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Chapter 17~ Armed, Alive, Alone
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Fire…Blazing, breeze-warming, and violent…So incandescent in the dead of the night that one might think a star had fallen from the heavens and erupted here on earth. And the smoke…heavy, unceasing, suffocating…
The smoke reached us before we even noticed the flames from across the waters. One of Kidd’s ships was licked with flames all along the rear side. Shouts of fury and war cries echoed and bounced off of the surface of the water and right up to our ears.
“Look!” Reyes shouted, coughing up smoke. He pointed to the ignited ship, but I’d already seen the revolution. It was all going wrong.
“What do we do now?” he said, tugging at my sleeve and keeping hawk-like eyes on our surroundings.
I wanted to know the answer just like that. I was good under pressure. I was quick to react, usually. Now, however, I was as stiff as could possibly be and completely braindead. I hadn’t an absolute clue what to do next because I didn’t know what next was!
The gunfire continued from all around us. We had to move. We hid in a corner of a cluster of barrels. Crouched and suffocating, we watched each other for some sort of answer from the other.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Reyes blinked and said something I hardly expected. “This reminds me of something.”
“What?”
“Yes, do you—uh—recall when I asked what you would be going to be saying when we first fight Kidd?”
I blinked.
“I—um—Well, I said I didn’t know.”
“Sí.” He pushed himself up to his feet, pointed his pistol, and fired at a heavy-set sailor charging at us. The brute fell to the ground with a slam and rattled the barrels behind us. I held on tight.
“You have a point, Reyes?” I snapped.
The noise of war was at full capacity now. And part of me was scared to find out what might happen if one of those barrels got shot.
“Sí, I do. What did I say to you after that?”
I ducked deeper down from the whizz of a nearby gunshot.
“I don’t know! You probably just talked about yourself. I don’t know!”
“I said I have charm, and you know what else?”
“What!?”
“I have guts!”
Suddenly, his small hands latched tightly on my arm. He hauled me up with a strength I thought impossible of a kid his size. I was flung across the deck, stumbling desperately to my feet. And before I knew it, I was barrel-rolling into the ale gut of a quartermaster. I collided into his chest and we both tumbled down with a horrible “Oof!”. The deck hit my head hard, and I struggled to find my balance. But, the giant of a man stayed down long enough for me to find my gun and cock it straight down at him. His eyes rolled back into his head and he let out a deep, loud groan. And, before he could rejoin me, I fired two shots into his stomach. The blood splattered across my trousers and coat. I turned back to Reyes with a look of disgust.
“What the hell?” I started but he just smirked and rolled up his sleeves.
“You have guts on you now, I see.”
He sprinted off down the staircase and into the middle of the fight. Suddenly, my heart was racing again. I called out for him, but he was already too busy in another battle. What was I supposed to do now?
Then, I saw it from high across the deck. A glimpse of raven waves disappearing under the ship’s hold and down into the hull. I flew down into the war field and fought back as best I could. I tried for an estimate of our progress. Who was to be the victor this time? But, there was no way of knowing. And I quickly learned, after many flashes of steel against steel, I was more out of practice than I realized. I left Reyes and sunk deep into the depths of the ship. The first level below was the main storage floor where Kidd’s prisoners had all been kept since the very beginning. I knew it wouldn’t be too difficult to find Constantine. They wouldn’t be hiding.
I called out for her. “Constantine!”
But, there came only the droning, thumping of feet from above. She wouldn’t be able to hear me anyway. It was deafening. I tried the opposite room, the first crew’s quarters. Most of those who stayed there were of Kidd’s own. Dark and motionless, I knew it too was empty.
I kept calling to her, flying through each doorway, scouring each wall for her. I tried not to let the panic rise up. But, it was there. She wasn’t in the weapons cellar or the other crew’s quarters or the kitchens.
“Constantine!” I screamed, smoke still heavy in my throat.
Suddenly, a shriek pierced out from the levels above. I couldn’t have climbed the ladder faster. And just as my head surfaced into the weapons cellar, I saw them. His hand was clamped tight over Constantine’s mouth, the other pressing a knife too far into her neck. Streams of blood colored her blouse and painted her collarbone. I yelled out and tossed myself up to the floor. My body hit the floorboards and then the explosion hit.
BAAAM!!
An ungodly force rocked us back. I, still helpless on the ground, was slammed hard into the wall. Constantine and Kidd fell to the ground and hung on for dear life. I could’ve sworn the ship was sinking. I clawed at the floorboards until I could push myself up. After a few rocks, the ship straightened out. Kidd was at his feet, yanking Constantine up. I shouted to her across the roaring of war above us.
“Are you alright?” I called.
“Yes!” She was yanked back by Kidd who latched a hand tight around her throat and pointed the dagger to me.
“You’ve got no rat-faced scoundrel to aid you this time, huh, Hemingway?” he sneered.
Every muscle in his body was shaking from the adrenaline. I could feel it too. I cocked my pistol at his face.
“Let her go and no one gets hurt.”
He threw his head back in raucous laughter but I cut him off.
“You don’t want her, Kidd. You think things aren’t finished between us, but they are. I win, you lose.”
“Wrong!” he roared, tightening his grip. “Men like me—we don’t merely win or lose, Edmund! We. are. Legends! I will be a name every man, woman, and child will remember for centuries to come! And why? Because I have lived my life in a manner only others could dream about! I have no regrets—I have changed the world! And what the fuck have you done?”
I fell quiet. I could feel the smoke creeping up on me. I held his fiery eyes. Was that where the smoke was coming from?
