Present Drifter

Chapter 15

It takes Daxon a moment before he's able to look me in the eyes. His jaw is clenched and his eyebrows are furrowed in anger. He quickly nods his head out of the cell, directing me to leave. I quickly stumble around Piers and slip past Daxon out of the cell.

The cell door slams shut as soon as I'm out and I hear the click of the lock again. Before I'm even able to turn around, Daxon's hand is on the small of my back, pushing me out of the room.

I feel my legs tremble below me as I move through the lower half of the ship and back up to the deck. My breathing quickens and tears prick my eyes as I process what just happened. My whole body begins to tremble as the ocean comes back into view. I'm not looking, but there's no land in sight.

The deck is quiet except for my hasty breathing. I walk over to the edge of the ship and wrap my fingers tightly around the railing. My head falls down towards the rugged water, my hair falling around my face blocking my view. I feel Daxon move to stand behind me but he doesn't say anything.

It takes me a few minutes before I'm able to bring my head back up and stand straight. I swallow my fears before turning to look at this version of Daxon, tears pooling in my eyes as I try to be stronger than I actually am.

His face is sodden, sad. He struggles to look me in the eyes, his eyes wandering the space around me. I turn away, back to the water.

Daxon feels bad. He was angry at me before, just a few minutes ago when I was first brought onto the ship. Now though, he looks more upset with himself than with me.

"I'm sorry m'lady," I hear him whisper from behind me. His booming voice from before has fallen into his calm, refrained tone that it usually is. I turn to look back at him. His gaze moves slowly upwards to meet mine, his eyebrows furrowed downward in disgrace.

"Why," I ask, slowly moving slightly towards him but stopping as I remember he just met me here. "You saved me."

His face softened as I moved towards him. He looks away as I freeze a few steps away.

"You shouldn't have needed saving in the first place," he responds, voicing the self disappointment I could see on his face.

"Technically," I start with a small smirk, "I didn't need saving at all. I think I had the situation well handled." Daxon looks up at me with a forced smile at my humor.

"I'm sure you did." He says, adding onto my statement. However, he looks away again, his face falling back into sorrow. I search his face looking for an explanation, the thoughts going through his head.

"I'm alright sir," I say, trying to make him feel better. The word sir sits bitterly on my tongue. I wish I could call him Dax.

"I'm aware." He pauses for a moment to look at me. "I just feel as though I'm trying to protect you from one danger but brought you into another."

"Danger?"

Daxon's eyebrows furrow in confusion just has loud voices move up towards us from the lower half of the ship. The captain looks towards the sound of his crew a little frantically and quickly turns to look back at me.

"I'm going to take you somewhere safer," he says without explanation. He begins walking away from me, towards the other part of the deck where it rises over what appears to be a room. I follow him even though he didn't mention me coming with him. We walk quickly as the sound of male voices becomes louder.

Daxon looks behind us as he comes up to the small room. When he sees no one behind us he opens the door and ushers me inside. He slips through the small opening behind me and closes the door behind us.