Barbossa's Daughter

Chapter 29

Cora had a sword at her throat as Sao Feng's men cheered as they took them captive. But it certainly wasn't without a fight, and Cora certainly wasn't a happy camper as the captain neared her after she'd felled at least a dozen of his men before she was taken captive.

"We meet again, Miss Barbossa," he sang, and she scowled as best she could with a blade to her throat and her hands chained.

"Can't say I'm delighted to see ye, Sao Feng," she spat as her father, Jack and their landing party were escorted back from the island.

"Sao Feng, you showing up here, it is truly a remarkable coincidence," Barbossa spoke, his jaw ticking at the sight of his captive daughter.

"Jack Sparrow," he called as Jack emerged from where he was hiding behind Barbossa's back. "You paid me great insult once.""That doesn't sound like me," Jack said and he was punched in the face.

"Shall we just call it square, then?" Jack asked as he realigned his nose.

"Release her. Both of them," came Will's voice as he pushed through the crowd and pointed at both Cora and Elizabeth. "They are both not part of our bargain."

Cora bucked and blood began to trickle down her neck. "What bargain?!" she thundered and suddenly the bruises hidden on her chest that were left by Will's mouth last night began to hurt for a whole different reason.

"Aye. What bargain be that?" Barbossa asked darkly.

"You heard Captain Turner," Sao Feng said as Jack's eyes bulged out of his head, and he wasn't the only one. "Release them."

"Captain Turner?" Cora gaped, her eyes shining with betrayal and rage as she was freed from her chains and her father pressed a cloth to the wound on her neck, but she didn't care. She didn't care because right now the pain inside her was more painful than any physical pain she had ever felt. Serves her right, she supposed. For having feelings for a person she swore to never have feelings for. And suddenly she realised that perhaps it was destiny that kept her from saying Will's name when she told her father that he was the only person to never betray her. A statement that had never been more true at this moment.

"Aye. The perfidious rotter led a mutiny against us!" Gibbs spat.

"I need the Pearl to free my father. That's the only reason I came on this voyage," Will insisted and Hector had to hold his daughter back as the bloodstained cloth fell to the floor.

"I told ye I would help ye! You didn't need to betray us, to betray me to help Bootstrap! You lying, mutinous sea scum!"

"Why didn't you tell me you were planning this?" Elizabeth asked, also hurt but less verbal about it.

"It was my burden to bear," he answered, throwing back at her the very words she'd said to him earlier when he'd asked why she didn't tell him about killing Jack.

"He needs the Pearl. Captain Turner needs the Peal," Jack said as Barbossa kept a grip on his daughter. "And you felt guilty. And you and your Brethren Court," he said to Elizabeth and then to Hector. "Did no one come to save me just because they missed me?"

"I did, but I've been regretting my decision ever since," Cora said bluntly as her father picked up the cloth and held it to her neck again.

"That hurt me, Delia."

"Deal with it."

"Anyone else miss me?" Jack asked and Marty was the only one to raise his hand. Then Pintel, Ragetti and Jack the Monkey. "I'm standing over there with them."

He moved but Sao Feng seized the back of his shirt. "I'm sorry Jack, but there is an old friend who wants to see you first."

As they spoke and Sao Feng escorted Jack away to where the Endeavour, Cutler Beckett's ship, was approaching, Will simply stared at Cora as he watched her come to the realisation that their conversation the other night wasn't so fictional after all. And there was nothing but betrayal and broken trust in her expression.