He continued, “I may be all the shit that I am, but, at least, I accept it. But, you don’t realize it yet. You believe yourself mightier than the rest of us, mightier than all of this! There are no greater things in store for you, lad. You were born nothing and you will die nothing!”
“Then, fight!” I hollered back. I snatched two cutlasses from the weapons rack behind me and threw one at Kidd’s feet.
He pushed Constantine back into the corner, pocketed his dagger, and retrieved the sword.
“Edmund—” she started.
I couldn’t break.
“Let me fight this, Constantine.”
“But—”
“I have to do this, love! I have to.”
She fell quiet and tended to the bleeding coming from her neck. But, I could see the trembling from each fingertip and each bone in her body. I could feel it too.
Kidd made the first attack, crying out and throwing his blade toward my face. I blocked it with the blunt of my blade and became locked in a battle of strength. I shoved him away with a loud grunt. He stumbled momentarily. This time, I charged and clashed blades with him. Every attack was met with a clang and hit no flesh. He’d parry, I’d dodge, and Constantine would watch in fury for my decision. But, it was mine nonetheless.
There was something new in my blood, in my veins. Something hot, thick as mud, and unceasing. I coughed hard and felt the smoke clogging my vocal cords. We were being smoked out.
I caught his next attack across the face, just a razor-sharp cut across my cheekbone. I seethed in pain and stumbled back. My fingers found the burning spot and brought back wet blood.
I charged ahead, roaring with all my might, and forced him back further and further till he was on the wall. Sweat from both of us trickled down our skin. I felt suffocated and, at the same time, so far away from such trivial pains. He inched forward. I suddenly pushed him back with all the strength in my arms. He stumbled back into the wall once again.
“This is the end of it, Kidd!” I shouted against the popping of fires above. Any moment the floors could collapse. “Give up and you may live.”
His face was twisted and, until then, I’d never noticed how old he was. Nearing sixty, at least! His eyes bore deep into mine and, for a moment, I thought he might’ve understood. The edges of his lips turned up just enough. I knew how this was to end. Somehow, though, I dreaded it. I thought Kidd might’ve been killing out of sheer hatred—was that truly it? No. It couldn’t have been so elementary. There was more. There was an unexplainable bitterness. I looked closer into his withering, clinging-to-air face and knew there had to be more. I wasn’t dreading it because of the mere act. I dreaded it because I didn’t want him dead. I wanted him to suffer. Just as I did. And, somehow, that felt so much worse.
“Edmund!” called out a voice from behind. I turned to the noise and saw Constantine on her feet, pointing to the ceiling above us. The flames licked the air and had crumbled the wooden planks into ash. They creaked and moaned in loud tones and threatened to cave in. I caught my breath in my throat.
And thus had become of me.
I was caught, struck down, pierced—whichever word was best to describe it I couldn’t find. I was screaming too much. A ferocious, roaring pain erupted like new fire in my right arm. Right below the shoulder. I whipped back around and saw the deep gash splitting into my arm. My hand went limp. I couldn’t feel a thing but the pain, the burning!
My throat stung with the force of my shrieks and the smog. It all burned so much! But, I didn’t have the time to react. My sword fell from my fingers and smacked the floor just in time for Kidd to finish the job. And I saw it. The blade came down with all the might and strength in his whole body. And there was only black blood.
I could no longer tell the difference between my screams and those of Constantine. It was all just too much of a blur. And as soon as it all happened, I fell. My body was too weak, too sore, and most certainly dying. I was lying in a pool of my own blood, quickly forming and unceasing.
I didn’t look but I felt his eyes watching me and groping me like a new prize he’d won. His lips stayed turned up. And I still didn’t want him dead.
He took a large step over my arm, lying six inches from its nesting spot, and he disappeared. And there was no action mode for me anymore. I was right about it all along. This was gonna be it for me because perhaps Kidd was bloody right after all. We are what we are. And now, I was only 3/4ths of that.
“Edmund, look at me. Edmund, look at me please!!”
I did my best to turn my head in her direction. She was frantic, just like that day I’d been whipped about The Amity. I’d hoped to never see that expression again.
“What do I do, Edmund? Tell me what to do!”
But, I was past the point of forming words. I was patiently waiting for the convulsions, starting in my chest and moving to my toes. She screamed in my face and raised her eyes to the fiery heavens. She was crying over me. And the tears splashed on my face and I was lost in an ocean of her. Out of anything I could’ve ever wished for in my life, I wanted my child to have those eyes. I prayed for it.
Death knew us as a friend most times; we’d both seen it more than enough. We knew its habits and its flaws…its preferences and its cliches. So, I tried to feel at peace when it came to me. I let myself relax. It would be quick. At the rate of my blood loss, it wouldn’t take too long at all.
But, what really pissed me off was when she left. She left when I was supposed to be dying! And she brought back Reyes. He was screaming too but in a more logical sense. He darted from my view and returned with blankets. And, the pain was returning—shit, the pain was back!! I was supposed to be dying!
I forced my neck around to the massive pool of blood around my right side. He was covering my wound—no—pressing against my wound. He was trying to save me. It was sort of humorous actually. I would’ve laughed if I could’ve moved my lips. Constantine kept tearing the blankets into foot-long sheets, and they both worked to pile on the fabric until a large bloody mass had formed.
My vision was down to pinhole size. My chest bounced in long, shaky breaths that I tried holding onto. But slowly and surely, even the pinhole diminished. And then, I could only see fire.
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