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The new kid shows up just after Christmas.
Israel isn’t awake when he comes on board. He’s wrapped up in strong, tanned arms, a crooked nose buried in the back of his neck and a thick leg pinning his thigh to the cot, caught somewhere between drunk and dreaming, mouth dry and sticky with drink and the taste of someone else’s spit. Abel snores like a kicked donkey but at least the bosun’s room is clean and the cot is soft, softer than the hammocks belowdecks.
A tidy knock hits the door. Israel doesn’t open his eyes, but Abel snorts into his neck, yawns, and rolls out of the bed. There’s some talking. The sound of rustling paper. Then Abel slips out, closing the door behind him.
Israel wakes to Abel’s hand in his trousers, groping roughly at his cock. Israel doesn’t panic, or freeze. He lets himself blink slowly, feeling his body all over. Abel is kissing his neck, rough beard scraping at thin skin. He’s in Abel’s room, on Abel’s bed, and his head fucking aches.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Abel says, pleased, and Israel’s cock finally wakes to the attention, pressing up against the pawing, calloused hand. Abel shifts, and he’s pressed up against Israel’s back, his prick a stiff line against Israels’ hip. “How’s the head?”
“Fuckin’ awful,” Israel says, and Abel laughs, jerking him slowly.
“Then this oughta put you right.”
Israel comes after a minute or so of pumping, because he’s almost seventeen and his cock doesn’t give a damn who’s touching it, or when, or why. It makes Abel growl. “Yeah, you want it,” he says, and then Israel is facedown on the cot with Abel rutting at the crack of his arse through his trousers.
It’s over quickly. Israel doesn’t know when’s the next time he’ll get to wash, so he scrapes the worst of it off with the rag that stays in his pocket. He can wash the rag better than his body, or at least soak it.
He makes it to the door before Abel drags himself off the cot. “Israel,” Abel says, low and full of meaning, “come back tonight.”
“Yeah, alright,” Israel says, because what else is he going to do?
He shuts the door behind him, and there, standing, watching, is the new boy. He’s shortish, with that waiflike look of a kid who didn’t eat enough coming up, and soft, dark hair hanging below his ears.
Israels’ head is starting to throb again and he needs to get out to the deck and take a shit, and he doesn’t have time for this. “Who the fuck are you,” he says, voice coming out rougher than he meant it.
The kid doesn’t flinch, just stares him down with rich, dark eyes. “Drummond. Who the fuck are you?”
There’s no way that’s his real name. “Hands. Sir to you.”
“Course, sir,” says Drummond, not a lick of respect in the words. Kid’s got a pair on him.
“Well, Drummond, here’s a tip. Don’t fuck around with the bosun until after morning chores. Talk to Cooper – he’s the one with the scar up here” – Israel draws a line down his cheek – “and he’ll get you sorted. Now get the fuck on deck.”
“Aye, sir,” says the kid, and scampers off upstairs.
Cooper’s going to pound the kid’s ear in for coming to him without talking to Abel first. Israel doesn’t feel a lick of shame.
*
Edward Drummond got picked up somewhere in St. Kitts, Abel tells him later, and signed himself on of his own free will. He’s near eighteen, born on the island, with a year or so of experience asea.
That’s bullshit. The kid’s fourteen if he’s a day, and he may know ships but he’s never been part of a crew. He can take a hit, though, and spits fire at the first man who tries to shove him around belowdecks, which is more than Israel expected. Heintzmann actually pulls Israel aside one afternoon between shifts to ask him where the fuck they found the little nutter, and Israel can only shrug, eyes on the kid’s scarred, spindly leg where it sticks out of his hammock, swaying with the roll of the waves.
The leg is a mystery in the way everything about him is a mystery. His accent is bizarre, like he was born on three islands at once. He doesn’t say a word about his family, but nearly clocks one of the cadets for making a crack about his mother. He flinches at deep voices but stands steady during one of the worst squalls Israel’s ever sailed.
