Page 6 of Escaping Pirates (Legends of Neverland #4)

T hey’re making port tomorrow , I repeated in my mind over and over that night after Sugar and Blossom had finally dismissed me and I’d been locked back in the brig. I’ll be able to escape.

Father traded in every major city; once I made it to shore, I was certain I’d be able to find one of his colleagues and send word.

But first, I would have to escape. Instead of sleeping like I wanted to, I slowly made my way around my cell, testing each and every rusted bar.

The ones on my door facing the walkway were most solid, but the ones separating my cell from the next one were more forgiving.

Right near the foot of my wooden bunk, one bar did more than rattle.

It scraped back and forth, wiggling enough that by heaving it back and forth, I managed to wedge it an inch to the side.

There were no other prisoners; the next cell was likely unlocked.

With renewed hope, I continued working at the iron bar, forcing it to slowly enlarge the hole until I’d worn a lengthwise groove in the hardened wood.

Finally, I managed to force the bar over so it was angled against the next cell bar.

The gap wasn’t large, and I had to lie on the floor so I could squirm through the largest part of the hole.

Even with all my wrestling against the bars, it was still a tight squeeze, and for a few minutes, I feared that I would become stuck.

It was bad enough to be held hostage aboard a pirate ship; the last thing I needed was to be discovered awkwardly wedged in the bars between two cells and unable to extricate myself, my nose pressed into moldy, rodent-scented straw.

Rats watched from the corners but didn’t come closer as I fought my way through to the next cell. Once my legs slithered through the gap, I scrambled to my feet and crossed the cell in two eager bounds to shove at the door.

It was locked.

“No,” I whispered, rattling the cell door.

Why would they lock an empty cell? I slammed my fist against the bars and accomplished nothing other than bruising my hand, then rushed around the second cell, trying all the bars to find any sort of weakness, but the only flaw was the bar already angled outward that led back to my original cell.

I slumped to the ground, shoulders shaking as I pulled in ragged breaths, trying to bully my weakening body into cooperating with me and staying calm.

This wasn’t the life I was meant to lead.

All those years training to take over Father’s trade merchant business, all those years learning etiquette and reviewing trade proposals, had yielded me nothing.

Why, why, why had I been so eager to rush off into the world to prove how capable I was?

What a joke. All I had done was prove that I could get myself into increasingly worse situations.

“ Steady hands and a clear mind can turn any storm into a breeze ,” Father always said when he’d told me about his difficult negotiations.

Our situations were hardly comparable; Father had always been well-nourished and comfortable in our manor house, but he was right.

I had to think , and clear thoughts were a difficulty when the only thing I’d eaten for two days was a single stolen scone.

At least Sugar and Blossom had allowed me some water to ward off the dehydration hovering and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

My head throbbed, and I pressed the heels of my hands against my closed eyes.

What were the facts?

The captain had said we would make it to port the following day, so if I was released from my cell at some point to help Sugar and Blossom, I could jump overboard and make it to land.

Additionally, every city port had ships coming and going constantly, so I might not even need to make it to land before escaping—another ship could pick me up before long.

I was not a champion swimmer, but I could stay afloat well enough, and I preferred those odds to remaining a pirate crew’s captive.

I briefly debated asking Sugar or Blossom if they would need me to accompany them to town to help with their shopping, but I discarded the idea.

Making the request would most likely get me locked up as a safety precaution.

They would instantly assume that I planned to abandon them, and they would be correct.

And even if I was locked in my cell, once we were at the dock, I could scream for help.

There were several portholes throughout the brig, including one across the walkway from me and another two cells over.

The dock’s attendants would hear and raise an alarm.

Hope wasn’t lost, but it was still with a heavy heart that I squirmed my way back into my own cell and forced the bar back to its original place before collapsing onto my bunk, exhausted and discouraged.

During the entire night, I was plagued by nightmares that all depicted me sleeping through the entire time at shore and discovering that I would be a prisoner forever.

I continually jerked awake, panicked and desperately checking to see if the sun had risen yet, then struggling to fall asleep again, still haunted by the same worries as when I was dreaming.

