Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) (33 page)

Fishing had always been a great hobby – relaxing, a way to think of nothing. Here, it was also a way to provide food for us both and more satisfying because of that. I’d left her back in bed at the hut, but tied up enough to keep her out of trouble. She’d been sleeping. We’d played under the stars last night with the flare of gas lanterns flickering light across her curves as I beat her with the flogger. I wanted to catch something for breakfast. With no fridge, fish didn’t keep for long.

That little inlet with the rocks had looked promising, but when I reached the top of the dune above, there was a small, dilapidated boat rocking in the waves.

Fo
k.
No rifle. Keeping the salt, sand, and rust off it was a full-time occupation here and I’d left it behind for once. The only time, really. Murphy’s law.

I set down the fishing rod on the beach but kept the canvas satchel with me. The fishing knife would do, for now. A man snored in the stern, a bottle rolling back and forth at his feet as the sea tossed the boat. At least he’d remembered to throw out an anchor. Sa
ils and a motor. I hadn’t heard him arrive, so he must have sailed in.

I waded out and checked in the cabin. Nobody else. Good.

So I gently woke him up, standing in the water with my hand on the gunwale and saying howdy like some American. Most couldn’t place my accent. If he didn’t speak English, I’d figure out an alternative way to scare the shit out of him.

His snoring choked to a halt and he blearily opened his eyes then jerked fully awake.

“You scare me!” His hand was on his heart.

“Sorry.” I nodded at his boat. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged then clambered to his feet and staggered to the side. “Hey, I don’t know. I’m going to fish here. There’s a time to get away from your lady, some days. You know?”

The grin splitting his dark-skinned face invited me to smile back.

“Ahhh. I get it. You’re in trouble?”

“Yes!” He half fell, half climbed over the side, landing with a splash, and I caught his arm. “Yes. That is it.”

So the poor guy had gone on a drunken bender in his fishing boat to get away from his woman. It was hilarious in a way. God knows how he got this far without sinking.

I guessed he was fortyish and his face, teeth, and clothes were as battered as his boat but I hadn’t met anyone so cheerful in a long while.

We sat on the beach exchanging silly stories about women and fishing for half an hour before I managed to tell him the island was off limits and private. I hadn’t conversed with anyone for days, apart from a few times on the sat phone with Glass. Sad to have to shoo him off the island, but necessary.

“You got any friends coming here, looking for free stuff?” I gestured at the beach in front of us.

“No. Nobody I know comes here. Why?”

“
Ahh. I’m having trouble with a few. Make sure people know. Okay?”

“Sure. Sure.” He shot me another gap-toothed grin. “I’ll do that. I have something of yours here, maybe. I found this on the beach
last night.” He shoved his hand in his pocket, pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. Though wet, he managed to uncrumple it, and smoothed it on his thigh. He tapped it. “She looks like your woman maybe? This one? I see woman last night when I sail past. All lit up. You play rough?”

I’d had a couple of gas lanterns out last night, with Jaz tied under the roofed shelter at the jetty. Crap. With all the light, I’d not seen a thing outside the circle. I was getting careless.

“I guess I do.”

He had the first page on his knee and there was Jazmine’s picture, clear as day.
Damn.

“You read English?”

He shook his head. “No. No. Not much. I read little.” Then he gave the paper to me.

Little?

I tucked it away. “Thanks.
Shh
on this though. Okay? It’s just what she likes me to do to her.”

“Yes?
I guess I can shush but...” He shook his head while looking down at the sand. “I don’t know. It don’t seem right.”

Where was the line between reading
little
and reading enough?

I rubbed my forehead.

Words could be powerful when said to the right people.

I shrugged, annoyed, tired, and feeling sad about where my accidental decisions were taking me.

“My mother always told me to take care of my wife. You think you do that? By beating her? But hey.” He held up his hands and gestured, pushing the air outward. “Don’t want to interfere in your marriage with her. No. Your business, for sure, but I feel for your soul.” He thumped his chest.

This fisherman had principles. He was right, of course.

Drunk old bastard that he was. Like most people he deserved better than life had delivered to him.

That familiar tug
awakened and pulled me between caring for Jazmine, loving her, and wanting to hurt her. I’d sat out by myself a few nights trying to reconcile this new facet of myself. Being a sadist was old news, wanting to do things the woman didn’t want and then doing them anyway? New. This freedom was making me have second and third thoughts.

“We have souls that gather dirt as we live our lives. Mine has many spots, I know this.” He nodded, lower lip curling out. “Is bad. Yours? Is yours dirty?”

For a drunken fisherman, he was giving Aristotle a run for his money.

“
A soul?” I smiled weakly. “Sometimes I think I don’t have one of those.”

“
You do! Some of you is a good man!” He snuggled his arm across my shoulders and breathed fumes in my face for a moment before his arm slid off. “Don’t want you going to your death with bad things weighing you down.”

“Uh huh.”

In the middle of nowhere and I was getting into a philosophical discussion with a fisherman.

