Mission Gone Wrong

Chapter 13

I can see everyone's expressions when they realize exactly which ship has a person hanging from their mast, and most are varying degrees of fury. My only request is that I can witness every second of what they do to Dirk. I believe that is my right after everything he's put me through. Sure, I can take it all, and I've had worse, but it's a principle sort of thing.

Logistics aside, Eva doesn't even wait to get on the ship before ordering Miguel and Ruben to get me down. The rest of them storm up to her quarters, presumably to demand answers from Dirk.

Ruben climbs up, and slightly surprisingly, slowly lowers me to the ground. I thought he would have just undone the rope and let me free fall. Guess I might be growing on him, or he takes Eva's talk about me being Miguel's to torment seriously.

I don't want to think about the other option, the one most normal girls would jump to at first and possibly be wrong. It's funny that this one holds the most stock for me. It would explain everything.

As soon as I'm close to the ground, Miguel has his arms around my legs, holding me up, presumably to take stress off my arms. I'm not sure how good it's going to work, since my arm has a very clear red path down it.

When there's enough slack, he starts to ease me down, making sure not to touch anywhere I wouldn't want him to, thankfully. Finally, my feet touch the ground, and he lets go of me, causing me to slightly stumble.

"Nice landing," He says slightly sarcastically, and I let out a small huff.

"My legs are still kind of numb, and I've had a rough week. Cut me some slack," I spit back, and watch his eyes slightly darken.

"It's been more like a week and a half, but who's counting," He says, trying to keep a light tone.

I let out a hiss as he tried to get the stupid chains off me. "How was it a week and a half? I've been keeping track of the days. It should be Wednesday today. A little less than a week."

He winces more than slightly, and screws-up his face in a way that's kind of cute.

I raise an eyebrow, completely reading him. "You guys kept me unconscious for quite a while while infected, didn't you?"

He closes his eyes and nods. "Yeah, we did. It seemed more human."

"And that's why the 'road to recovery' has been so short, and I've been feeling better than I should. Because it was really half a week ahead?" He nods again, and looks very sheepishly.

I shake my head, and he now looks at me curiously. "You're not mad?" He asks as I rub my wrists, now thankfully free of those stupid chains, via him picking the lock.

"My friends do it more often than any of us would like to admit. I should honestly just be expecting it at this point." I admit, and he laughs.

"So, the Ice Queen has friends. Any chance I'll be meeting them any time soon?"

"Not a single one. They'll just ruin my reputation as heartless if you do. And they'll give you far too much blackmail information on me, the easiest way to get me talking. Besides, when they're around I tend to get stressed, and people tend to start dying. We really don't need that, now do we?" I ask, and he laughs.

"You had me until the end. There's no way any of that is true." He says, and I smirk. Sometimes I love my reputation; everything I said was true, but no one believes it because they think I'm always serious all of the time. Just like how my friends can't blackmail me, because literally no one who doesn't already know would believe them.

Ruben lets out a very poorly disguised laugh, and I try not to smirk knowing someone doesn't see through me. I don't know why it's a smirk and not a scowl like it usually is; maybe I'm happy someone can actually tell if I'm being serious or joking, fairly accurately.