Hey! I know this chapter is pretty long, but it's a pivotal one too, so I wanted to put it all together. I'll be really busy with finals though, so I probably won't update for a week or two after this. Here goes!
I woke up to see Liz peering anxiously down at me. She grinned in relief when I sat up, but when I winced, she made me lay back down on my bedroll. “Your rib is broken, so try not to move that much. Ash, you’ve been unconscious for at least three hours! And no offense, but you look horrible.” She was speaking so fast it was hard for me to understand.
I managed to sit up, even though Liz kept trying to make me lie down. “You don’t look that much better either.” I commented. That was a lie. She looked beautiful, but her bruises were even more visible. At least the blood was gone. “Where’s Gage?” I asked, looking around.
She shrugged. “He’s eating, and then bringing us food. Everyone was asking him how we did.” Liz grimaced at me. “They’re all really curious about us. They don’t see kids much.” I nodded just as the door opened and Gage came in, holding a bowl in each hand.
He sat against a wall as we ate quickly. “Liz, the captain told me that from now on, he wants you to tie your hair back during the day. He says it’s very pretty, but it gets in the way.” Liz scowled, glaring at her bowl.
“JB told you my hair was pretty?” She confirmed, seeming outraged. Gage nodded cautiously. Liz muttered something, and then looked up hopefully. “Do you have a knife?” She asked him.
Gage narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What are you going to use it for?” She shrugged, and I narrowed my eyes at her as well.
“Liz…” Again, there was a silent paragraph in that word. Liz rolled her eyes at me.
“I’m not stupid, Ash. Do you really think I would do that?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she sighed in exasperation, turning back to Gage. “I promise not to do anything stupid.”
Gage looked at her for a moment before bringing out a sharp knife from his shirtsleeve. “Here.” He watched carefully as Liz quickly tied her hair back. It fell until her waist in gentle waves now. Grabbing her ponytail, she swung her hair over one shoulder, brought the knife up, and cut her hair so quickly that I didn’t even have time to react.
I stared at her in astonishment as eighteen inches of hair fell to the ground around her. When she was done, she had a fairly even bob cut. With her hair so short, I barely recognized her. She grinned at me and gave Gage his knife back, getting up and gingerly doing a full turn, trying not to move any of her bruised limbs.
“What do you think?” She asked. I laughed at her delighted and defiant expression.
“I love it.” I told her sincerely. She looked good no matter what length her hair was, but her happiness at having done something to annoy JB was contagious. She laughed with me, and we turned to Gage, who was watching both of us with a slightly bemused expression.
“Why on earth did you do that?” He asked, looking puzzled. Liz shrugged.
“It was fun. And now my hair won’t be as pretty.” A shadow of a scowl crossed her bruised face. Gage only rolled his eyes, so I assumed that her act of defiance wasn’t punishable. Then he pushed back his bowl and stood up.
“Okay, I’m glad you two are having fun, but I’m afraid we need to train some more. Tomorrow, JB is coming to look at you two again.” I gulped at his tone and got into a fighting stance, ignoring the pain from my rib. Liz gave me a sharp glance filled with concern, but I ignored it. I could do this. No, I would do this.
Everything hurt as I got to my feet, but I used anger towards JB to keep me standing. When we practiced kicking and punching, I imagined that he was my punching bag, and for the first time I realized that I really wanted to hurt someone. That if I had a chance to, I would hurt JB. And that changed me, and changed Liz. Before, we’d never had anyone to dislike, not to this extent. But now… our parents weren’t around to tell us what was right. Instead our role models were people who kidnapped and killed people.
Days and weeks passed and blended together in a mix of bruises and shock, pain and punishment, and so our emotions began to blend the same way. Sometimes I would get angry for no reason and suddenly want to punch something and yell and throw things. And I found that if I wanted, I could be cruel. I dreamed of hurting JB, of killing him, even. I wondered what it would feel like to be the one holding the whip, to know how much pain I was going to cause as I swung it towards JB’s back. And then in my dreams I’d watch him scream and beg, and I’d laugh. That scared me more than anything else—I scared myself. I was losing myself.