The only thing about him that makes any fucking sense is his hunger.
Drummond’s eyes fix on the Captain’s silk neckcloth with rapt, obvious fascination, like a starving dog staring in a butcher’s window. He leans into casual pats on the shoulder. He nearly begs to be allowed to join with the crew in a game of cards, neck craned out to watch, thin hands grasping at his knees.
And, every night before Israel forces himself back up to Abel’s room, he curls up under his crew-issue blanket, hugging it to his chest like a child with a doll.
*
“Israel,” Abel sighs into his ear, slow and languid, “Israel,” and Israel tightens his thighs, pressing his knees together. “You feel so good, my beautiful boy. My darling boy.” Abel’s prick rubs harder, nudging up against the back of Israel’s sack with every thrust, and it feels good – it feels really fucking good.
They haven’t done this before. Israel hasn’t done this before. He’s never felt fucked, and it’s doing things to his brain that he can’t quantify, sending his thoughts leaking out the tip of his prick. Abel’s hips shove up against his arse, and Abel’s wiry hair grinds up against his thighs, his back, all around him, and he can’t move, all wrapped up in Abel’s embrace, held in his lap with his arms pinned to his sides, and if this is what it feels like to get buggered then he finally understands the way his father used to rant and rail about it, because his father hated anything good, and this is, somehow, good.
Abel grunts, and picks up the pace. “Sweet little thing. You like it when I take you like this,” he says, kissing at Israel’s jaw, tender and sweet.
It’s not a question, but Israel answers anyways, mind swimming. “Yessir,” he chokes out, head tipping back to bare his throat. “Like it.”
“Fuck,” Abel growls, and goes faster. Israel’s thighs ache from tension. “Perfect little thing, all soft for me, aren’t you. Bet you can spend from just this.”
Panic flutters through Israel’s chest, and he can barely breathe from it. “Can’t,” he tries.
“Yes, you will,” Abel purrs, and licks a stripe up the back of Israel’s neck. “Let go, sweetheart. You can do it.”
“Can’t,” Israel says, shaking, but Abel is shoving them both forward the way he prefers, Israel facedown on the cot with Abel’s wide weight pressing him down all over, and Abel is fucking him slower, sliding higher and higher up until he’s rubbing himself not just between Israel’s thighs but the crack of his arse, and Israel needs something, he needs to be touched, he needs – he needs anything more than this steady, sticky intensity, and it’s terrifying, and he thinks he might suffocate in all the softness of it, the soft pillow, the soft breath, the soft hands of Abel petting his belly like a prize hound.
“There you go,” Abel says, and Israel, to his horror, is coming his fucking brains out, yelping into the pillow, thighs trembling, and there – there it is. Abel’s spend, familiar warm-wet-tacky, on his thighs and dripping down the back of his balls. “Lovely.”
Israel shakes, and shakes, and Abel kisses his neck and shoulders, sucking at his jaw, whispering gentle praises into his ear.
A few hours later, Israel sits in a darkened corner of the crew’s quarters, curled up on himself. Clutched in his hand is a white silk handkerchief.
“Where’d you get that,” Drummond says, plopping down next to him, unwelcome, uninvited.
“Fuck off,” Israel spits.
“Oy, fuck off, Eddie,” says Palmer from behind them. “Leave him be.”
Drummond shoots a look over Israel’s shoulder. “You fuck off, I’m just talking. It’s pretty, is all.”
Pretty. Pretty. Something dark and fucking furious roars up in Israel’s chest.
Palmer groans. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”
“Listen here you stupid little piece of shit,” snarls Israel, stumbling up to his feet like he’s a fucking drunk, not like he’s just been fucked stupid, “you don’t fucking know me, you don’t know fucking anything about me, leave me the fuck alone.”
Drummond doesn’t blink. “Bosun Ramsgate give that to you?”
