S. Welles - To Ocean's End

“You acquired something of mine and didn’t try to give it back.”

“So you hunted me down just for her?” I said in disbelief.

“No. I came straight here. I knew she’d try to get home. I torched it when no one would tell me where she was. She has the power to attract fish to her. I was making so much money until she escaped.”

Jessie wiped more blood from her eyes and unsteadily got to her feet. Hopefully that was a sign that her cut looked worse than it was, but she looked too pissed off to care.

“So you really are that stupid and possessive… I almost pity you.”

Tethys spat on my deck.

I sent some water over and washed it away, then held my sword on his neck again. “Jessie, I believe the opportunity to rip his dick off has arrived. Come get your trophy.” Mido walked up beside Jessie, holding his sword arm’s elbow. He was pretty dinged up, but when he saw the blood on Jessie’s face, his muscles bulged with rage. He glared at Tethys and offered his sword to Jessie. She wordlessly took it. Mido tried to examine her forehead but she gently pushed his hand away and approached Tethys, weapon held low.

Next thing I knew, I was down on one knee and Tethys was reaching in my coat. Then my brain registered the searing pain in my knee. I tried to push myself back to my feet but Tethys grabbed my coat collar. He also took my gun and dug it into the underside of my jaw. I stopped struggling, my gaze locked on Jessie’s. She stopped short. And thank goodness she did. I wouldn’t put it past Tethys to shoot her just so we wouldn’t have her if he couldn’t. “Tethys,” I said in a low, warning voice, “you do know that if you shoot me, you die, right?”

Half a dozen quasi-children manifested in a circle around us, materializing out of the air like a sudden fog. For once their black eyes were fixed on someone else. They were all crouching like they were waiting to pounce. I could suddenly see my breath and everything got dead quiet.

“It’s worth it. You’re going to Hell with me.” He switched off the safety.

I gave him a pitying frown, almost wishing he was right. “No I’m not,” I said plainly.

He fired the gun, my whole body flinched, and explosions of pain filled my jaw, neck, and back of my head. It was too much. I started tipping backwards and blacked out.

Jessie covered her mouth as Dyne toppled onto his back. The quasi-children drifted over to Tethys and placed their hands on him. He gasped and stiffened just like her father had, and then the quasis collected the gun and vanished, just like two years ago. Her heart pounded in her chest. She stood still, rooted in place with fear and bad memories. Her only saving grace was that the death of her father wasn’t nearly as psyche-shaking a memory as all the ravaging to her body. It was such a horrible thing to think but it was true. Her father’s death hadn’t been deliberate. Raping her had, and it had happened to her. Her heart ached for one of her father’s hugs.

Mido rushed to Dyne and examined his bullet wound, which was leaking blood all over his neck, coat, and the deck. Mido pulled the captain upright, slipped a shoulder under his arm, then hoisted him to his feet. Dyne’s head lolled, showing more blood down his backside. Sauna ran over and slipped under Dyne’s other arm. “Sam!” Mido cried as he and Sauna carried Dyne across the stern and to the entrance of the lockdown container. Sam limped after them, keys in hand.

The fighting was over. The last of Tethys’s men rode the zip line back to their ship, but Jacobi and Rammus cut the lines with their swords. Two great white sharks Jessie didn’t remember calling to her aid, but knew she must have, swam up to the splashes and lunged in, jaws wide. She looked away.

Jessie felt like herself again. Right after Mido had called her his sea goddess and kissed her, it’d felt like her consciousness had taken a back seat to someone else using her body. It’d felt like being half awake while her body went through the motions of regular activity. Even though the sensation had been a little scary, it had also been thrilling. She’d felt so powerful and invincible. She’d helped take down one enemy after another, going untouched until Tethys. She still had a hand over her cut. On top of that, she still had a dick to chop off.

Mido’s sword in hand, Jessie straddled Tethys’s legs and took in his pale face frozen in shock. The air was chill but it was warming back up in a hurry. “I wanted you to be alive when I did this.” She cut his belt with a jerk, then slashed a line in his pants from thigh to belly. “At least you’ll never hurt another girl ever again.” She bent over and sliced off a piece of his shirt, then used that to grab his penis and pull tight. She severed the offensive extremity in one swift cut, then rolled it up and hurled it overboard. “Rot in Hell!” She dropped the sword, then began beating on Tethys’s corpse like it was a punching bag, taking her rage out on it. This man had not only scarred her for life, but also torched her home and abused her ability to commune with fish. She pounded gash after gash into the corpse with her studded knuckles. Tears fell but their blurring her vision only made her punch harder.

At some point Mido tried to pull her away. She pushed him away with bloodied hands and resumed pounding the corpse to pulp, until she almost collapsed on top of it.

Everyone but Scully, Cancer, Dyne, and Sam were gathered in the galley. Mido was handing out tin mugs of herbal tea that would help dull pain and fight off infection. All of them battled the bitter taste with sugar, honey, rum, or vodka; just enough to avoid vomiting the concoction up and not too much to negate the tea’s effects.

Tethys’s ship had sank while they’d patched up. They’d been hoping to salvage supplies and check for imprisoned women, but who and whatever had been on there was now resting on the bottom of the Mediterranean. It was bittersweet solace. None of them doubted that any innocent lives had drowned.

Rammus stood before the table, staring into his empty mug, brooding. After dropping anchor and clearing the deck of Tethys and his dead men, the entire crew had spent the next hour suturing and bandaging each other. Right now Cancer was monitoring Scully closely. He’d suffered the worst injury of all of them—not counting Dyne. No one counted him since he’d be fine after lockdown. Memory of watching him get shot made Jessie feel sick to her stomach. She did a full-body shiver, then blocked out the disturbing image. Scully was still unconscious with half his face sewn back on but at least Cancer believed he’d make it. They had a small blood bank to dip into. On top of that, the bolt had missed his jugular.

Rammus, sporting bandaged arms and fresh sutures on the meat of his shoulder, cleared his throat. Everyone looked up from their cups. “We’ll head for Alexandria as planned and let our wounds heal there, until Captain’s next lockdown is over. Since Sam’s got a broken ankle and is now part of Jacobi’s Cripple Crew, this means we all need to chip in with keeping an eye on O’Toole. Got it?” The crew nodded their assent. “Now everyone dig deep and help the techies in the engine room too, along with Cancer keeping an eye on Scully. Jacobi, you’ll split piloting the ship with me. Everyone else work in the engine room in one-hour shifts all the way to port. All of us are pretty darn beat up. Don’t overdo it and rip yourselves back open. We’ll reach port in less than twenty four hours if we keep the engine running hot. We gotta get there as fast as we can for Scully’s sake. We’re just about out of medical supplies.” He clapped his hands together. “Now everyone get some food so we can push off.”