Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,59

years ago.

“Eighty-one... eighty-two...”

He did not flinch, did not care. The first ten or twenty were always the worst. After that, a hazy numbness blunted the rest. He didn’t feel pain anymore. Or anything at all. He pressed his cheek against the rough wood and stared at Wakefield as the lieutenant counted rhythmically.

“Eighty-three... eighty-four...”

Blood ran down his back, dripped onto the deck. He had killed a fellow prisoner. In self-defense, but that mattered to no one. His keepers needed little excuse to use their cat-o’-nine-tails. They beat him, fed him barely enough to keep him alive, tried to drain every bit of spirit and fight and feeling out of him.

“Eighty-five... eighty-six...”

But his hatred was enough to keep him alive. His hatred and his thirst for vengeance. One had become his food, the other his drink.

They nourished him, helped him grow stronger.

“Eighty-seven... eighty-eight...”

He kept himself alert, always. Never let the other prisoners corner him. Defended and stole every scrap of sustenance he could get his hands on. Trusted no one. Cared about no one but himself.

“Eighty-nine... ninety...”

Many who were older and stronger than him had died aboard this reeking, disease-infested scow. But not him. His wits and his hatred sustained him.

“Ninety-one... ninety-two...”

And at night when the darkness closed in, he dreamed.

“Ninety-three... ninety-four...”

Dreamed of a sea of blood that would slake his thirst for vengeance.

“Ninety-five...”

Lieutenant Wakefield would be the first. Then all the “friends” who had betrayed and killed his father. Especially Captain Eldridge.

“Ninety-six... ninety-seven...”

He dreamed of vengeance and planned the best way to obtain it.

“Ninety-eight...”

And the plan became a vow. He would become the one thing they feared. What they had made him. What they had branded him.

“Ninety-nine...”

A pirate.

The most fearsome pirate that England had ever seen.

“One hundred.”

He swore, lashed out, trying to force the sound away, but it came again.

“You’re not alone.”

He could barely hear it, that whisper, so distant. Knew he must be dreaming. A voice like that did not belong here, with him, in hell. It angered him to hear a voice so sweet speaking words of reassurance, of hope.

Pain he could endure. Hope he could not.

“Shh, I’m right here,” it persisted. “You’re not alone.”

No. No, he was alone and always would be and did not care.

Something touched him, a hand. A cloth. Feather-light against his cheek, his brow. Dampness. Water. So cool, so impossibly good.

A soft touch to match that concerned voice. Gentle water to cool the devil’s fire.

A dream. It must be only a dream. Because he could not change what must be and he was where he belonged and here he would stay.

Thou shalt not kill thou shalt not kill. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

No, the goodness could not last. He did not want it did not want to hope for it. He surrendered to the fire. Let it have him let it take him he would not fight anymore there was no point.

This was the end. His inevitable end.

Here he would stay, alone for all eternity.

~ ~ ~

Darkness closed in with the last, feeble flickers of their last candle, bringing despair that cut through her as sharply as a blade.

Sam hung her head, pressed a hand over her eyes, tried to hold back the tears. But she could no longer deny the truth.

He was dying.

Her shoulders started to shake, then her whole body, as she sat crouched over him in the silent cave that had begun to feel like a tomb. There was nothing more she could do. Her best efforts weren’t good enough. She had failed him, failed them both.

And they would pay with their lives.

All her breath seemed to leave her body in one long sob. She had done everything she could think of, stayed awake hour after hour, tending him until the days and nights had become a sleepless blur. She didn’t even know how long they had been in here—three days, maybe four.

She had tried to cool the fever with water, giving him all that remained in the flask, saving only a few drops for herself. When that was gone, she had started using rags to capture the scant trickle of moisture that dripped down the cave wall, painstakingly soaking the cloth as full as she could and then wringing it out over his lips.

She had used the blade of the knife to cauterize his wounded shoulder, hoping it would stop the bleeding better than her stitching. Then she had stripped off the tattered remains of his shirt and bathed him, again and again, cooling his body as much