Edward watched carefully as Anna breathed jaggedly against the mast and her thin arms flexed in their chains. Not once did she cry out in pain, not an easy thing to do, he recalled from his days as an unruly privateer.
She kept her head crooked between her arm and the mast as the whip cracked on her back again and again.
....Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.
"Get her down to the infirmary." Ordered Captain Kenway quietly.
Through her swimming head, Anna was aware that she was being unchained and led to the belly of The Jackdaw.
Meanwhile, Captain Kenway had further plans for The Albatross crew.
Two pirates dragged Anna's shirtless, bloodied frame to the infirmary where the scrawny doctor ordered the pirates to lie her on his table with her back facing up. Anna hissed inward as her back split and bled more from being hoisted on the examination table.
The pirates left Anna alone with the unfamiliar doctor. He washed his hands in a rusty bucket of water and traced his eyes over the long, fresh gashes across her dorsal,
"Crossed Kenway, didn't ya?"
The doctor asked Anna empathetically.
Anna nodded.
The doctor let out a sad smile as he grabbed a bottle of rum and dampened a towel with it,
"Ev'ry man whose every laid his boots on The Jackdaw has only made that mistake once."
"But I ain't a man." Anna smiled weakly.
A crooked smile slowly spread across the doctor's face as he began to dab the rum-soaked rag on her wounds. Anna flinched and clenched her fists as the alcohol stung her fresh wounds.
"My name's John. John Pemberton. Never seen you on the ship before."
"I'm a prisoner."
Anna gritted out between the dabs that stung with the pain of a thousand needles.
She had never seen the doctor on the ship before either. He must have kept busy with healing the sailors in his infirmary since the battle with the Albatross.
John laughed as he threw the rag and took a swing of the alcohol. He gave a sip to Anna and began preparing a dressing,
"Well, I know that you're a prisoner, lass. I just don't know anything else. What's your name?"
"Anna Freeman."
"And how did a young slave girl like you end up on the grand H.M.S Albatross, Anna Freeman?"
He asked playfully.
Anna chucked as the cool dressing poured into the wounds,
"I often ask myself the same question."
Captain Kenway, who had given his pirate Joel the helm, stood against the railing of his ship looking intensely through the spyglass at some circling birds over the water.
There it was.
The silhouette of a humpback whale lazily leaped into the air, contrasted against the warm orange sunset of the West Indies.
"British are locked up in the brig for the night, Captain." Announced Adewalé, walking to the poop deck from the brig.
"And what of the girl?" The captain questioned through his copper looking-glass.
"Her wounds are still being dressed with John." Adawalé informed him.
Kenway contracted the spyglass and turned his head to Adewalé,
YOU ARE READING
Aboard the Jackdaw: Under Edward Kenway And The Black Flag
Fanfiction#1 Rank of Edward Kenway Upon the perilous waters of the Caribbean, the dreaded Jackdaw claims her dominance. The pirate captain that some believe to be the Devil himself looms at her helm. A soured crew of British sailors sneaked across the bloodie...