I could see the change in Liz, too. With no one but each other to rely on or to keep each other sane or be role models, we got colder. Liz, who’d never hurt anyone or anything if she could help it, would be the one to savagely attack a dummy or attack Gage, and sometimes even me, in our practices. The Liz and Ash who would play together in Willow Park and who played sweet or sour to entertain ourselves were gone. Instead we had different kinds of competitions: who could get the other in a lethal hold, whether unarmed or with a knife. And when we fought we turned each other into the enemy. I’d look at Liz and imagine she was at JB, and as my eyes turned cold and hard so would hers, and it was only when one of us won that we would come back to our senses.
I knew it scared her too. Every time something like that happened she’d release me or I’d release her, and we’d laugh together, but the laughter was forced and strained, a false cover for what we were really feeling. And we learned to do that well too, almost as well as we learned to fight: before this ordeal I didn’t care if people knew what I thought of how I felt. Now… if I was sad or scared, I made myself seem angry or supremely confident. To me, emotions were cut down and categorized: emotions allowed in front of our captors, emotions allowed when I was alone, and emotions allowed when I was with Liz.
The only emotions I showed our captors were few: confidence and control. If I felt anger I hid it so that I wouldn’t be punished. Fear was pushed completely into a box and tightly sealed, because to admit fear was to admit defeat. That was something Gage liked to tell us at least once a day: ‘To admit fear it to admit defeat. If you admit defeat, you die. Fear does not exist for you. You give people fear, you make them scared. Nothing scares you. Do you understand?’ He’d demand, pacing in front of us and shouting the words at us.
At first, Liz and I would nod, but not really understand. We were scared he’d get mad at us for not understanding, and we were scared to ask him to explain. But the concept was one we learned in the first month, and when he’d ask us we’d shout back at him. ‘Yes sir!’ And he would nod his approval and move on.
When Liz and I were alone, we both made an effort to go back to normal. We’d talk together, joke a little. I showed her when I was worried or scared, and she showed me when she felt the same way. We’d comfort each other, and know that at least we weren’t completely alone, that at least there was someone else we could lean on and rely on. And as long as we had that, things couldn’t really get that bad.
So we got through the days, the weeks, the training and the fighting and the instruction. Time was a relative thing: it seemed like only a day ago that it had been the last day of school, and yet eons since the day we’d first gotten on to this boat. Once every week JB would enter the training room, and he would fight us. Every time, he beat us, but every time, we were also a little closer to winning.
Then one day he came in and fought us as usual. The only difference this time was the outcome: Liz and I both won, something that had never happened before. I felt myself smile and realized I hadn’t really smiled a true smile in a long time. That smile disappeared as JB turned to look at us, and I let him fill my thoughts. The anger and pain that accompanied this made my face go flat and cold, so he’d never know I’d been smiling. I looked over at Liz for a brief second and saw her glance at me as well.
Her look was cold and emotionless, but when JB turned away for an instant it softened again, and the half smile she gave me made me relax a little, almost as though I couldn’t be angry when she was happy. Then JB decided we were ready to prove ourselves to the crew. He brought us both out onto the deck where twenty completely lethal men were standing, all looking skeptically at us.
“Liz goes first. Mark, fight her.” A man who towered over us, a mountain of pure muscle stepped forward. “No knives for now.” Liz stepped forward and looked impassively at Mark. Her face showed absolutely no emotion except maybe mild disdain, an expression we’d both learned to copy from the other pirates when they looked at us. It was such a familiar look, yet so wrong on Liz’s face.
She stood in the center of the ring of men in a casual, relaxed stance as Mark rolled his neck and stepped into a fighting stance. It took every ounce of my self-control not to drop my expressionless mask and rush to her side to help her as JB said “Attack.”
