Chapter 14

A violent lurch hurled Avaline from the berth, jolting her awake from a fitful slumber. She landed on the wooden floor with a smack that left her gasping for air.

The wind raged outside the Ranger , drowning the familiar creaking of the hull in its furious roar. Her stomach plummeted as the ship crested a wave, only to be pushed into her throat the next moment when the Ranger plunged into a trough.

Darkness enveloped the cabin, pierced only by the perpetual lightning that flashed outside the windows. Thunder boomed and rumbled, filling the moist air with a crackling tension that coaxed the fine hairs on her arms to stand. A pungent reek of whale oil assaulted her nose.

Before she had time to assess her injuries, she was flung across the floor and struck something sharp.

"Ow!"

That accounted for the dark cabin. Avaline shuffled away from the shattered lantern, clutching one of the table legs for support, and struggled toward the door.

A bolt of lightning sliced the darkness, revealing the books skidding back and forth across the floor.

She pulled herself upright with fierce determination, clinging to the door handle as she stepped into the dark companionway. Her arms reached for the walls on either side for support, but as she approached the ladder to the main deck, her bare feet met an unexpected and chilling embrace—water.

Her heart jumped a beat before setting a hideous pace. She squinted through the hatch, but the rain whipped her face like the fiercest hailstorm, dissolving her vision into a gray churning mass.

She felt the Ranger ascend with the surge of the sea, hovering for a breathless moment at the crest of the swell before dipping over the edge and diving into another abyss like a bucking horse. She crashed into the ladder, but her cry drowned under the torrent of brine that gushed down the hatch like a spring river. She coughed and spat as if she were drowning and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

When lightning streaked the gloomy sky above, she beheld a few silhouettes clinging onto the shrouds. The main sail thrashed wildly in the howling wind, tethered on one end and threatening to topple the mast while the crew grappled to tame the furious canvas.

The glint of light receded, and the Ranger rose again, pushed and battered by the churning ocean. A new series of lightning bolts forked across the sky. For a few meager moments, the night turned into an eerie day as the jagged flashes illuminated the ship. One of the men lost his footing and grasped the yardarm, the rocking of the vessel tossing his body about like a ragdoll.

Avaline's heart shot up her throat, and her limbs froze in terror.

Elias.

Dear Lord!

She scaled the ladder with numb fingers, but she felt sluggish, as if time had slowed and her movements were delayed, like in a nightmare where she ran for her life but never moved from the spot.

How could Hainsworth let that boy up into the shrouds amid such perilous conditions?

Avaline dragged herself onto the main deck and clutched the lifeline running along the railing to stand up. The fierce wind stole her breath and tore at her flimsy chemise, and her wet hair flailed around her face and shoulders like a whip. The salt burned her eyes and filled her mouth, and the pummeling foam obscured her vision beyond a few paces. Craning her neck, she looked for somebody to help, but the spuming spray concealed the entire quarterdeck.

The wind tautened the sail, ripping at the canvas, straining the main mast until it quivered with tension. The Ranger heaved, and the masts creaked overhead. In the flares of lightning, she watched as Elias dangled from the yardarm, holding on for dear life.

The ship tilted again, lurching ominously to the side when Hainsworth's deep voice boomed through the wind.

"Elias! The halyard! Thomas! Cut that brace loose and let the sail go!"

During the split second of a lightning bolt, Avaline saw the lieutenant clinging to the shrouds, hacking at the final cord that kept the sail aloft. She gripped hard around the lifeline, witnessing as the ship plunged toward the black, raging sea. Once a fearsome vessel, the pirate ship now seemed insignificant in a vast and merciless abyss. When a groaning sound cracked over the roar of the gale, her heart ceased.

"Thomas," Adrian yelled. "We're losing her!"

Avaline stopped breathing as Elias reached for the elusive rope thrashing in the wind. His hand seemed to graze it, but then it slid away from him.

Please, dear Lord!

The boy twisted around his axis a couple of times, but then he got hold of the swaying rope and clutched it with a desperation that seared at her heart.

Thomas slashed like a savage at the rope, but the tilt was too severe, and the force of the wind ripped through the main mast, breaking it at a point beneath Elias.

"Elias!"

Avaline screamed as the top of the mast collapsed in a rain of splinters and crashed onto the railing. Ropes and lines snapped off like dry twigs, flogging the air like a giant whip from the abrupt release of tension.

The ocean pulled the mast into the water, and Elias was swept overboard, dragged by the line fastened in the drowning sail. A quarter block crashed onto the deck a few paces from Avaline. The rope Elias held onto ran through it, darting out like a fleeing serpent at the tug of the ocean.

"Elias!" Hainsworth's voice boomed over the chaos. "Hold on to the line!"

Without hesitating, Avaline let go of the lifeline and dashed forward, seizing the loose line. The rope ran through her hands, mercilessly burning her palms as the force dragged her toward the railing. She struck the barrier between her and the seething ocean with a hard smack.

"Argh!"

She clung to the line still when she felt like her arms were ripped right off, but the pull was too strong, and her feet lifted from the deck.

"Adrian!"

The black vortex churned below her as if waiting for her to plunge into its eternal jaws. Her body tilted, and weightlessness filled her.

"No…"

A brutal arm coiled around her waist and pulled her back just as her feet left the deck. Her back slammed into a hard chest, and a firm hand latched onto the halyard she was clutching, decreasing the pull enough to haul her back onto the deck.

Captain Hainsworth hurled her away and got both hands on the rope. "Grab the lifeline!"

The Ranger tilted as she braved another wave. Planting one foot on the railing for leverage, he pulled at the rope, trying to reach a nearby horn to cleat the line and secure Elias's connection to life. "Thomas! Hack the ropes, or she'll capsize!"

His body strained against the pull from the ocean, but Avaline noticed how the wet rope slipped between his fingers.

"Thomas! Now, goddammit!"

Avaline ran her eyes along the railing to the spot where the topsail stay pulled at the Ranger , threatening to drag them all under the furious sea.

She made her decision in the blink of an eye.

Shoving her wet hair out of her face, she let go of the lifeline, climbed to her knees, and latched onto Adrian's sash, releasing his cutlass from its loop.

"Don't let go of the lifeline!"

She ignored him and crawled over the sloping deck to the tangle of lines and rigging that kept the main sail attached to the fallen mast.

Chopping down on the taut ropes, she released the main sail. Lines and rigging shot into the air as the sail lost its hold on the Ranger . The ship sprang upward and swayed perilously back and forth, sending her tumbling to the deck.

With the lifeline out of reach, there was nothing to hold onto, and she was mercilessly hurled toward the massive capstan, clutching the cutlass.