Quarter - The Final Installment In The Adeena Cole Series

Prologue

You'll probably want some backstory. I don't blame you. I'd want backstory if I was suddenly thrust from the life of Adeena Cole into the life of my daughter, Jacqueline Sparrow.

My daughter was born on a remote island somewhere in the Caribbean on the second of January, the day after the new year. I wish I knew the location, as it obviously holds sentimental value and is where one of my closest friends, Elizabeth, lives, but I never asked for the coordinates and they were never offered.

Jack and I had already decided on a name. It took a lot of discussion and debating and arguing because we both wanted very different things.

But eventually we decided on Jacqueline Angelica Mari Elizabeth Sparrow. If it had been a boy, it would have been Jack Edward Sparrow, but it wasn't, obviously, so whatever. It's a lot, yes, and rather ridiculous, but I like it. I don't care what you or anyone else thinks.

Jack thinks it's funny. Jacqueline's first middle name is the name of one of his previous conquests. When he mentioned it to me I retaliated with logic: She's my sister and you left her to die on an island, you idiotic bastard. He backed off after that.

If you think I misspoke, I didn't. Angelica Teach is my sister. Blackbeard is my father. I learned that some time ago, and luckily I didn't see much of Edward Teach. I miss Angelica's company, though. Jack did not ask me my opinion before he marooned her and I did not speak to him for a week.

I think Jacqueline looks like me, but she has Jack's eyes, and his obnoxious personality. Just what we needed, another Jack. One is enough.

She is, oddly enough, more in tune with her Siren side than I am. It's odd because, if you think about it, she is only a quarter Siren and three fourths human. I stubbornly insist it's because she's always known and I figured it out when I was twenty seven.

Either way, she sensed it before I did.

Ignoring her when she did talk to me about it and making uneducated guesses were the worst decisions I'd ever made. I subjected her to a lot of shit and threw myself and Jack into a lot of shit too.

What sort of shit? If I told you that, I'd have to kill you.

I'm kidding, geez. I couldn't kill you, anyways.

You see, this deep shit Jack and I got into? Every cause has an effect.

We got the butt end. If I hadn't involved us in that deep shit Jack and I wouldn't be dead.