Mark waited for Liz to attack, grinning. He had already underestimated her, and she used that to his advantage. Too quickly for me to even see, she flew in with a side-kick, catching him in the solar plexus. He staggered back two steps, completely taken off guard, and she followed up with a flurry of punches aimed at his stomach, since his head was way above her reach.
I made sure to keep my face impassive, but inside I was cheering wildly. She was doing it! She was going to win! But as soon as I thought that, she faltered in her attack. In the split second that she stopped, Mark delivered a solid kick to her head.
Her head snapped back, and she staggered back three steps as her mouth began to bleed. For a moment she stopped, looking dazed with pain. When Mark dived in with a punch, I thought she wasn’t going to be able to block it. But at the last second she dodged and slammed her elbow hard onto his spine. She wasn’t nearly as strong as he was, but she’d hit a nerve. He fell to the ground, but in an instant he was up again, panting hard.
His movements were less smooth now, as though his back was hurting. The other pirates were watching intently, faces completely expressionless as their eyes tracked every movement. Finally, JB stepped forward.
“Okay. Thank you.” He nodded to both Mark and Liz equally. “You see now that Liz is capable of defending herself. Now we will see Ash. Kyran?”
Another man stepped forward. He wasn’t a towering giant like Mark, but he was muscled and obviously fast. He looked me over once before stepping into a fighting stance. I walked forward and did the same, trying to assess this man before we fought.
He wasn’t underestimating me, that was certain. I could see that he was going to be almost impossible to hit, because the way he held himself told me that he was fast. I gulped and made my face cold when JB said, “Attack.”
Kyran didn’t wait for me to come to him. He leaped from where he was standing, punching at where my solar plexus had been a moment ago. I ducked and punched upward, catching him in the stomach. He twisted in the air so that when he landed he was facing me.
I didn’t even see his leg move, but I felt his kick as it hit me square in the chest, making me stumble backwards. He jumped at me, but I regained my balance and kicked out just as he leaped. He slammed into my kick and sent a ripple of shock through my whole body, and then it was his turn to stumble back.
We both circled each other cautiously. He bobbed in, hitting me and snapping my head back. I was dazed for a moment, but then I recovered myself. For an instant I was almost glad for all the times I’d been hit the same way by JB. I weaved in and kicked the side of his head, making him stumble one step to the side. Quickly, I followed in with a punch, but he kicked me before I could hit him, and I landed on the deck with an “Oomph!”
I jumped to my feet, but he was too quick and before I could twist away he had an arm around my neck in a way that could snap it with a single twist. Both of us were still, and then Kyran stepped back, saluting JB, who smiled grimly at both of us.
“You see now that both of these youngsters are very talented. They will be useful.” As always, the captain’s word was law, and the others nodded. I walked steadily over to where Liz was standing and watching the proceedings impassively.
When my back was turned to everyone but her, I grinned and winked. Her face remained impassive as she gazed at me, because her face was visible to everyone behind me, but I thought I saw a flicker of happiness in her eyes before they went flat again
That night, we were sitting side by side against a wall, trying to go to sleep when Gage came in. His expression was blank, and I tensed, ready for bad news. “The captain would like you both to accompany us. We are going ashore. A town did not pay the fee that insures that they will be left alone. In fact, they openly defied us. The captain wishes to punish them.”
His stilted, formal language was another clue that this was bad news. Liz and I exchanged wary glances before getting to our feet. I felt Liz take my hand and squeeze once in reassurance before she let go and stepped out into the hallway before me. Making sure that my face betrayed no fear, I followed after her.
Gage led us out onto the deck, and I saw that we were docked in a small cove that seemed hidden from view. My pulse quickened at the sight of land, but I quickly controlled myself. Be emotionless. I reminded myself, stepping down off the boat and onto land.
