Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

V iktor and I agreed not to say anything to anyone until we figured out what was happening around here, but I couldn’t stop watching everyone. I was looking for something, anything suspicious, but I had found nothing so far.

Roscoe and Manny, who were my company today while we mopped the second deck, must have figured out what I was doing because they started looking at me funny.

“Why do you keep staring at us?” Roscoe asked, watching me with suspicious, narrowed eyes.

I shrugged dismissively. “No reason.”

“I know you’re keeping something for us, so spill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I denied, keeping up the innocent act. Hoping he would drop the questioning, I dipped my mop in the clean water and moved onto the steps leading to the third and bottom deck.

“You’ve been watching us,” Manny piped up, surprising me.

Out of all the crew, Manny was the most reserved. He was helpful and great to have around but didn’t speak much. A few days in, I realised that he enjoyed his own company. He didn’t do well in large crowds but appeared to be warming up to us.

“And you must have been watching me to know that I’ve been watching you,” I countered, quirking a questioning brow at him.

His lips turned up slightly at the corners. “It’s difficult not to watch you when your face looks like you’re permanently trying to solve an impossible puzzle.”

“Why have you been watching us, Astrid?” Roscoe asked. “What are you hiding?”

I pursed my lips, considering my options for a moment before I gave in with a sigh. “I don’t know how to say this, but there’s been some strange things happening around the ship.”

Roscoe and Manny pursed their lips, sharing a knowing look.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at them.

“I know no one believed us, but it really wasn’t Roscoe or me that threw up outside our room,” Manny told me in the utmost seriousness.

“But we don’t think it was any of the others either,” Roscoe pitched in.

“I believe you,” I told them. “But I can’t possibly explain what happened that night. If none of us threw up, then who was it?”

“Was it Kis?” Roscoe asked, eying up the feline, currently rubbing herself against my legs. You’d think I’d see her more when we were stuck on a ship together for the foreseeable future, but it turned out to be the stark opposite. The only time I saw her was during the night, but she hadn’t been coming to our bed the past couple of nights. I had no idea where she had made her bed, but she seemed pretty happy, so I let her be.

“Kis only throws up when she eats carrots.” I leaned down to pick up Kis, running my fingers through her thick black fur. “And we haven’t had any carrots since we were still in Jorvik.”

Manny frowned. “None of this makes any sense.”

I ran my fingers through Kis’ fur, smiling down at her when she meowed while licking her paw.

“Something strange happened last night,” I admitted in a small voice.

“What happened last night?” Roscoe asked, his face the mask of concentration.

“It must have been a little past midnight. Viktor and I were in our room,” I told them, purposely leaving out the part where he had been buried balls deep inside me, his hips slamming into mine with each thrust. “We were nearly asleep when someone opened our door. We both sprang up at the sound, but the person ran away before we could see who it was.”

“That’s so bizarre!” Roscoe gaped, his eyes wide.

“Things are starting to get really strange around here,” Manny frowned and glanced up and down the hall as if he suspected whoever was acting strange onboard would come running down the hallway toward us right now to reveal themselves. “How come Viktor didn’t say anything about it during breakfast?”

“We agreed to keep it to ourselves for now, but I guess I kind of broke that pact,” I chuckled and bent down to allow Kis out of my arms when she became restless. We all watched as she bounded down the hallway and up the stairs which led to the top deck. “We planned to watch everyone and try to figure out who could be behind this all since no one owns up to it.”

“Have you got anyone in mind?” Roscoe asked, a curious expression on his face.

“No,” I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.”

“I can see something bad right now,” Manny murmured under his breath, and Roscoe and I turned to look at what he was staring at.

Like the other day, there was a pool of sick outside one of the rooms on the other side of the hallway we hadn’t cleaned yet. Moving closer to it, despite the stench that threatened to repel me, I saw it was outside Garth and Odin’s room, but it couldn’t have been either of them. They spent nearly as much time out on the sea as Viktor did.