“So why are you here? Hmm? This is nowhere.” He pulled a horrible face, wrinkles folding on wrinkles as he surveyed the beach. “Is pretty but shithole.
Storm will blow you away, if the waves don’t get you.”

“
A shithole? Damn, I could show you worse than this.” I chuckled despite everything.” I came here with her to...” I had a compulsion to tell him some of the truth. “Make sure we agreed on things.” Inside, I laughed again. That was sort of it.

“By beating her until she screams?” His eyebrows shot up. “Wow.”

“Wow?” What was wrong with giving this guy some of my time on this beach? Nothing. It wasn’t like I had an appointment to get to. “What’s your name?”

“I am
Miok.”

“I’m Pieter.” I shook his hand. “
Okay, here’s a pretend puzzle for you. Something bad has happened. If you do one thing, all your friends go to jail. Maybe for the rest of their lives. But...” Why was my heart beating so fast and hard? “One woman is freed from prison. Do the
opposite
and she is in prison but your friends are free. Which do you choose?”

“That’s a
moral puzzle.” He took a swig from his bottle. “I know what morals are. Shit. And I know answer. I think.”

“Go for it.”

A late ghost crab scuttled past my toes along the sand. The waves gently shushed back and forth, shifting the gravel and sand. I was missing the best fishing time arguing morals with this guy but it had become important to me.

Swaying, he held
up his finger. “Depends. Did she do anything bad? Did your friends?”

I thought a while. “Both. Her, it was accidental badness with some bitchiness too. The friends have done many deliberate bad things, but they
’ve also done good.”

“
Ahh.
Hard one. You try to trick me, but...but, the rights of many really bad people should not mean more than the rights of one little bit bad person. I say let the friends go to jail. Okay? Fixed?”

His was the viewpoint of the average good
man. And well said too. Clear as day, none of the wishy-washy stuff I told myself.

“Fixed.
”

“
S’not just me saying this. You know? My son shot a man once and he wanted to run but I told him no. He was good boy. He got out of prison and now he’s got a good wife, a little baby coming. Hmm?” He peered at me. “See?”

“I see. Yes.”

I let him talk for a while longer before I decided I’d spent enough time being his new friend. Jaz was tied up at the hut. It’d be cereal this morning, not fish. I drew in a long breath and stood up. My offer to help get the boat out to sea was accepted.

“It’s going to storm again today. But late,” he said as we trudged down the sand.

I waded out after him and we pulled up the anchor.

“Get in.”

I gave the poor guy a shove to help him climb into his boat, while I steadied the vessel with my hand.

He peered back at me, saluted
sloppily. “Thank you, sir. Small storm. Little one. I’ll be fine. I hope your moral problem is now fixed.”

“It is.
Yes.”

The people you meet in the middle of nowhere.
Life isn’t always a box of chocolates. Hand still on the hull, I fingered the paper in my back pocket.

“
Sit down. Let’s get you out into deeper water.”

I’d been dying to pee and managed to wriggle out of the straps, since they were looser than normal, and to go outside to pee. If I didn’t get back in them, I might be in trouble. My head was telling me that even as I held his rifle across my hands.

The fucking thing shone where the morning sun lit it up, but the metal of the barrel was cold and oily on my palms.

I had the means of my escape in my grasp.
Shit, shit, shit. Deep breath. Think.
I peeked about, terrified he’d return and find me like this. Past the shipping crate, the huts, toward the beach and the palm trees on every side. The fishing rod was missing.
No. Nowhere in sight.

Kill him? God no, my soul shrank at that idea. He’d know that too. I wasn’t a killer. He’d been kind as well as scary.
Shit.

Decide.
I had to do this properly and with courage, or not at all. And fast.

Could I shoot his leg? That might kill him anyway. I’d seen plenty of gunshot wounds in my early days as a reporter on the police beat. But...yes, I think I could.

I could.

Check if it’s loaded.

As I looked for the catch to release the magazine, a shadow moved in front of me, coming up from the beach. Him.

He’d seen me, what I was doing.
As he advanced, the stark expression – rigid mouth and eyes as still as stone – said a nuclear holocaust was a minor disturbance compared to his fury.

“What are you doing
, girl?”

Dumb question
. He was trying to get close enough to grab the gun, or me.

Shit.

Clutching the rifle, and aiming it at him as I backed several yards, I shored up my crumbling willpower.
I can do this!

“Stay there or I shoot!”

He stopped level with the box and held out his hands. They dripped water and his hair and clothes were wet too. “I come in peace.”

“
Sure you fucking do.” My words shook, and my heart beat hard enough to make me worry it’d explode any second.

“That’s sure you fucking do,
Sir.
”

“Not anymore.” I resisted the need to wipe my face. Sweat had prickled up on my brow, probably due to my stomach turning into a block of ice.
When nervous, confuse your inner thermostat. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

How was I going to do this? He’d grab me still. Were there handcuffs that fi –

“Before I will do that, let me tell you something important. A story.”

A what? “A story
?” When I hesitated, he sat on the box.

“See. I’m no threat to you. Besides, I don’t think you know much about guns, do you?”