like an orchid of death. Scraps of flesh clung to the barnacles and floated in the water like chum.
Vanessa screamed.
Bubbles flurried from her mouth and saltwater surged into her lungs. She tried to expel it, but there was nothing for it. She gulped in lungful after lungful, suddenly desperate for life. The pain was incredible, but it was something. Every heave from the crew above sent new agonies screaming through Vanessa's body, but she no longer had the strength even to thrash helplessly. Finally her head breached the water. She shuddered, blood drooling down her back. The wounds lay open and burned as the salt sunk into them. They pulled her out of the water, and she hung by her arms while the crew looked on.
Over the railing again, and this time dumped onto her stomach on the deck when the rope was cut. The slam onto the wood shocked her senses, and pain overwhelmed her once more. She tried to scream again. Bloody saltwater gushed from her mouth by the bucket, and she thrashed impotently on the deck. Her legs kicked and arms floundered. Agony seared her mind, overwhelming everything else. She was deaf to the crew watching her.
“Drag her again.” The captain said darkly, crossing the deck to inspect the carnage he'd ordered on Vanessa.
This time, Jorge did not obey. He ran a hand through his wild black hair, and took an unsteady breath. “Captain, look at her she's already-”
“I said drag her again, damn you!” The captain snapped and jabbed at finger at Jorge. The rest of the crew looked on at Vanessa's ruined body. She was not an easy woman to call friend, but even so it was difficult to watch as she wailed wordlessly in abject agony and her tears mixed with blood.
Jorge took a deep breath, drew himself up to his full height, and strode over to the captain. Along the way, Jorge grabbed a large harpoon that was stowed away near the lifeboats.
“I'll have you strung up next, you fucking cretin, don't think I won't!” The captain howled at Jorge, who continued forward with grim resolve. “Suddenly grew a heart, huh? There's room enough in the sea for all of you!” the captain barked, snarling.
Jorge cracked the captain across the head with the wooden haft of the harpoon, knocking the captain onto his back once more. The captain sputtered, but when he tried to rise back up he found the point of the harpoon pressed to his neck. On the un-sharpened end of the harpoon there was a long length of rope used for reeling in catches, and Jorge used it now to hogtie the captain.
“Now lads-” Jorge said as he walked over to Vanessa's side and crouched down. He inhaled through his teeth. The wounds were bad, jagged and uneven. They wouldn't heal well, if at all. “We're all going to say he went mad at sea and we had no choice but to throw him in the hold.” Jorge concluded. There was little objection, and even the man who had taken such glee in hurting Vanessa seemed traumatized by what he saw before him. He had thought he wanted her dead, but presented with that reality, he had gone pale and was at the verge of losing his lunch.
The few that seemed ready to defend the captain were kept at bay by sheer virtue of being outnumbered, and none made a move for Vanessa or Jorge.
Jorge rolled Vanessa over, and she screamed again, her throat raw. Her breathing grew fevered and frenzied, but finally she saw Jorge standing above her. Her eyes still struggled to focus and the pain never truly subsided. She merely grew used to it
“I...” Jorge began, but Vanessa shook her head.
Vanessa forced herself to speak, words broken with shallow gasps“ It's nothing. Did what you had to do. You'll do it again if it means letting me die to save the boy. Promise me.” Vanessa weakly rose her hand, though she could only manage lifting it a few inches from the deck and it wobbled terribly.
Jorge took her hand and shook it. “...Aye, but it won't come to that.” he said firmly. Then he cut her bindings, and then looped his arms around her waist where the wounds were fewest. He lifted Vanessa out of her pool of blood and over his shoulder like she were cargo. The crew watched on as Jorge marched her below decks and straight into the captain's quarters, laying her on her stomach on the bed there.
Fever and infection set in after the first few nights, and Vanessa spent most of their voyage back to port in a blood mad haze. They bathed her in salt water nightly in an effort to keep her wounds clean, but she begun to resent the pain that came with it. Even when she tried to assault Jorge, he tirelessly worked to keep her stable, and did his best to coax her out of her delirium.
Weeks in a delirious haze unfit to utter her own name, and finally they made it to shore. It was only under the care of a cutter that the infection was staunched and her fever broken. Another week was spent recovering, and even then she wasn't fit to work aboard the crew. Her hands still shook, and she walked like a drunkard, but she was alive.
The boy lived, too. His fever broke alongside Vanessa's, and he rebounded far more quickly. His muscles had begun wasting away from so much bed rest and he needed now to walk with a crutch. No one knew if he'd recover fully, but for now it was enough.