Next thing Israel knows, he’s lunged forward, and Palmer has his iron-strong arms wrapped around his waist, barking in his ear to stand down. The kid scarpers. Israel yanks at his bonds, pulls and swears and snarls, and Palmer holds him tight – not softly, not gently, not in the way that makes Israel want to rip his fucking face off, but firm like a manacle, or a rope.
“Easy, Hands,” says Palmer. “Breathe.”
Hands and Palmer. They were berthed together from Israel’s first night on-board, some odd little joke from Abel about their names, Israel thought, at first. But Palmer was out every evening. And then, as Palmer got taller, and his chest grew proper hair, he went out less and less.
And Abel looked at Israel more and more.
“Fuck,” Israel hisses. The kerchief is still clutched in his hand, stainless, soft, lace-edged. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“No you’re fucking not,” says Palmer, and the hold on Israel’s waist loosens slightly. “You’re going to take a fucking breath and think before you do anything stupid.”
A breath. Right. He breathes. Palmer’s chest is sturdy against his back, not a crushing weight, but a promise. “He asked for my thighs,” Israel whispers, the words leaking from him like water from a cracked barrel. “He asked – he fucked me.”
“Yeah,” Palmer says.
“I should’ve put him off again.”
“Can’t put him off forever.”
“He’s gonna kill you,” Israel snaps.
Palmer shrugs. “Probably.”
In his arms, Israel turns. He’s always been shortish, and Palmer’s always been a scarecrow. He used to hate it. Now there’s comfort in it, in the way Palmer holds Israel against him, steady as a heartbeat. “Don’t you fucking die,” Israel says.
Palmer says nothing. His rhythmic breath sinks into Israel’s bones.
*
It’s not ten days before Palmer gets dragged out of the quarters and into the brig.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, calm and cold as deep waters, as the Second Mate and his cronies march him past the staring crewmen. He’s not looking at them – he’s looking at Israel, eyes clear and intent, sharp with fury and fear. Then one of the officers cuffs him in the back of the head, and he doesn’t say a thing after that.
“What did you do,” Israel says, later that night, standing stock-still in Abel’s room. “What did you do to him.”
Abel sighs, heavily, and sits down on the cot. “Izzy, sweetheart –”
“Israel.”
“Israel, you have to understand. I didn’t do a damn thing. Palmer was stealing from the purser. Probably had been for months.” Abel holds out his hand, and Israel takes it automatically. “I talked the Captain down as much as I could. He won’t be keelhauled, only flogged.”
Fuck. “How many strokes?”
“Six dozen.”
Six dozen fucking strokes. Jesus. Israel’s belly goes cold, and his knees wobble. Survivable, if they spread it out over a few weeks, and infection doesn’t kill Palmer first.
But that’s not how they’re going to do it.
“Darling, sit? Please?”
Israel lets himself be guided carefully to the cot. Abel slips off it, coming to a careful kneel in front of him, between his legs. He strokes his thumbs over Israel’s cheekbones. “I’m sorry,” Abel says, and he kisses Israel’s chin, his whiskers wire-sharp. “I never would have let him on board if I’d known.”
“He didn’t do it,” Israel says. His voice is small and strange in his ears.
Abel looks at him, and his mouth is curled down in a sad, soft, pitying frown. “It’s not your fault. He tricked all of us.”
It was you, Israel wants to say. He was too old for you, and you were done with him, and we’re close enough to the end of his contract that he could leave, and you couldn’t control him anymore, so you’re having him killed.
Instead, his mouth is full of Abel, pulling him carefully down to kiss him, full and gentle and smothering, and he can’t say a word.
*
Crack.
Palmer shouts, voice gone ragged, veins in arms throbbing, struggling against his bonds.
Crack.
This blow rips the skin, tearing red stripes across Palmer’s sunbaked back. His shout becomes a scream.
Crack.
The others watch with mingled horror and fascination. Drummond’s gone pale, like he may be sick.
Crack.
Israel will not let himself look away.