There were even little footprints in the pool from where Kis had skipped through it when she went upstairs. Her footprints would have looked cute if it wasn’t a pool of sick that she had paraded through.

“I’ll get this one. You guys got the last one,” I said, my nose turning up at the stench, which became even more unbearable the closer I got to it.

I hadn’t physically seen the pool of sick last time, but judging by the bits of undigested food in it, I was certain that it was one of us. It had to be. I could see Gustav’s cooking in it.

“We’ll need to bring this up with everyone again,” Roscoe sighed, moving to help me.

“The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the sooner we can stop cleaning up someone’s disgusting vomit,” Manny groaned as he swapped out my dirty bucket of water with his clean one, and frankly, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Kis meowed and rubbed the side of her face against my arm, asking for some fish. As I hadn’t finished the last of mine, I placed her on my lap and fed her the fish from the palm of my hand.

“What did you get up to today, my siren?” Viktor leaned over to ask but hissed when Kis swatted his hand away with her sharp claws, protective of her fish.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the deep scowl on his face as he glared at her. We both knew it meant nothing. Viktor may not admit it, but he was just as smitten with Kis as I was, if not more.

In fact, on more than one occasion on this trip, I had awoken to the sight of Kis asleep on Viktor’s chest, never without a few fresh scratches.

They have a love-hate relationship.

“You’ll find out soon enough, my pirate.” I leaned over to press my lips against his cheek to make up for the scratch that Kis had just rewarded him with.

Roscoe, Manny, and I kept our mouths shut during lunch because we still needed time to wrap our heads around everything. We also spent the rest of the day watching everyone together, trying to remain as discrete as possible. Disappointingly, we didn’t spot anything out of the ordinary.

However, at dinner, we couldn’t hold ourselves back any longer.

“We had to clean up another pile of sick today,” Roscoe suddenly announced, and Caspian choked on his mouthful in surprise.

“Warn a man before announcing something like that over dinner,” Caspain grumbled, but it didn’t stop him from getting stuck right back into his food as if nothing had happened in the first place.

“It was outside Garth and Odin’s room,” I said, running my fingers through Kis’ fur.

Manny quickly added, “Not that we’re suggesting Garth or Odin were the ones that had been sick.”

“This is all so confusing,” Jerrik frowned, a befuddled expression on his face. “Strange things have been happening around here. Nothing like this has ever happened on our other trips.”

Viktor stared at his friend. “Is there something you haven’t told us, Jerrik?”

Jerrik pursed his lips, watching Viktor for a long moment before he sighed, giving in. “I didn’t want to say anything at the risk of sounding like a child, but one of my blankets has gone missing. It was a gift for my wife so I wouldn’t be cold at night, and I’d like it back. I promise I won’t get angry. I just want my blanket back.”

“Since you’ve mentioned it–” Hammond frowned. “–I’m also missing a tunic.”

“I feel like I’ve been hearing someone walk around at night, but every time I’ve checked, there wasn’t anyone there,” Latham added.

“And I feel like we’re going through the nuts sooner than we should,” Gustav added, exhaling deeply. “Whenever I go down there in the morning to retrieve some, I feel like there’s always less than there was the previous day.”

“Someone came into our room last night but then left before we could see them,” Viktor said, a perplexed expression on his face. “I don’t know what’s happening on The Serpent this mission, but I don’t like it one bit. Whatever it is, I intend to get to the bottom of it,” he warned, glancing around the circle to hold all their eyes, studying them. When he reached the last person, he sighed and shook his head. “I know it’s not any of us,” he murmured quietly. “But I can’t think of any other possible explanation. Unless…” His jaw clenched, and it looked like he didn’t want to admit it.

“Do you think it’s a stowaway?” Odin asked in a small voice.

An eery silence engulfed us as we all realised how obvious the answer had been from the very beginning.