Siren Ch. 01

Kenna struggled out from under the dying man. The body above her made strange gurgling sounds, and to her deep horror she recognized the sound of a man drowning. She crawled backwards until she hit the wall, eyes wide and staring as his stare glazed over. Kenna was not sure how long she sat there, eyes riveted on his. The sounds of the pirates moving their loot over to their ship was lost in the distant roar in her ears. Her heart beat frightfully fast and she felt as though her limbs had turned to ice. She cast about the room, suddenly aware of what awaited her if she remained. But there was no escape save the open sea and she could not force herself to face that fate.

The sounds of heavy boots came down the stairs above her and she heard the footfall coming towards the door.

"If you aren't done by now—" Roland's voice cut off as he entered the room. Kenna watched in horror as the tall man looked from the captain's body over towards her. She brought her hands up, as if to ward him off, only then realizing that they were covered in blood. She turned her eyes to her red fingers, horrified by the slippery sensations. The man's fierce eyes fixed her face once more and she shivered. Through all of this, she'd kept her jaw locked so tightly she found she couldn't loosen it to beg for mercy even as he strode towards her.

Her empty stomach rolled as he grabbed her wet wrist and jerked her up. His expression was impassive as he dragged her out of the room. The faces of the gathered pirates swam in her vision as they emerged onto the deck. Her head felt strange and detached as the man spoke to them, something about a prophecy that she couldn't quite make out. Her sight dimmed, and she cursed her weakness even as her legs gave out beneath her. They would take their revenge on her for certain.

As the dark spots claimed her vision, she couldn't help but admire the rueful irony of fleeing this far only to end up in the same place.

***

Hello wonderful people! A lot of you had opinions about what to do next and pirates didn't necessarily win, but sometimes we writers don't have total control of where we end up. This is a bit different from me, historical with no fantasy or supernatural elements (and so much harder for it. Real research is such a time suck).

I'd like to take a minute to thank an anonymous commenter on Revenge ch. 7 who said "I definitely prefer a bad boy, who's just. Bad. Evil. Wrong." I already knew at that point that Leonid would not be that guy, but I thought about it and Roland popped into my head and here we all are. Again, your comments are so, so welcome. I can't tell you how much stuff gets written because of them.

Much of this story was written at a time of incredibly high stress during the process of taking the US medical boards, and served as a conduit for a lot of that energy. As such it is a bit bleaker than the last story and the resolution is not your typical Happily Ever After. Consider this your final warning. Any bellyachers at the end will be forced to walk the plank.

Also thanks to AwkwardMD for all her time, edits and suggestions. Much of getting this up has been due to her help.

Thanks to Masterfuljim for his hawkeyed editing.

And special thanks to DeathandTaxes for all her help with the aforementioned research.

Ch. 2 is done and out for edits. I'll be posting it soon. Hopefully this all goes up at 10 day/2 week intervals.

As always vote and comment!