My legs seemed unsure of how to move on land after so long on a boat, but after a couple steps, I got back into the rhythm. Ahead of me, I saw Liz stumble a tiny bit as she got used to walking on land, and I glanced sharply at JB to make sure he hadn’t noticed her sign of weakness.
He hadn’t, for which I was thankful. At the edge of the beach, JB took the lead, walking next to Liz and me as he slid through the darkness. “We're going to show you how we treat those who don't pay the fee." JB's voice was hard as he led everyone to a small villages edge. Five men were watching Liz and me, so we had no chance of escape. We stopped behind a house, and JB grinned. When he spoke, his voice was cold, tinged with just a taste of satisfaction. "Burn them all."
The men rushed towards the house closest to us, and I watched in silent horror as they poured oil on the roof, and one man climbed in a window. Liz wriggled in one man’s grasp, but he didn't let go. Both of us were forced to watch as the man slid out and gave a thumb's up. One of the men flicked his lighter, and the whole house went up in flames.
The heat rushed at me, and even from the shelter of the trees, I could see other people come out of other houses, screaming. It wasn't long before we all heard it: A scream from the house. It sounded like a young woman. I felt my blood boil. I didn’t care about the consequences, I couldn’t stand here like a stone statue while people burned to death.
I began to twist in the grasp of the man holding me, but he didn’t let go. “Please!” I shouted.
“Shut up!” The man holding me knocked me to the ground and tears began to roll down my cheeks as I struggled uselessly. Suddenly I wasn’t acting like a survivor, but like the kid I was.
In the house, a baby began to wail, and when I was dragged to my feet, I saw that the house was engulfed by flames that danced in bold defiance of the light rain. Just as the neighbors ran out of their houses, the roof of the house suddenly collapsed, and the horrible screams were cut off.
Tears were flowing freely now, no matter how I tried to stop them. Be a stone. You have no emotions. I tried to tell myself. It didn’t work. Looking over, I saw that Liz was sobbing, tears glistening on her cheeks.
Anger began to consume the sadness and feeling of helplessness. I could get out of this. Without thinking it through, I kicked behind me, hitting the man who was holding me in the balls. He fell to the ground, and I barreled into the person holding Liz.
The moment she was free, she turned to me, a new determination and hope in her eyes. JB roared with anger, but it was too late. Liz led the way, and we ran towards an outcrop of trees. We had learned to run faster than most grown men while we were on board, and now we put that training into action.
I thought that we were beating JB and his men until I heard the unearthly howling of dogs. Dogs that could smell us, and outrun us. I glanced sharply at Liz, but she only poured on the speed, flitting through trees like a pale angel.
Up ahead was a road, and I summoned an extra burst of energy, breathing hard. I burst through the last trees and onto the road right next to Liz, feeling a bubble of hope that gave me strength.
Liz skidded to a stop, and I looked to see what had made her stop. Suddenly, my hope evaporated, and I stopped as well, feeling the color drain out of my face. JB stood in front of us on the road, holding back a growling dog as he grinned his horrible piranha smile.
JB dragged Liz back onto the boat, still grinning in a way that made me want to hide under covers. I couldn’t see the person holding me, but I tried to kick him as I was forced onto the boat behind her.
JB dragged Liz into a room, and I was dragged into one next to hers. It was dark in there, with no windows or lights. The person holding me didn’t bother to close the door. Instead, he dragged me to the wall, where I could make out the outline of chains. I bit and kicked, but the man managed to chain me to the wall anyway.
My shirt had been taken off, so my cold stomach pressed against the plaster wall. I craned my neck to try and see what the man was doing behind me, but then the door closed, and we were plunged into complete darkness.
From where Liz was, I heard something crash into the wall, and I hoped that both of us would make it out of this ordeal alive. The man who was in the room with me picked up something and came behind me.
