Chapter 5
1662 Words
Lamar couldn’t possibly hate himself more. What a stupid asshole he was! Seriously, what was wrong with him? Why did he always say something to screw things up? He was good around men, especially other soldiers, they followed him without complaints even when he was just a young boy without any experience. But women? It was as if he was cursed. The few that were interested in him usually ran off after the first few conversations. Laina was right, he was nothing more than a dumb soldier, a guy without a brain, and the only thing he was good for was waving a sword around. And he couldn’t even do that now.
Never in his life had he said something so hurtful to someone. Even the fight they pretended to have with Hayden so Lamar could leave the castle without suspicion didn’t come anywhere near the thing he just blurted out at the poor, frightened girl. Gods, perhaps they really should have just thrown him overboard and let the sharks eat him.
He was exhausted but his brain didn’t allow him to sleep. Not while she was gods-know-where. So he waited, trying to ignore the painful twitching in his freshly stitched muscles, the soreness all over his body, all the swelling and bruising. Thirst and hunger. As a kid, he had been punished a lot during the military training, he and Hayden couldn’t seem to keep out of trouble for long. But this was different. The army wanted to inflict as much pain as possible while making sure the culprit could recover quickly and get back to his duties. These assholes just wanted to have fun, not caring about the consequences.
The other prisoners ignored him. Lamar tried talking to them but even those who had excitedly shared their experiences with him just the day before pretended he didn’t exist now. The men were sitting quietly on the ground, lost in their thoughts or perhaps praying to whichever gods they believed in. Flinching and covering every time the door opened, desperately trying to avoid drawing any kind of attention to themselves.
Lamar couldn’t exactly blame them, he has obviously established himself as a troublemaker around here and nobody wanted to be associated with him and suffer from the same fate. These men weren’t warriors. They were sailors, carpenters, simple deckhands. Lamar couldn’t expect them to be brave and try to fight. But it still hurt seeing them turn their heads away from him when he tried to talk to them. Being chained to the floor, he couldn’t even go shake some sense into them. Not that it would help, they all seemed to have accepted their fate.
That was something Lamar couldn’t do. Not for himself, and especially not for Laina. He had to get them out. Somehow. He couldn’t see a way right now but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. There was always a way, you just couldn’t lose hope.
They brought her back an hour or two later. Didn’t put her in shackles, just pushed her inside the room and locked the door behind her. Laina didn’t even spare a look in his direction and crawled into a dirty corner, hugging her knees.
“Laina?” Lamar tried to move closer but the length of the chains didn’t allow him to get to her. “Are you alright? I’m truly sorry, I didn’t mean to say those things, I was just scared and angry and… Please, talk to me.”
Her eyes seemed empty when she finally looked at him. “What is there to talk about?” The sound of her voice made him shiver, it was monotonous, void of any emotion.
“I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean any of it, I swear. You have every right to be mad at me. Hell, I’m mad at myself! For getting us into this mess, for not being able to help you, for everything.” She didn’t seem to be moved by his words. And why would she? He told her pretty much the worst thing someone could say to a woman. “Thank you for saving my life,” Lamar sighed, remembering how she called him an ungrateful bastard earlier. “I can never repay you for that. Those sharks…” How did a bunch of fish scare him so much?
“Frightening,” she nodded, finally sounding a bit more like an actual human. “I saw…” she sniffled and cleared her throat before continuing, “I saw pictures in a book. Thought they were tiny. Do you know the word for a shark in Cchen-lianese?”
Chuckling hurt. “Nope. I would prefer not to need to know that. I do know how to say thank you, though.”
“You better,” she rolled her eyes. “That was the first word I taught you.”
It was such a relief to hear a hint of her previous irony in her voice again. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she crawled toward Lamar, curling on the ground next to him. “Are you alright?” he asked carefully. She didn’t seem hurt, at least not on the outside, but Lamar had been at war. Hayden had rather strict rules when it came to what soldiers could and couldn’t do in regards to the civilians they encountered but he couldn’t be everywhere and in battle, it was easy to lose your humanity. Lamar had seen what blood-crazed men did to helpless women and could not even put into words how sorry he felt for Laina.
Groaning quietly, she shuffled, trying to find a more comfortable position. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” Not that he would have any idea what to say to her anyway. Every time he opened his mouth, there was a chance he would say something absolutely stupid and make her mad again. It took him a while to rearrange the chains on his wrists and ankles so he could hug her from behind. He wasn’t even sure if that was the right thing to do but she did scoot closer to him, so she probably didn’t mind. “I’m gonna kill him,” he whispered into her ear, “I don’t know how yet, but-”
“Lamar?” Exhaustion and resignation seeped from her voice. “Just shut up.” Right. That was probably for the best. She drifted off to sleep and he watched over her, trying to figure out how to get them out of this mess.
They kept coming for her every evening, sometimes even during the day, and Lamar was getting increasingly desperate and furious. The worst part of his wounds had healed and he could move around a bit, at least as far as his chains allowed him. The pirates never took them off. They brought them water and some food twice a day, emptied the s**t buckets, and locked the door behind them again.
One of the prisoners died. Lamar wasn’t sure how, it looked like the poor man just fell asleep and never woke up. It was hard to tell with them being so quiet all the time. Even the pirates didn’t notice it until he started to smell. Then they just unlocked the chains and dragged his body outside.
Lamar was nowhere closer to finding a solution to this situation than he had been days ago. There was no way to get out of the shackles without the key but the only time they actually brought it inside the cell was to take out the dead body. It was obvious they had a lot of experience with this and they weren’t making any mistakes Lamar could use.
The guard outside the door usually ignored him. When Lamar got louder, demanding to talk to the captain, the pirate let out an annoyed sigh and opened the door. Instead of unlocking Lamar’s chains, he kicked his stomach and spat into his face before leaving the room again. No, Lamar really couldn’t blame the others for not wanting to have anything to do with him.
One of the pirates seemed to hate him with searing passion. When he was the one bringing them water, he gave some to everyone else and then pissed at Lamar’s head, laughing and calling it a warm summer rain. Gods, how Lamar wanted to strangle that asshole! But Laina begged him not to do anything stupid, claiming that the captain would take it out on her. She was probably right, that coldblooded bastard wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her just to get his point across. So Lamar took all the beatings, piss, and insults in silence, glaring at the bastards angrily, his mind coming up with all the things he wanted to do to them.
Laina usually crawled into his arms when they brought her back and cried herself to an uneasy sleep. It was heartbreaking to see her like that, knowing there was nothing he could do for her. At least he could provide her with little comfort of holding her while she cried, it seemed to be making her feel a tiny bit better.
When she was awake, they talked about anything other than their current situation. She kept teaching him the language, hints of her former self bubbling through from time to time when he kept making the same mistakes over and over again. He even managed to make her laugh when he kept mixing up the words for “friend” and “s**t”. Not his fault, it sounded so damn similar! Stupid language.
One day, the ship stopped moving. The little noises they could hear from the outside changed. There were boxes and crates being shuffled around, people frantically stomping up and down the stairs. They came and took Laina away again. Only this time, she never came back.
***
This book will be removed on June 2
- Writer
