and his hand goes back to his throat to stem the tide.
One of us is going to die.
I just hope it’s not me.
We knock around a bit. Each time he tries to grab me, he releases the hold on his neck. Blood pours out. He intermittently chokes me, and I nearly pass out, but his attacks grow weaker with each passing second.
In my head, as I planned this out, I imagined a much quicker death, but Bossman doesn’t give up without a fight. He bleeds out, making one hell of a mess, but finally his movements slow. His hand slaps at me. His fingers curl but fail to grab. I scoot away, backing up toward the door leading out of this cabin. He tries to crawl toward me.
I don’t know what happened to the knife. Somewhere in our struggle, he knocked it free. Bossman makes one last attempt to reach me, falling short by a finger’s breadth. His murderous eyes stare at me with the promise of death, but then they weaken and lose their sharpness.
He swipes at my ankles, then takes a final gurgling breath. His entire body goes limp, and I sit there, leaning against the door, with my knees drawn up to my chest.
Not really sure how long I sit there, I can’t believe he’s dead, but eventually, I poke him with my toe. When he doesn’t react, I grow bolder, and give his shoulder a little shake.
The entire room looks like a scene out of a horror show. Blood is everywhere. It’s smeared on the floor and coats Bossman’s body head to toe. It’s in my hair and soaked through my clothes.
I poke Bossman one more time and wait for what feels like forever to see if he breathes, but there’s no movement, no life left in his body. His soulless eyes stare at the wall.
Now what?
How about a shower?
I don’t know if the crew outside are going to miss Bossman. I’m guessing they won’t. He spends most of his time locked inside with me. I spin around and double-check the door lock.
My guess is the crew doesn’t care about their passengers, which is good for me. There’s no rush to do anything right off the bat.
I rip the blanket off the top bunk and lay it over Bossman’s body and the floor. The blanket squishes a little as I walk over it and make my way to the tiny bathroom.
The shower is still wet from Bossman, but I don’t give a damn about that. I turn on the water and crank up the heat. One look in the mirror and I look like a horror show survivor. Blood covers my face and saturates my hair. I’m a natural blond, but look like a brunette with hints of blood red. A shiver of disgust works its way down my spine.
There are very few toiletries, but I use what’s left from Shelly and Bossman. With steam filling the small lavatory, I enter the tiny shower enclosure and wash all traces of blood from my body and my clothes. Yes, I enter the shower fully clothed. For the first five minutes, I do nothing other than stand under the hot stream of water while having a major meltdown.
After that, I plan out my next steps. Bossman said tomorrow morning I’ll meet my Master. We’re headed into a port. Where? I have no earthly clue where, but there’s no way I’m meeting up with any man who claims to be my Master.
So, what next?
My first thought is to contact one of the crew, but not knowing how much they know about Bossman and his very important cargo, there’s no way to know if they’ll lock me up and hand me over to the monster waiting for me. At the very least, they should lock me up for murder. I might be safe in the hands of whatever local authorities exist, but police are too easily bought.
I can’t count on the crew.
Between now and whenever we dock, I need to find a way off this ship.
While my brain works on the problem of how to rescue myself, I focus on washing away the blood from my body and my clothes.
Raw from scrubbing, my skin tingles as I rinse again. Honestly, I’ve washed and rinsed nearly ten times. It feels as if I can’t wash away Bossman’s blood, but my hair is once again a golden yellow and my skin practically glistens. The water gets turned off and I exit the