Page 49 of Bloody Black

E veryone who accompanied Prudence is dead; all that remains are Robb and me. But while there’s no danger, we can’t stay here. Not when he is this badly injured. Not when everything we need is on the ship.

“Can you walk?” I ask him. “If I help?”

He grimaces. “Not sure.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Robb groans as I slip an arm beneath his shoulders. He’s heavy—solid muscle and sheer stubbornness. His skin is clammy, pants soaked through with blood, and when he tries to rise, his left leg buckles. Every step is going to be agony.

“Right,” I mutter. “No problem. We’ll just… do this the hard way.”

The path away from the ruined fort is treacherous, with shattered stones and knee-deep sand.

I half-slide, half-stumble, holding Robb against me like a drowning man.

His breath rasps in my ear. Between us and the Queen Anne is a gauntlet, and I have no idea how I’ll manage to get us all the way back.

“You know your worst quality? Laziness. Forcing a lady to carry you like this.”

He chuckles, his skin pale as snow.

“I’ve got you,” I tell him. “It’s not far.”

But it is far. Not close, by any means. It’s likely another fifteen minutes on foot down a treacherous path full of loose gravel, switchbacks, and partly through cliffs. Even if it is downhill, it feels like a league. And all of it is uneven ground.

One step at a time. Follow the trail. Trust yourself. That’s what my father would have said, and the memory of his voice echoes in my head.

A loose stone rolls under my heel, and we both fall, my elbow cracking painfully against a boulder. The impact jolts through both of us—Robb groans, blood spilling faster down his leg.

“Sorry.” I scramble to help him up.

“I’m fine,” he pants. “It’s fine.” He’s clearly lying.

When I’ve almost lost hope, we come around a boulder and I get a shocking surprise.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge is not at the dock.

It’s not there.

“Goddammit!” I shout loudly, my arm tightening around Robb’s waist.

“What?” he mutters. His eyes are on the ground, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was trying not to faint .

Think. Think. They wouldn’t go far… they know I’m here. There must have been some risk of being reboarded, taken over, something.

My eyes scan the shoreline, and just when I’ve given up, I feel a burst of relief. For there, at the beach, a rowboat sits, its rope tethered to a palm. There’s a white ribbon tied to an oar, in a silly-looking bow.

It looks ancient. It might not even float.

This is undoubtedly the work of Domino.

This must mean that I’m expected to take the rowboat out into the harbor, and only then will I see the ship. The bay is a half moon–it could be hidden to the left, or it could be hidden to the right, and there’s no way to tell without a lot of walking.

Rowing is the only alternative to swimming or walking, and I’ll take it, even if it means I’ll have to captain that piss poor boat out to open water, past the reef, until I see the ship.

Once we’re there, Tremaine can stitch Robb up, sanitize the wound.

He’s probably doing the same for Holly right now.

“Come on. We’re almost there.”

We reach the beach, where the boat rests, half-buried in sand. As I dig it out, Robb sways and looks out at the ocean. A north wind has blown in, stirring the sea, and the sky has gone to an angry gray.

“It’s too rough.” He sounds worried, and he’s not wrong. The surf is frothing and angry, the wind whipping it into a frenzy. It’s high tide, and a mean one at that.

Robb is leaning against the boat. The bleeding from his thigh is so much that there is red all the way to his knee. There are red droplets on the sand near his feet, a perfect match to my red coat .

“Don’t turn coward on me now, Robb.” I untie the rope from the palm tree. “I’ll get you into the boat, then I’ll—”

“Kill us both trying to get past those waves. The tide is too high. There’s a reef.”

“Never underestimate a desperate woman,” I say, guiding us down to the water, my arm wrapped around his waist.

Robb hisses as the first waves hit our feet. “The salt burns; it’s freezing.”

“Don’t be a baby. You didn’t seem to mind before.”

“That was before I was stabbed.”

He only has to go up to his knees, but every time a wave hits us, Robb stumbles. Like seaweed, he sways with the ebb and flow of the tide. If I don’t keep my grip, he’ll sink into the water and disappear.

“Here we are.” I grip the edge of the boat with one hand, my other wrapped around him. “Get in.”

Robb lifts his arm from around my shoulder, jaw clenching, and grasps the side rail. He presses down, tries to hoist himself over its edge.

To no avail.

“Come on.” I press down, tilting the boat until it’s on the verge of spilling its contents. I can’t lower it any further without tipping it over entirely.

But even after I’ve done that, Robb can’t lift himself over. He’s always so strong and capable—but he can’t get into the boat. He must be more injured than he’s letting on.

I scream, not from fear but from fury.

“Just leave me here,” he rasps, eyes half-glazed .

“Absolutely not . ”

I consider. The answer isn’t strength or skill or even hope…

it’s strategy. My brain rifles through options like a mad alchemist searching for mercury.

I cannot lift him. He cannot lift himself.

He cannot swim to the Queen Anne , and I certainly can’t do it with him on my back.

We’ve simply got to get into this rowboat somehow.

“I’m going to push you in,” I decide. “You want face first or ass first?”

Robb wipes his brow, obviously thinking of the stab wound in his leg. “Er...”