I clenched my fists and took a deep breath, willing myself not to show any emotion. The man picked something heavy up, and I heard it lash through the air before it hit my back. I couldn’t hold back my cry of tortured pain as the whip cut through my skin, and I took a gasping, shallow breath as the man readied to hit me again.
Nothing compared to this pain, not even the months of training and punishment. The whip hit me again, and I screamed again. At the same time that I screamed, I heard Liz scream in the room next to me, but I was helpless to do anything.
When the whip tore at my skin again, I managed to stay silent, biting my lip. I tasted blood, and I closed my eyes, pressing my cheek to the cold plaster as the Whizz of the whip came again. Then, Crack! It slammed into me.
I felt blood running in warm rivulets down my back as the whip came again and again. I made no sound, and neither did the man causing me this unbearable pain.
Finally, I heard screams from the room next door as Liz surrendered to the pain. The sound made me unclench my jaw as I tried to do something, anything to help her. When the whip came again, I couldn’t hold back my screams either, and it wasn’t long before I fell into unconsciousness.
When I woke up, I was in a different room than before. JB was grinning down at me, looking completely insane. I attempted to jump to my feet, but the moment I sat up, pain shot through my back. Gasping, I struggled not to fall back down.
“So, Ash. Would you like to know what’s going to happen to you now?” JB was pacing slightly in front of me, his face now devoid of expression. Through the haze of pain, I tried to figure out where he was going.
“Yes sir.” I finally said. My voice was rough from screaming. JB smiled at me.
“I have decided that you need to be punished more thoroughly for attempting to escape. I realize that you are the one who started the escape, and I’ve decided how to make sure you never do it again.” His voice was very soft. I stared uncomprehendingly at him as he continued to pace.
“Come on, don’t tell me you can’t guess. What or who do you care about the most?” In that instant I understood. Liz.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, not bothering to disguise the urgency I felt. JB smiled as he continued pacing.
“I’m going to kill her, quite simply. Unless of course, you have an alternative.” I stared at him, shocked. He was going to kill Liz. Liz was going to die. I wouldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t let it happen. And I had an idea to stop it.
“I have an alternative solution.” My desperation was evident in my words. “Let Liz go back to her parents.” JB snorted in derision, but I continued. “Let her go free, and I’ll stay. I’ll never try to run away, and I’ll be loyal.”
Taking a breath, I tried to convince him. “Instead of killing Liz, she lives but is out of sight. It’ll punish her enough to know that I’m still here, or if you pretend I died, then that will punish her too.” I winced at the truth of my words, but plowed onward.
“If you do kill her, I won’t cooperate with anything. I won’t fight, I won’t track, and I won’t steal. In fact, I’ll cause you problems every chance I get. So with my deal, it’s a win-win situation for you.” I bit my lower lip as I waited for JB to think.
He stared at the ceiling for a moment before addressing me thoughtfully. “You’re very interesting, both of you. Two months ago, you were weak, naïve, innocent, terrified and helpless. Now, you’re both strong, healthily cynical, intelligent and mature, and very capable. You are no longer children, either of you.”
I didn’t interrupt him or say anything when he finished. My heart seemed to be going double time as I waited for his answer to my proposal. I shoved back the thoughts of what it would do to Liz to know that I was either dead or captive while she was free, and the thought of what it would do to me to have her leave.
“I will accept your proposal.” JB finally said. “Now listen carefully. As your captain, I order you to say nothing while I talk to Liz. Then I will bring you out and pretend to shoot you. It will hurt, but it’ll only be a blank. Then Liz will be set free.”
I took a shuddering breath before snapping off a crisp salute. “Yes, captain.” The words felt dirty on my tongue, but I knew that from now on, that was who JB was to me. My captain.
JB nodded curtly and left the room, going up onto the deck. I heard quiet voices, and I strained to listen for Liz’s voice. This would be the last time I would ever hear it. Finally, I heard her, and I tried to memorize the way she sounded, instead of focusing on the fact that I was the reason she sounded like she was in pain.