*
Palmer lies facedown in the sawbones’ room, breath raspy and eyes half-closed. No blankets. No sheets. His back is wet. Israel wants to tend it, to rub in some numbing liniment, or simply lift the pain off of him to take it on himself. But he knows himself. His touch will only make things worse.
“Hey, Eli,” he murmurs, carefully brushing back a lock of Palmer’s curly black hair. “I ain’t supposed to be in here, but I gave Doc Peters my scrimshaw knife to look the other way. My best damned knife just so I could see your sorry mug.”
Palmer is silent.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Israel continues. “Should have taken the dinghy and left. We’re close enough to Barbados, you could get there in a couple of days. No proper sailing work after that, but you could find your way, a big strapping lad like you.”
Israel carefully runs his thumb over the exposed part of Palmer’s forehead. It’s hot and sweaty. “Fuck,” he whispers, and something in his chest aches like a fucking stab wound. “You didn’t really take the money, did you? There was actual thieving from the purser’s office, everyone’s up in arms about our pay. Second Mate’s on the warpath.”
Palmer blinks slowly.
If you left, I would have gone with you, Israel thinks, but his tongue is thick in his mouth, and his stomach twists like he’s about to vomit. So he runs his fingers through Palmer’s hair one last time, stands up, and gets the fuck out of there.
He walks in a daze from the medic’s room to the next deck, shouldering past a few of the other crew stuck on night watch. A couple of them give him pitying looks. Most of them sneer. It was their money, after all, that got pinched.
Then he reaches Abel’s quarters.
Israel stands outside the door for what feels like an hour, willing his hand to rise up and knock. It doesn’t. He’s frozen in place, iced over and cold to his bones.
There’s someone in the corner. “You know they’re gonna kill Palmer.”
Drummond. The kid peers up at him, near-hidden in the dark.
Israel swallows hard. “Probably,” he says.
“He didn’t do it.”
“Yeah.”
Drummond makes a strange face, like he’s about to shout or cry, but it’s gone in a blink, leaving stone-carved blankness. “I’m not an idiot. I know what’s happening with you and the bosun.”
“Fuck off,” Israel snaps, and he means to knock. He wants to knock. His hand won’t fucking move.
“Nah,” says the kid, and he slinks closer. He’s shot up in height in the last few months, nearly looking Israel in the eye. “You gonna let him fuck you?”
“Won’t let anyone do anything,” says Israel, teeth bared, but shame roars like a cold sea-swell up his spine anyways, salt-sick and clawing.
The kid takes a step forward into his space. They would be touching, if either of them leaned forward that one last inch.
His eyes are burning like black fire.
“There are monsters in the world,” he says, like he knows the name of every single one, like he’s the king of beasts, and Israel wants to flinch, wants to hide and run and shake apart under that fucking look, no matter that it’s set in a smooth, young face and framed by soft, dark hair.
For a split second, Israel sees the man Drummond will grow to be: sharp-jawed and soft-nosed, big-eyed, handsome and clever and dangerous as any devil in a story.
“Get away from me,” Israel says, voice shaken.
The kid eyes him. Steps back. “Just be careful,” he says, threat and warning all at once.
*
He lets Abel fuck him.
“God, fuck, pretty little thing,” Abel gasps, rutting into him, and it hurts like hell, but there’s something in the pain that makes every part of Israel’s brain light up like gunpowder. It’s sharp and clean, and there are tears streaking down his face but he’s not crying, he’s struggling for breath instead.
“Please,” he grits out, and Abel kisses his ear, whiskers tickling-sharp, slowing down to his usual syrupy roll, every press in a shattering shock of pleasure, every dragging pull out a honeyed agony.
“So good,” Abel whispers.
Israel can’t think like this, can’t feel anything but the burn of his arse and the breadth of Abel’s hand caressing his shoulders. There’s something wrong and rotten in the back of his throat but it doesn’t matter anymore, not like this, not when he’s getting fucked out of his own head. His father would drop dead if he knew, his son a proper sodomite, staining his soul black with pleasure.
Israel wants to laugh.
