Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

O din and I were the only ones awake at this time of night, but for two completely different reasons. He was on night duty, and I couldn’t sleep thanks to Crosby’s sporadic screaming and pleas for help. While Odin handled the wheel, I leaned against the rails on the other end of the deck, staring at the path ahead illuminated by the moonlight.

Crosby’s screams had ceased a little while ago, but I still wasn’t sleepy. How could I sleep with all the conflicting thoughts rushing through my mind?

The only reason I had gone to bed at all tonight was because I knew Viktor wouldn’t if I didn’t.

Speaking of the devil…

“Why aren’t you in bed, my siren?” His voice was rough and thick with sleep. Before I could glance back, his arms wound around my waist from behind, and he pressed his bare chest to my back.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I whispered, my eyes still on the water.

He pressed a soft kiss behind my ear. “What are you thinking about?”

“Everything.”

“Like?”

“I’m concerned we didn’t catch enough fish today,” I sighed. “If Crosby hadn’t done what he did, we wouldn’t have wasted so much time, and we could have spent more time in the water catching more fish.”

“You and Jerrik caught more fish today than he’s been able to in the past few days. That’s a good thing,” Viktor tried to assure me, but those weren’t the words I wanted to hear right now.

“But it won’t last long,” I pointed out, both loving and hating how he tried to assure me.

“We can worry about what we’re going to eat in a few days when the time comes,” he whispered, his voice quiet and gentle enough to almost lull me to sleep. If only my mind wasn’t cluttered with so many thoughts of what-ifs. “You don’t need to worry, my siren. After breakfast tomorrow, Jerrik will go back on the water and catch some more fish. Hopefully, he’ll be as lucky as you were today.”

“I want to go with him again tomorrow.”

Viktor paused, and I could feel him staring down at me. “Are you sure that’s such a good thing?”

“I know I’m not a good swimmer, but I was fine until Crosby pushed me in. I even caught a couple of fish myself without Jerrik’s help.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that, my siren. I can’t imagine how scary it must have been for you.” His arms tightened around me, hugging me harder. “If you want, you and I can go out swimming. We can practice strengthening your skills.”

“That would be a good idea, but I still want to join Jerrik tomorrow.”

Viktor still looked conflicted, but he gave in with a sigh. “Fine, if that’s what you want. I just worry about you.”

“I worry about you as well, Viktor.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Astrid. I’m the Captain. It’s my job to worry about everyone else.”

“Someone has to worry about you.” I turned around in his arms, wound my arms around his waist and pressed my face into his chest. “You’ve got so much on your shoulders. I know that’s what you’ve signed up for as Captain, but there’s just so much to deal with, and you’re only one person. And now we also have Crosby here to make things more difficult.”

“He’s also one more mouth to feed, even though we barely have enough for ourselves.”

“He hasn’t been a single help since he’s gotten here,” I agreed with a frustrated groan. “And I have a feeling that won’t change anytime soon.”

“He’s locked up down there. We won’t have to worry about him anymore,” Viktor assured me, running a gentle hand down my back. “And the food rationing is only temporary. We’re only a little behind track, and I’m hopeful that as long as the winds keep going, we’ll get to the next island in three days. Maybe four at the most.”

I pulled back to look up at him. “Isn’t it too early to be docking at Greenland?”

He shook his hand. “Not Greenland. There’s still more than ten days until we reach Greenland, maybe fifteen, but our food supply isn’t going to last until then.”

Viktor was right. We wouldn’t be able to make it to Greenland on the little we had left, and we would last even less with the lack of fish. We would all be starving then, diminishing the chances of all of us making it to Greenland in one piece and with a sane mind. I gulped fearfully at that thought.

“We’ve sailed by this island once on our last mission,” he said. “We didn’t stop by as we didn’t need to, but we marked it on the map. It will come in useful now.”

“We can buy food from them and get a few hot meals,” I smiled hopefully into his chest. “But for now, we’ll work on the fishing and ration the little food we have left.”