"It’s not true! It can't be. He promised me... he promised me this morning. He told me he'd never leave me here, and I told him I'd never leave him either. We're going to be together, forever! I know it’s true. We're going to get out of here, and then grow up together! Don't try to tell me otherwise!" I winced as I realized how I had promised that this morning.
Then I steeled myself. I had to do this. There was no other way. I heard a soft murmur of voices, and then Liz’s voice again. "Gage, it’s my fault. He's dead because of me! I was the one who came up with running away that night! Why didn't you take me instead? It was my fault!"
Now she was lying, trying to convince them that it was her fault when we both knew I had started the escape. Biting my lower lip, I tried to ignore the pain in her voice. The thought of what I was doing was dawning on me, and now I had to try hard not to cry.
From now until I died, I would be one of JB’s pirates. I would never see Liz again. I would never see Mom or Dad again, or go back to school or even get to be a kid again. From now on, I would always have to be expressionless and cold in front of others. I would never be able to be friends with anyone anymore. I was really, truly, alone for the first time.
JB jarred me out of my train of thought, yanking me out of the chair I was sitting in and rushing onto deck. I felt the cold butt of his gun press against my head, but I forced myself to swallow my fear.
Looking out at the water, I saw Liz. She was swimming desperately towards a coast guard boat. She was swimming away and never coming back. Part of me wanted to yell out and beg her to come back, but I squashed that part with the part of me that was cheering wildly. She would be free. Liz would survive.
JB’s voice blasted right near my ear. “Come back or he dies!” What? The deal was to let her go! I saw Liz freeze and turn around. Even from hear, I could see her shocked, relieved, and terrified expression. She screamed and went under water for a moment before bobbing back up.
“Ash! You’re alive!” She screamed. I gazed at her, trying to fix her face in my memory. Suddenly, I realized she was swimming back, and I panicked.
“Liz! What are you doing? Go! Go! Don’t come back!” I yelled, trying to make her turn back. She ignored me with her customary pigheadedness, but then a wave crashed over her and she went under for a moment. She bobbed back up to the surface, but then she saw the coast guard boat. They had seen her and were trying to rescue her.
I heard them yelling at her from where I gazed in frozen terror and elation. “Girl! Get on! That man has a gun!” I almost laughed at their assumption that she was incapable of defending herself.
“Ash, hold on!” She screamed at me as one of the men leaned over and grabbed her arm and lifted her into the coast guard boat. “Let GO!” she screamed, kicking out at them. I said nothing, looking silently at Liz’s desperate attempts to go free. Even now when I looked at her, all I could think of was how beautiful and strong and brave she was.
That gave me strength and reminded me of why I was doing this. Liz looked up for a moment, staring at me desperately. I gave her a sad smile and mouthed ‘I love you’ as tears began to roll down my cheeks and hers. And for the first time ever, I realized it was true. I loved her, and I was never going to see her again.
Right next to my ear, JB murmured, “All right.” And then he shot me. I bit my lip so as not to make a sound and I sank to my knees in pain. Now I was hidden from Liz’s view, but I could still hear her piercing screams.
They didn’t stop as JB ordered the crew to gun the motor, and soon we were speeding away from the coast guard boat. After a minute, JB pulled me off the ground, where I had been sitting limply, letting tears fall.
“She’s out of sight now. You can get up.” When he let go of my arm, I stumbled a tiny bit before regaining my balance. I took a deep breath and managed a shaky salute.
“Do you know where Gage is?” I asked. He was the only one who would understand how I felt right now, and who I could actually show my emotions in front of. JB’s jaw seemed to tight a tiny bit, and I automatically tensed to be hit.
Instead JB answered flatly, “Gage is no longer with us.” I stared at his emotionless face. What did he mean? Was Gage…dead? Or had he somehow left? I knew better than to ask, so I turned away from JB and walked numbly back into the room that was now mine.
my lips are sealed 
