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falling with an angry thud to the surface of the deck. My left knee hurt. I tried to shove the pain aside, but I couldn’t regain my footing. Another of the pirates was approaching, a wicked smile on his face and a knife in his hand. I fumbled behind me for the rifle I’d dropped. He was right over me, the knife raised, the moon glowing behind his outstretched arm. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find the rifle—
    A gunshot tore through his head.
    “Eliza!” Wesley appeared and reached to pull me to my feet. “I told you to stay back!”
    “Just get Mary!”
    Seeing both of us running toward her, Mary stopped thrashing about. Then her eyes grew wide with terror, and her mouth opened in a wide, terrified
O
.
    “
Look out!
” she screamed.
    A spear shot through Wesley’s side.
    Everything slowed down, as though time had suddenly become liquid, something I had to wade through. I watched, frozen in shock, as Wesley staggered backward, trying hopelessly to pull the spear from his body. The sound that escaped from his throat was deep and guttural, almost inhuman.
    “Wesley!” I tried to run to him but someone was holding me back. The moist, ropey arms around my waist belonged to one of
them
—one of the pirates. “Stop!” I cried, struggling to free myself. “Let me
go
!”
    But a pirate with tattoos all over his arms struck Wesley from behind. He fell to the ground with a lifeless thump. I screamed in mindless, endless terror as the man picked him up and tossed him overboard, with no more care than if he’d been a dead fish.
    The arms holding me back released me, and I ran, stumbling, to the railing. The waves crashed below, shining black in the moonlight, edged in white foam. I couldn’t even see the splash that marked where he’d fallen. “Wesley!” I screamed uselessly, over and over again, beating my fists against the railing until they were bruised.
    He was gone.
    It had happened so fast. I stood there for a few moments, trying to understand, but I couldn’t process it. All I could do was stare into the rough water while the sounds of gunfire and suffering echoed behind me, the slicing of skin and bone. I could still hearMary screaming.
What if I just fell overboard, joined Wesley in the sea?
I thought woodenly.
    Then I heard laughter behind me. It woke me from my trance, and I turned around to observe the fighting. Our soldiers were all dead or at gunpoint, Mary was still in the net—and Wesley was gone. The pirate covered in tattoos, the laughing one, was coming toward me, holding a fierce-looking club in his grip.
    I didn’t stop to think. I just ran toward him empty-handed, ready to claw out his eyes. People always underestimate how much damage you can do with fingernails. Even if it was my last act, I swore to myself, I would rip him to pieces.
    I saw his eyes widen in surprise as I jumped on him, snarling like a wild thing.
    But then I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head, a crack beside my ear. And everything went black.

8
    I woke to the sound of a nightmare in the dark.
    Mary was whimpering, tossing and turning in the shadows near me. We were in some kind of prison cell, our wrists bound with rope. There were no windows. I had no idea how much time had passed, whether it was still night.
    “No! Stop!” Mary cried out in her nightmare. I considered waking her; but whatever she was dreaming, it couldn’t be worse than the horror we were living.
    That’s when I remembered that Wesley was dead.
    He was dead, and I never even told him that I loved him.
    The knowledge of it tore into me with sharp, angry teeth. “No,” I whispered, echoing Mary, closing my eyes—but that only made it worse. The images played on my mind in a relentless, cruel loop. The spear in Wesley’s side. The shock on his face as he registered the wound, crumpled weakly to the ground. His body tossed overboard into the freezing, black sea a hundred feet below.
    I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to cover my face