God above it fucking hurts. His arms shake, his belly trembles, his knees quiver where he’s perched, being mounted like a dog. Every thrust shoves him forward, throwing off his balance until his hips are pressed against the cot, his soft prick chafing on the sheets. His mind swims. His eyes flutter.
“Gonna shoot in you,” Abel grunts, pawing at Israel’s chest. “Gonna fill you up, lovely.”
No, Israel thinks, but he drops his head and takes it, takes the sudden shift in pace from loose and deep to fast and hard, and when Abel growls and yanks Israel back on his monstrous prick it shakes something loose inside him and Israel comes so hard he almost passes out.
It takes a while for Abel to pull out. He likes to lie there, stroking Israel’s side, playing with Israel’s cock, or stroking him off if he hasn’t finished yet. “Oh, my boy,” he says this time, pulling Israel back into his barrel-chest, warm and snug, “was that all it took? Did you spend just from my cock? Oh, perfect, perfect,” and he rubs at Israel’s nipple, kissing at his neck. Abels’ cock slips out after a minute, and Israel has only a moment to feel empty, slick, stinging-sharp, before Abel’s wiping them both off with an old rag and tossing it to the floor.
“Gonna burn it?” Israel asks, blearily.
Abel laughs, and kisses the thin, vulnerable skin of Israel’s throat. “Why burn something that still has use?”
*
The Captain gives Palmer three days to recover before the second round of lashings. The medic protests, but no one pays him much attention on the best of days, and this is hardly the best of days; clouds gather ominously in the distance, and the crewmen gather much the same.
Palmer’s fever has worsened. As Heintzmann and Smith hoist him up, securing his hands high on the mainmast, his head rolls back on his neck, eyes flickering. The stripes on his back are barely scabbed, raw-red and swollen. Sweat drips down his spine.
“You’ll kill him,” says Lombard, and someone else agrees, but the officers don’t even acknowledge the sound.
The officer with the cat o’ nine, a tall, slim man with the shoulders of a boxer, hauls back and strikes.
The first blow rips the wounds open.
The second blow has Palmer grunting.
The third has him shouting.
His eyes, dazed and horrified, shoot open, and his words are garbled. “Didndoit,” he slurs, “please, didndoit.” Then, over the crack of leather, “Hel’me hel’me!”
“You will take your punishment like a man,” snaps the Second Mate. “Give it here.” The Second Mate snatches the cat from his officer, not bothering to shove him out of the way before dealing a stomach-churning flurry of cracks.
“Stop it, you’re going to kill him,” Drummond cries, and his young voice carries over the rising murmur of the crew.
“I will not have a thief on my ship,” the Second Mate snarls, and puts his shoulder into the next blow. It skews upward, clipping Palmer’s neck with a sick snap.
Three things happen very quickly:
The Captain cries out.
Palmer falls limp, weight dropping into his arms.
Drummond lunges.
Like a furious wildcat, like a whirling demon, Drummond leaps at the Second Mate, yanking the cat o’ nine out of his hands. He shrieks, a high, eerie wail, and the Second Mate is on the ground, nose bloodied, head in Drummond’s hands. He’s smacking the Second Mate’s head against the deck, every hit a hollow thud, and Israel barely sees the cat o’ nine hurled overboard before officers descend on the pair, gulls on a carcass.
The doctor shoves past the melee to Palmer, three steps behind Israel. Palmer’s knees have buckled, leaving him hanging by his wrists. Israel fumbles with the ropes, hands shaking, and the doctor mutters something but Israel isn’t listening. “Coming down,” he says, and the ropes finally part, slithering back; Palmer collapses into the doctor’s arms.
The doctor curses in quick, furious German.
Israel looks down.
Palmer’s eyes are open. They’re open, and they’re empty.
“Broke his fucking neck,” the doctor snarls.
Things go quiet, for a minute.
The crew are in an uproar. The officers are shouting. Someone’s got Drummond by the hair, dragging him back to the stairs, probably to the brig. The Second Mate’s being gently lifted up, groaning.