Once the sky showed even the faintest sign of light, I couldn’t sleep anymore. I watched for the sunrise, every inch of me tingling with anticipation. This was the day. I would be free, and this would all be but a past nightmare.

Not long after dawn, one of the crew came to unlock my cell door. “The cap’n wants to see ye,” he said in a gruff, careless tone.

“Of course.” The model of obedience, I trailed after him, eagerly ascending the steps and even appreciating the way the sunlight filtered through the rigging and nets that rose up above my head. Land wasn’t in sight yet, but it would be soon. It was a day full of hope.

“In here,” the crewman said, prodding me in the back so I was forced into the captain’s quarters. He was sitting at his desk, poring over ledgers that looked very similar to the ones that were always strewn across my Father’s desk back home. He too had always risen early for work.

“Good morning, Captain,” I greeted him politely.

“Ah yes, come in, girl,” he said with a single glance upward. “Thank you Steele, that will be all. Go wake the cook.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” Steele left, shutting the door behind him with a snap, and his heavy footsteps receded back across the deck.

“We’ll be coming into port later today,” Captain Harsh told me. “And I wanted to know if you’d like me to send a message to anyone.”

“I…beg your pardon?” I asked, sure I had misheard .

“A message? A letter to your family or perhaps to a certain young man?”

This was so unexpected that I stood still for a full thirty seconds. “Why?”

“Because I’m a kindhearted man, that’s why.” The captain smiled to reveal his golden teeth. “I take good care of my passengers.”

He really was a dreadful liar. Was he planning to take the contact information and send a ransom note?

Was he planning to lure me into a false sense of security to lay a trap for my rescuers and kill?

Or maybe he was planning to simply attack my family using the address provided.

No, I couldn’t allow that to happen. But who else would I contact?

“Where are we?”

“In the lovely country of Ebora. Have you heard of it?”

I stiffened. Of all the difficult trading negotiations Father dealt with, Ebora was the worst. Their government had recently been overthrown, and as such, the laws, tariffs, and taxes were ever-changing, resulting in a perpetual headache for merchants trying to turn a profit.

Father’s employees often came back with reports of a great deal of criminal activity as the new government slowly took over.

Captain Harsh had been watching my reactions closely. “I see you must be familiar with the stories. It’s been a good port for us this last year and a half. Not really a place for the likes of a lady like you, though. Now, would you like me to send a letter for you?”

“Yes. What may I use to compose one?”

“Here.” The captain pushed a parchment and quill toward me. “I’ll even seal it once you’re done, after I read it of course.”

Like the letter would ever get where I meant it to go. I took the parchment and ink, my brain still working overtime to decipher the captain’s plans and mastermind a plan to thwart whatever unknown goal he had.

“Who will be the lucky person receiving the letter?” Harsh asked.

“Darren,” I said, trying to force my lips into a girlish simper. “He’s my fiancé.”

“Proceed, then.” Harsh narrowed his eyes at the paper in front of me. “Keep it short.”

I licked my dry lips, dipped the quill’s point into the inkpot, and began, hoping against hope that the captain of Father’s guard would understand.

I scanned the note. Darren was clever enough to pick up on the coded message, and his wife certainly wouldn’t mind the ruse if it meant my safe return.

Was Captain Harsh shrewd enough to pick up on the message as well?

He hadn’t believed my handmaiden story for a minute and had seen through my ploy to get my crew wooden crates before they drowned.

“Finished,” I said, blowing on the ink to help it dry, then scrawling the address on a different slip of paper.

If the captain tried to launch an attack on the address I’d put down, he’d find himself at a guardhouse.

The worst-case scenario would be that it never got sent, which would simply leave me in my current situation. It could only help, right?

My heart pounded so hard against my ribs that I was surprised it couldn’t be heard over the rolling waves and tramping of the crew’s boots on the deck overhead.

Harsh’s eyes darted from side to side several times as he scanned my note then looked at the address I’d written down.

“Who’s Olga?”

“My dog.”

“And you don’t want to alert your fiancé to your position and beg for rescue?” he asked, a highly unpleasant gleam in his eye.