Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

V iktor had promised to be back as soon as possible. While I knew he was probably trying his best to keep his word, it felt like he had been gone forever .

I don’t know how much time passed, but I waited until I couldn’t wait any longer. With the dagger Viktor had left me snuggled tightly in the palm of my hand, I began trekking up the shore in search of him and our crewmates.

I would be relieved to run into even Crosby right now.

I had nearly made it to the treeline when my ears perked up at the sound of faint laughter, and my eyes widened in fear. It didn’t sound like any of our crewmates, and even if it was, I doubted any of them would be laughing so freely like this while held under captivation by murderous pirates.

When the laughter became louder, I took Viktor’s advice and hid. I rushed back to the closest ship–the pirate ship–and took shelter on the side hidden from them. The plank to walk up onto the ship was on the other side, so there was no logical reason for them to wander onto this side of the vessel and discover me, but I couldn’t help but worry that my hiding spot was flawed. Holding my breath, I willed for my heart to calm down, irrationally afraid they would somehow hear it and discover me.

From the sound of their light-hearted conversation poking fun at us and their laughter, only two pirates had returned to the ship.

They would find the bodies; I did not doubt that. What I did doubt, however, was whether I could take on both pirates simultaneously. When they were on the ship and the coast was clear, I rushed down the sandy beach until I was safe behind the trees.

I didn’t need to glance back to know they had already wandered off the top deck and to the second. Hopefully, I had some time before they came rushing off the ship to warn the others that things had ended badly for the three pirates who had stayed with me.

My grip on the dagger remained firm as I ran through the trees, trying to stay as quiet as possible. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to come across some familiar faces–Roscoe and Manny. I felt relief like I had never felt before at the sight of them, even if they were sweaty and dirty from the rigorous digging. At least they were given spades and didn’t have to dig with their bare hands.

Both their backs were to me as they worked, and one of the pirates was sitting on a rock nearby. He appeared to be busy writing in a journal, not paying much attention to them.

“Manny! Roscoe!” I whispered, hiding behind a bush, but neither turned.

When the whispering didn’t work, I shook the bush quietly at first, but when that proved hopeless as well, I shook it harder. Manny glanced over his shoulder at the sound, and I locked eyes with him.

His lips parted in surprise as he glanced at me, and when I gestured toward Roscoe, he reached out and tapped his arm.

“Astrid?” Roscoe whispered, both of them turning to face me. They were blocking the view so the pirate couldn’t see my head poking out from the bush, and they continued digging so it wouldn’t make him suspicious.

“What are you doing here, Astrid?” Manny whispered.

“The other three pirates are dead,” I told them in a whisper. “Viktor has gone looking for the others.”

“Is he going to kill them?”

I nodded and held out my dagger, gesturing to the pirate behind them. “Here.”

Manny and Roscoe glanced at each other, partaking in a silent conversation with their eyes. Roscoe was the first to break the gaze and reach out to take the dagger from me. I wasn’t surprised. He was the more outgoing and assertive of the two.

If I could, I would have stepped forward to do the job myself and save these two young, innocent teenagers from having to go through the rest of their lives with the blood of a person–albeit a pirate–on their hands, but if I so much as rustled the bush too much, I would be found out, and that would only make things worse for all of us.

Slipping it under the sleeve of his tunic, Roscoe turned around and walked up to the pirate. They were too far away to hear what they were saying, but the pirate closed his journal to speak to Roscoe.

The pirate looked rather angry with something Roscoe had said, and he held out his arm, pointing it at where Manny was standing, indicating for him to get back to work. When Roscoe turned around, I was already wracking my mind to devise another plan, but he caught us all by surprise when he swiftly turned around again and plunged the dagger into the pirate’s chest, right where his heart was.

I watched in horror as he yanked the dagger out of his heart only to plunge it back in, deeper and twisting it. Roscoe stabbed the pirate’s lifeless body over and over again, only stopping once I called out to him. As if he hadn’t realised what he was doing, Roscoe staggered back to us, a bewildered look on his face as he stared down at his bloody hands.

“He was drawing pictures of us,” Roscoe whispered, avoiding my gaze as he held out his hand to return the dagger to me. I wiped the blood against the bottom of my dress to clean it before handing it back to him. As disturbed as he looked, it was better for us all if Roscoe had the dagger.

“Pictures?” I asked.

Roscoe gulped slowly. “Pictures of how he was going to kill us.”

We were all silent for a long moment, taking in everything that had just happened.

“We need to find the others,” Manny said, handing me the other spade. It wasn’t an ideal weapon, but it would inflict a fair bit of damage if needed.

Roscoe and Manny were separated from the rest of the group early on, so tracking them down took us a while. We picked a random direction and ran but didn’t make it very far before we heard someone call out to us. The unfamiliar voice told us it was a pirate.

We stopped and turned around, and the pirate already had his sword raised. Without sounding unnecessarily negative, I couldn’t help but fear that a shovel wouldn’t stand a chance against his gleaming, sharp sword.

Much to our relief and the pirate’s dismay, we didn’t have to test the theory as before he even made it remotely close to us, his neck was cracked sharply to the side. There was a loud, painful crack that had me wincing, and when his body dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, Hammond plunged his dagger deep into the pirate’s chest for good measure. Odin, Viktor, Jerrik and Caspian were quick to join Hammond, and Viktor wasted no time pulling me into his arms, groaning when I accidentally hit him with the shovel.

“Sorry,” I apologised, but he only laughed as he kissed my forehead.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” He asked, his eyebrows knitting together in concern as he looked me up and down for any injuries.

“I’m not hurt,” I quickly denied before he worked himself into a frenzy. “But I can’t say the same thing about that pirate Hammond just annihilated.”

Hammond grinned at my words, but it was a bit tense and tight around the corners, not quite reaching his eyes.

“I thought I told you to wait at the ship?” Viktor groaned, drawing my attention back to him.

“Since when did I listen?” I chuckled, and he playfully narrowed his eyes at me. “I did go to the ship at first, but two pirates went back there, so I snuck away.

“How many more are still alive?” Caspian asked, a fierce look on his face.

“There are three dead on the ship,” Viktor said. “There’s this one that we got here as well.”

“And we got one as well,” Roscoe murmured in a small voice.

“That makes five,” Hammond countered. “There’s three left.”

“Two at the ship,” I repeated. “And possibly one more guarding the others.”

It was apparent that all these pirates needed to die if we wanted to get the entire crew off the island alive. As long as they were still alive, they were a threat to us, and we had already been through so much to get here.

Viktor, Jerrik, and Odin broke off from us to find the last pirate on the island with our remaining crewmates, and I led the rest of us back to the pirate ship.

It was time to end this once and for all.