But Israel’s head. That’s quiet.
Palmer is dead.
He would have died, anyways. His piss was coming out the color of strong tea, and the doctor said when Israel asked that the sort of damage that makes your piss that dark isn’t something a man survives. But he could have had another week. Might have woken up enough for Israel to say something. Like, goodbye. Or, wait for me at the pearly gates, so when we go to hell we go together. Or, I don’t know what love feels like, but maybe with you I could have.
God above.
Palmer is dead.
A pair of rough, familiar hands catch his shoulders. “Oh, Israel,” Abel breathes into his ear, “oh, sweet, lovely boy, I’m so sorry.”
Israel’s shaking. He’s seen death. He knows death. He knows it intimately, like he knows the map of all the places on a man to plunge a dagger and watch them bleed. He knows fighting, and he’s seen rebellion, and he remembers clearly the way his mother grinned as she drove her kitchen knife through her own breastbone.
“Eli,” he says, and his voice is small enough he can barely hear it over the thundering in his ears.
“Come on,” Abel says, and they walk somewhere, and then they’re in Abel’s rooms and Abel is kissing him, on the lips. Abel’s beard is thick and short, scraping over the new growth on Israel’s face. It hurts, dully. “Come on,” Abel says again, and his hands are shoving into Israel’s trousers, groping at him, touching his arse where just a few hours ago Abel fucked him leisurely into the cot, kissing every inch of his jaw, his neck, his wrists. “Come, Israel, let me make you feel better. Let me cheer you up.”
Israel lets him.
*
Moonlight hits Israel’s face.
He hasn’t closed his eyes. Or maybe he has. Abel’s arm is wrapped around his bare waist, heavy as iron. It’s pressing down on Israel’s ribs. Cutting him off from the air.
He wriggles out of Abel’s hold. The man is snoring, dead to the world, and the sea is calm. The clouds have passed, parting around a bright silver half-moon and a sky full of glittering stars; out the window, Israel can see the silhouette of Bermuda, impossibly far, barely a day’s row.
Israel thinks about using Abel’s chamberpot. Abel might not like it. Israel doesn’t care. He’s numb, down to the core of him, a shell of ice over his heart.
(Is it worse to be a murderer, or to let one fuck you?)
In one of the cubbies at the cabin’s side is a leather bag. Inside it are a set of fine shaving razors, honed to perfect points. When Israel started growing in his moustache, Abel told him about it. Offered to show him how to use it. He did, eventually, and even gently shaved him, every move slow and soft, a knife against Israel’s throat.
Israel picks up the bag. Sets it on the desk. The slightly smaller razor fit better in his hand, when he tried it, so he fishes that one out.
He thinks of his mother, and the way she would stare into the distance. His father, and how he would scream, ranting and raving against un-Godliness, and against the madness that ran in his mother’s line. Their blood runs true, he said, face red, spittle flying. Their sickness is inside you.
Maybe he’s right.
“Darling,” Abel grunts, and there’s a shuffle of fabric as he sits up. “What are you doing?”
“Going mad,” Israel says, opening the razor. The blade is smooth and straight, bright with moonlight.
“Oh, Israel,” says Abel, and he comes up behind Israel and kisses his neck, right on the line of his pulse. “Put that away, will you? Come back to sleep.”
“How long have you been doing this,” Israel says, quietly.
Abel yawns. “What do you mean?”
“You fuck a pretty boy. Then he grows up, so you find another. And when the next one opens his legs, you get rid of the dead weight.”
“Israel,” Abel whispers, voice thick with empathy, cloying with understanding. “I don’t know what Palmer told you about me, but I never intended any of this to happen. I never knew about the money. He wasn’t supposed to die like that.”
“Yeah, he was.” Israel turns until he’s facing Abel, penned in his arms, practically nose to nose. “Did you wait on purpose, with me? Until I let you bugger me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Israel holds up the razor. “You’re a monster.”
