The Professor and the Siren

16. Orlando

Orlando

My head was absolutely killing me; pounding like waves on the sand. My eyes felt gritty and tired and there was a horrible crick in my neck. Shit, where the hell had I fallen asleep? I struggled to open my eyes and was greeted with the insides of a warehouse, empty except for some random crates.

I was sitting tied to a chair, my hands stuck behind my back and my ankles bound to the legs of the chair. I felt blurry, couldn't remember how I'd gotten here, where I'd last been. Nausea was clawing at my belly, threatening to empty my stomach. I tried to focus, was there anyone around? Who had captured me? Why? Was Mariana safe?

In the distance it looked like there was an office portioned off, light was glowing faintly through a window there. Everything else around me was dark but my eyes were well suited to the low light, even without the help of my other form.

The last I remembered was getting a call from my father about the break in on the Undaunted. Someone had snooped around the ship, possibly tried to take some of our gear... I'd gone to investigate, having to temporarily leave my siren for it. Then blackness? Someone had clobbered me right as I'd left the Yerseke.

Shit, I could think of only one reason why people would want to abduct me. But I'd only accidentally shown myself to Mariana and I was certain she hadn't told anyone. I couldn't believe that. Had we been to caught up in each other that someone else had seen?

I fought down my nausea, the headache slowly lessening as more minutes passed. I had been taken from the gangplank of the Yerseke, right as I left my Siren. A man could start to think that she'd lured me there so I could be taken, after she'd spilled my secrets. But my heart knew without a doubt that she would never betray me in such a way, irrational maybe but the faith I had in her was unshakable.

So either we'd been incautious together and someone else had seen me. Or maybe I'd simply been spotted a while ago and they'd only just seen their chance to catch me. But the timing and the location had me thinking this was related to Mariana in some way.

Maybe she'd said something before she knew it was real, maybe to her colleagues and one of them had set this in motion? It didn't matter anyway, not right now, my priority needed to be escape.

If they'd taken me, they might go after Mariana too. I couldn't let her get hurt.

Testing my bindings I knew they were tight, too tight for me to break. I searched around me for something that could help, a knife or other kind of tool. But I saw nothing in the dark, just the remains of shipping crates, broken wood and a puddle of dirty water nearly twenty meters away from me.

I eyed the office in the distance, I wasn't sure but now that the pain in my head was subsiding I though I might be hearing two voices softly talking to each other. I wasn't entirely alone in this place, I needed to hurry.

Painstakingly I focused my attention on the dirty water, urging it towards me. Slow progress when my head wasn't working right yet and I couldn't move my hands to help direct the flow. Didn't matter, I'd get there.