The best course of action is always a quick one.

“Face first it is.” I place both hands on his back and shove him, hard as I can, and he tumbles into the boat. His cheek smashes into the boards, busting his nose. He shouts in agony, then rolls to his side, curled up.

“Argh… Fuck you, Anne.”

“Some other time, maybe.” I shove hair out of my face, salt stinging my eyes.

Then I heave, turning the heavy boat toward the horizon, walking us deeper into the waves. This rowboat is huge, meant to hold ten men, and it weighs much more than I expected. I’ve never tried to move one alone.

Now Robb is lying in it, adding to its heft.

My muscles strain as I put my shoulder to the wood, inching it along. Come on, I beg silently. Move.

A few more feet, and we’re free of the sand, so I clamber into the boat. Pick up one of the oars .

“Aren’t you going to keep complaining?” I ask.

Robb laughs, even though his face is as white as a sheet. “I think I’ve decided that I’d rather drown.”

“Spoken like a true pirate.” I pull hard at the oars, white-knuckled. The oars are too big, built for men with muscle and height and long limbs. Even sitting squarely in the middle, I only have a hand on the very end.

Every pull is shallow, and we zigzag across the water instead of going straight.

Robb flinches with pain every time a wave strikes us. This is, unfortunately, very often. The seas are rough, a storm clearly in the distance, and every gust of wind chills me to the bone.

“See? Easy.” I row. “We’ll be there in no time.”

This is not exactly true. Each swell sets us back; crests and troughs slap against the hull, and without the weight of men, the rowboat is like a piece of parchment in a gale.

It’s all I can do to keep the boat straight, heading into the breakers.

The pull of the tide is inland, back to The Bitter End, back to the beach.

A sudden swell tips the boat hard left, and one oar rips out of my hand. I lunge to catch it, knuckles scraping the rail…

It’s gone. Lost to the waves.

Dammit.

Thankfully, we have others. I grab one within reach, and by the time I’m ready to row again, we’re back in the breech.

And then I see it. Up ahead is a sea surge, easily taller than a man, white-capped.

Are the gods deliberately smiting me? How much worse can this day possibly be ?

I yank at the oars so hard I worry the wood will splinter, and we turn just in time, facing the wave head-on. The whitecap splits open like a fish belly, folding in half on either side of the prow. Once it’s past, I exhale loudly, slumping with relief.

We’re past the reef. Here, the water is calmer, nearly flat.

And I can see the ship. Unfortunately, it’s still fairly far. The tide is strong, sucking at us like a vampire, pulling us back toward shore. Every four pulls of the oars, the boat moves a few inches, and the skin on my palms begins to rip and blister.

Dread curls in my belly as I glance down at Robb.

Keep going. You have to keep going.

His eyes are closed. He doesn’t respond. For a heartbeat, I think he’s unconscious. “Don’t you dare die,” I snarl, nudging him hard with my boot.

“Dear gods. Can you stop?” He winces, unable to continue.

“Robb!” Relief floods me. “Talk to me. Tell me anything.”

He groans. “No, thanks.”

“Did I ever tell you…” I search for something, anything to talk about as I row us back to the Queen Anne’s Revenge . “Did I tell you about Soren?”

“I must be dying if you want to talk about your feelings.”

A dry laugh tumbles past my lips. I shake my head and draw the oars back with every ounce of my strength as waves pound against the hull, pushing us back toward shore.

“It was supposed to feel like a reckoning. Retribution; justice served. Instead, it felt like–like—”

Sand slipping through my fingers .

“I didn’t make him beg. I didn’t let him fight. I didn’t prolong his agony or make him suffer. And he looked at me and let me.”

Robb opens his eyes. “You’re upset he didn’t struggle? That’s true villainy.”

“He could have disarmed me. He was one of the few men who could, and he lowered his fists. Even though he knew I meant to kill him.”

Talking takes my focus off my blistering hands, the fact that we aren’t moving forward, the fact that Robb’s blood is filling the bottom of the boat.

“He had daughters. And I killed him. Took their father away. That’s fair. Isn’t it? He killed my father. He helped William steal my throne. He…”

I’m horrified to realize I’m crying, but I can’t wipe away the tears because I can’t let go of the damn oars. If I so much as loosen my grip, we’ll slip sideways and capsize. Tears mingle with ocean and salt, but I keep talking.

“Soren trained me. He told me to always get back up and fight. Then that night… that night he said I should just lie there. That he’d make it quick.” My voice breaks. “I never did anything. Never hurt anyone. Why would he do that to me?”

Robb puts his hand on my boot, a small measure of comfort. “Two things in this world are infinite. Love and evil. Sometimes you find both in the same man.”

“What if I’m no better than the men who hurt me? What if all this bloodshed is just me becoming the thing I swore I’d destroy?”

Robb shrugs. “Then it is what it is.”

I half-sob, half-laugh. “You’re a good man, Robb Maynard. ”

“The best,” he agrees, giving me a crooked smile.

I inhale shakily and look down at him. “Don’t die. I won’t… I don’t know what we are, but I don’t know what I would do.”

He sighs and closes his eyes. “Honestly? I like you better when you’re yelling at me.”