Abel furrows his brows, all concern. “Close that up, darling, or you’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Myself,” Israel says, and he’s grinning, or maybe he’s grimacing. “Myself.”
With a short, sharp movement, he’s got the blade pressed to Abel’s neck.
Abel stills. It would take barely a twitch, and he’d bleed out on the deck. His lips curl down. “Israel,” he says, “stop that. You’re not a child, to play with idle threats.”
“What exactly makes you think this threat idle, old man?” Israel says, and the blade bites into the top layers of skin, scarlet blood beading at the edge.
The boat rolls, gentle and steady. Waves wash against the hull. No birds cry.
“You’re not going to kill me,” Abel says, carefully. “Israel, you’re a sweet, gentle boy underneath. I know you. I’ve seen every part of you. Put it away and we’ll go back to bed.”
“Not until you tell me the truth.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Stop with the fucking pet names,” Israel snarls.
“Alright. Alright, Israel, just listen to me.” Abel’s eyes have gone dark, and his breath is speeding up. He’s afraid. Good. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but we can stop it before it goes too far. You can’t kill me. And even if you did, you’d be caught in an instant. They’d string you up. I don’t want you to die, Israel. I want you to live, and to grow.”
“Bullshit,” Israel growl through gritted teeth. “I’d have, what, maybe another year ‘til you get bored with me, have me keelhauled, or hung, or flogged to death.”
“I reported a crime to the Second Mate, I didn’t commit a murder!”
Israel blinks. He won’t let his hands shake. Not now. “You reported him to the Second Mate? Not the Captain?”
Abel’s eyes flick to the side, then back to Israel’s face. Sweat beads on his forehead. “No. That’s not what I meant, I mean that I – I told the officers that Palmer seemed to have more in his purse than the others, that’s all. I misspoke.”
“Not only did you set him up,” Israel says, teeth bared in some sort of awful, vicious smile, “you reported him to the only man on board who would be happy to kill an able sailor for a handful of fucking pence.”
“Israel—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Israel says, and he cuts Abel’s throat.
Abel stares, uncomprehending. Blood flows, warm and wet, onto their bare chests.
Israel shoves him backwards.
Abel’s head turns oddly, and the halves of his windpipe don’t quite meet. He opens his mouth. Tries to speak. Coughs. Blood pulses out of his veins, thin-thick, stinking of iron. His whole front is slick with it – neck, chest, arms, belly, cock, legs, feet. It pools on the floor.
“You’re a fucking monster,” Israel hisses, “and I hope the Devil takes you with open arms.”
Abel reaches out, a strange confusion on his face. One of his hands goes to his neck, barely staunching a fresh gout of blood. He staggers forward. One foot slips in the growing pool beneath him, and he crashes to the ground, grasping for Israel’s leg.
His hand catches Israel’s ankle.
“Fuck off,” Israel gasps, kicking wildly, stumbling backwards. “Fuck off fuck off fuck off would you fucking die.”
Abel’s grip is solid, heavy, callous-rough, but Israel lashes out with the razor, smacking at Abel’s knuckles with the flat of the blade until finally, finally, he lets go, and Israel can snatch up his folded clothes from the desk and trip out the door, naked, blood slick down his chest and arms.
Fuck.
Fuck, he just – he –
Israel shuts the door behind him just in time to vomit his guts out onto the deck. His hands are trembling. His heart pounds. He’s going to die. They’re going to catch him and he’s going to be strung up and no one will give a damn because he’s just some stupid idiot boy, ran off to go to sea, and there’s no one left alive who loves him.
God. Did Abel really love him? Did he just kill the only person who ever wanted him for real?
Stumbling drunkenly, Israel pulls on his trousers, streaking them hopelessly with Abel’s blood. He sprints unsteadily up the stairs, bare feet leaving red tracks. He tugs his shirt on over his head. His face is sticky.
