Woman Overboard

Chapter 19 : Picture (4)

Jaiye

September 2nd, 1820

(12:13 AM)

Jaiye was tired as all hell, but he felt triumphant. Not only had they found all of their crew members alive, but they had freed an entire slave population in the process.

He didn't give a thought to the future, to how they would all have to learn to live again. Their plan for the slaves was vague: they would board the ship and said up North to a free state, or perhaps Canada if they could reach it. The bottom line was, anything was better than their old home.

The intense sense of urgency he had felt at the beginning of this mission had faded. Now, he felt deflated, the full force of his fatigue hitting him like a punch in the gut. He leaned on Afiba and Afiba leaned on him, neither able to maintain a coherent conversation.

They were drained in every sense; not just physically, but emotionally as well. Seeing all the people they loved alive and free was wonderful, but it brought back so many memories that Jaiye felt bombarded. He recalled all his old friends and with them, his entire old life.

If he thought about all the people he loved, he had to think about all the people he hated. He had to think about all the pain they went through together. Repressed moments came back to him: the searing hunger in his stomach and the tearing pain in his feet after a long day of work; watching Abigail be whipped to shreds after she was discovered stealing from the library; standing on the stage at an auction, never bought, but watching mothers sob as they were separated from their children and lovers waving solemn goodbyes.

He remembered these things but didn't want to.

He wished he and Afiba could stop to rest. She had her head propped on his shoulder, her eyes drifting shut every few minutes. Neither of them had slept well since they anchored The Brookes.

At the moment, they were exiting the jail. The parade of freed slaves would turn toward the woods here, Jaiye presumed, and escape back to the docks where they would find both The Brookes and The Rosetta. Since the freed slaves had never been part of the original plan, Jaiye didn't know what exactly Afiba was planning to do with them. They did have plenty of room on the ship if they were willing to open up the space below deck. Then they could accommodate everyone.

But at the moment, the crusade wasn't advancing. They had collapsed into a mob of gunshots and glinting steel swords.

Jaiye felt something inside him deflate. Of course it couldn't be that easy. There had to be a fight. The thing was, he didn't want to fight anymore. He just wanted to go home.

Afiba drew her gun in a lazy hand, holding it as if she were offering it to someone else. Here. Take this. I don't want it anymore. Her finger floated over the trigger, but her eyes lacked the resolve to pull it. Jaiye knew Afiba was empty; she didn't know how to allocate her energy well. Jaiye would have to protect her.

Rather than his gun, Jaiye drew his sword, Daniel's sword. Bullets could end up anywhere, but the tongue of this blade was completely in his control. "Stay with me," he said to Afiba. She gave a slow blink. "You hear me?"

"Yeah . . ."

" "Kay." He grabbed her hand, waving the sword in an arc with the other. In the distance, he saw the familiar silhouettes of his friends and the devilish figures of their attackers. Tugging Afiba behind him, he started toward the man with whom Edwin was locked in a fistfight.

Militiamen were running past them now, disturbing cargo in tow: captives. Jaiye caught glimpses of screaming slave women and men, flailing between two iron grips. He couldn't imagine how painful it must be to have freedom right within your grasp only to have it yanked away again.

But then, out of the dust of battle, someone awfully familiar struggled to free herself. She had a blossom of blood on her leg, a myriad of scrapes on her limbs and face. Her golden hair held on to the end of its braid, flickering in the wind like angry fire. Her eyes were wild and teary, wide with fear as she beat her boots against the ground, trying to get away. Tears chased each other down her face, collecting near her collar bones.

When Jaiye saw her, he tried to yank Afiba behind him so she wouldn't see, but it was too late. She let out a wounded shriek of horror, wrenching her hand free of Jaiye's grip. Before she could dive to the ground, Jaiye grabbed her around the waist. "Afi, we gotta go," he said. Behind them, bullets popped in ugly patterns, punctuated by the screams of the wounded.

Afiba struggled against him. The men dragged Alessandra farther away. "No!" she sobbed. "Let go, Jaiye!"

She sounded so heartbreakingly distraught that Jaiye involuntarily eased his grip. The moment he did, she almost fell out of his arms in her frenzy. She rocketed toward Aless, her gun drawn. Jaiye heard two bullets rip from her pistol, then saw two bodies fall. He ran after her, amazed by what she had just done.

"Aless?" Afiba cried, sinking to her knees beside the bloody bodies of her captors. "Sweetie, can you hear me?"

"Mhm," grunted Aless. She coughed, moaning in pain as Afiba hoisted her into her lap. Her face was smooth with pain, making her look younger than usual.

Jaiye felt the familiar thrum of panic in his stomach that told him they should move. "Afi," he said. "You gotta listen t' me, okay? Ye see them woods o'er there? Ye gotta get 'er to safety. Now!"

But he hadn't spoken quickly enough. Behind them, he could already see new men ready to take the place of the other two. Afiba didn't notice. She tangled her fingers in Aless's hair, leaning down to kiss her. "We almost lost you," she whispered.

Jaiye watched, feeling as though the moment was frozen in time, a framed photograph of events from years past. The two of them still, immortalized in print with their arms around each other. He could admire this photograph for hours, admiring the delicate composition of their bodies and the tenderness with which they looked at each other. The vividness of colors caught him: Aless's glinting golden hair, the scarlet blood, red and bright as cherries, seeping into her clothes, the gentle brown of Afiba's eyes as she comforted Aless.

Just then, just as their final kiss ended, Jaiye realized they were in love.

Then without a second in between, the picture was gone and time began again. The men yanked Aless away from Afiba so suddenly that neither had a chance to say even one more word.