“I’ve told you this before, and I’m telling you this now. I’ll make a good little sea Captain out of you yet,” Viktor chuckled and pressed his lips to my forehead. I could feel his lips curl against my skin, and it warmed my heart to feel him smile. To feel him genuinely smile.

I hadn’t seen him smile much like that these past few days.

Viktor and I stood there for some time, arms around each other, staring at the sea. Alone, we had many problems. Together, they added up, and we ended up with even more problems, but at least we had each other to lean on.

Yesterday was a fantastic fishing day compared to today.

Today, Jerrik, Manny, and I returned to The Serpent with empty buckets and a boat lighter than when we set off earlier, given the lunch and water we had consumed.

The three of us returned with heavy hearts and a cloud of disappointment hanging over our heads, even more so when dinner and the crew awaited us upon our return.

“Perfect timing,” Viktor grinned and pulled me into his arms.

I didn’t miss how he looked me up and down, sighing in relief at how dry I looked. Nothing like the nearly drowned state I had returned in yesterday. Unlike Crosby, Manny was far gentler and even turned out to be pretty decent with a spear. It was just too bad that there weren’t any fish around for us to hook on the end of that spear.

“Where’s the fish?” Gustav frowned as he retrieved the bucket from Jerrik, finding it just as empty as when we left this morning.

“We didn’t catch any,” Jerrik groaned as he joined the circle for dinner. “We sailed out further than yesterday, but there weren’t any big fish. The ones we did find were far too small to hook with a spear. We tried to scoop them up with our hands but didn’t want to risk any of us nearly drowning again. Besides, they weren’t big enough to feed even one of us, so it was useless.”

“Let’s all sit down to eat, and then we can discuss this further,” Hammond called out, his lips pointed down.

I sat beside Viktor in the circle and stared at the little food before me, my lips curling down at the corners.

Half a slice of bread and the thinnest slice of cheese I had ever seen. It was so thin it was almost translucent.

Gustav cleared his throat as he picked at the bread. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is all we have.”

“What do you mean this is all we have?” Caspian asked, looking offended at the tiny portion of food before him. “I know we’re short on supplies, but surely we shouldn’t be rationing this much.”

“What’s wrong, Gustav?” Viktor called out to him, a speculative look in his eyes.

“You mean, what’s not wrong?” Gustav groaned and dropped his slice of bread to run his hand through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. “I went down to the bottom deck earlier to grab some supplies for dinner, but it’s all been ruined.”

My breath hitched. How was that possible?

“What do you mean it’s all been ruined?” Latham was the first to speak up, his voice ridden with disbelief.

“I don’t know if Crosby has found a way to pick the lock on his chains or if they’re longer than we anticipated, but he’s ruined it all,” Gustav groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“What do you mean he’s ruined it all?” I whispered, my eyes wide as I stared at Gustav, struggling to wrap my mind around what his words truly meant for us.

“Piss. Shit. Everywhere. It’s all opened and soiled. I’ve left it down there, but I doubt I can save any of it,” he groaned, starting to look a little green in the face. “I didn’t bother shortening the chains since he’s already ruined it all, but we should probably do that.”

No one said anything after that. We all sat silently and nibbled on the small dinner, which wasn’t enough to sustain a child. There was some bread left for the morning, which we would have to eat plain, but after that, we were all out of everything but water. And even then, it was salt water because Crosby had peed in the barrel of filtered water we kept in the bottom deck.

No one would say it as they were far too kind, but I knew this was all my fault. If Crosby wasn’t so mad at me, he wouldn’t have ruined the remainder of our food. If Crosby hadn’t been so obsessed with me, he would have never snuck onboard The Serpent in the first place.

How were we supposed to make it back to Jorvik without any food? We couldn’t even rely on fishing, as we had barely been able to find any these past few days.

Hopefully, tomorrow would be better than today, but I already knew the sea made no promises. It only took prisoners.

We really needed to get to that island. Right now, it was our best hope to make it back to Jorvik alive.