The main deck is cool and quiet, with only a few hands on watch. If he’s – if he’s quick, and quiet, he can maybe slip into the dinghy, or if worst comes to worst just slip overboard –
“Hands,” comes a gruff voice.
Israel whips around, razor bared.
Cooper, the long scar down his face dark and gnarled in the moonlight, gives him a long once-over. “Abel?” he says.
Israel doesn’t move. Cooper is three times his size, with arms like tree trunks and a bellow to match. There’s nothing he can do.
He’s going to die.
Then he hears a strange noise – a splash. The dinghy.
“Don’t you – don’t move,” Israel says, terrified, and races to the rail.
There, below, floats the dinghy, and in it the lithe, small figure of Drummond.
Drummond looks up at him.
Israel looks down at Drummond.
“You going to call for your bosun?” Drummond says, barely audible.
Israel blinks. “Dead,” he says.
“Well, fuck.”
“Yeah.”
A creak.
“I said don’t fucking move,” Israel hisses, spinning to face him, but Cooper’s already got his hands up.
“Didn’t see a thing,” he says, quietly. “But you oughta hurry, cuz I’ll be finding my eyes again real soon, and Lombard will be back from the privy, you hear? And you look real shaky. Might need a hand over the rail.”
Israel stares.
He turns back to the dinghy. “I’m coming,” he says.
“What,” says Drummond.
“I need to – I’m going with you,” Israel says again.
Drummond looks him over carefully, from his bloodsoaked shirt to his fucked out hair. “Yeah, alright,” he says.
Israel blinks. With trembling hands, he closes the razor and puts it in his pocket. He slings one leg over the rail, then the other, and almost slips, but Cooper catches him by the arm – his hands are huge and warm and strong, and he lowers Israel carefully until he has a steady hold of the Jacob’s ladder.
One rung at a time, Israel climbs down. One step. One hand. One step. One hand.
“There you are,” says Drummond, much closer, and Israel is level with the dinghy; Drummond helps him into it with a steadying arm. “Damn,” he says. “You murdered him?”
“Yeah,” Israel says.
“Damn.”
Above them, Cooper slaps at the rail, turns, and whistles a quiet all-clear.
*
They row for hours in the quiet, trading off for snatches of sleep when their arms get tired. Bermuda is close. By the time the sun rises, they can hardly see the ship.
Israel sets the oars down for a moment. He’s sweating hard. Automatically, he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out the silk handkerchief.
The white of it is blotched with blood.
He stares at it. A smooth square. Lacy edges. A silky white flag of surrender.
With a snarl, he throws it out into the water.
Drummond gives him an expressive look, and Israel huffs.
“Was that from,” Drummond says, breaking the silence.
Israel looks at him. “Yeah.”
“Right. Well,” says Drummond.
“What,” says Israel.
“What’s your name?”
The first red fingers of dawn creep up over the horizon, staining the dark with bright, inescapable fire. Red limns Drummond’s back, glimmering over his trim shoulders, setting his hair ablaze. His eyes gleam with it.
Israel cocks his head. “You know my name.”
“I know what you called yourself back there,” Drummond says.
Israel looks him over. “You first.”
For the first time Israel can remember, the kid cracks a smile. It’s beautiful. “Edward Teach,” he says, and holds out a hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Israel,” Israel says, half-blinded by the brilliance of it, heart pounding. He clasps the offered hand in his own. “Ah. Israel Hands.”
“That’s your real name?”
“It’s the name I use.”
Drummond – Teach – Edward snorts. “Fair enough. Well, Izzy. Where do we go next?”
“Well,” Israel says. He almost corrects him, but it sounds good in his mouth. A strange thrill runs down Israel’s back, like destiny clicking into place. “I figure a wash first.”
“A wash. Yeah, I can see that. You look crispy.”
“I do not.”
“You do. It’s making me itchy just looking at you.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m just saying I agree with you,” Edward says, and as he smiles again, like magic, the sun rises blood-red over the sea.
Helplessly, Izzy Hands – sailor, murderer, free man – laughs.