Last Voyages

Chapter 22

"You can break my soul, take my life away, beat me, hurt me, kill me, but for the love of God...don't touch her." -Harry

Harry's POV:

I was holding Bella to me, crying as I heard cannons go off and screaming in the background. I didn't care though. All I cared about was her.

"Harry!!" 

Why did she think she had to get in the way? Why does she always put herself last, even when others should clearly get punished? Why does she always do this for me?

"Harry!!" 

My head snapped up, feeling someone's hand on my shoulder and I reached with one of my hands, throwing  the hand off of me. When my eyes found who's hand it was, I sniffled, too sad to fight.

"Harry you'll kill her like that!" Shayla says and my eyes widen. Shayla pushes me away from Bella, and I stay still from where I land, watching as Shayla immediately gets to work. All I could feel were tears falling down my face and the terrible heartache that was in my chest. 

"She's alive?" I croak but Shayla doesn't answer me, a fierceness in her eyes as she bandages her best friend. "Shayla, is she-" "Shut up." she interrupts me and I listen to her, which surprised me. Swallowing hard, I look around me, seeing the ship that attacked us already drifting away.

"They escaped?" I ask incredulously, anger rising back up in me, but when I go to stand up, my body feels heavy. I drop back down to my knees, cursing. 

Again. It happened again.

"Captain?" My head turns at the sound of the timid voice, seeing the helmsman looking at me, blood covering his arm but otherwise unscathed. "Do you want to head back? The wind will be in our favor, we could make it by nightfall." he says and I swallow hard. 

There was no point being out here if Bella wasn't going to be with me.

"Head back." I whisper and he nods, saying nothing else before heading back up to the wheel, beginning to turn the ship around. 

"We got lucky." Shayla says grimly and I look at her confused. "Lucky? How is this lucky?" I ask, gesturing to all of the damage and wreckage of the ship we were on, not to mention the bodies that were lying dead on the ground.

"It could've been worse. And besides..." she trails off, finally turning to look at me. "Bella's alive." 

My heart seemed to stop beating as those words fell from her lips, my eyes widening in shock. "She's alive?" I whisper and she nods.

"At least for right now. She didn't get stabbed straight through the stomach, it was only her side. But she had another wound on her arm that she was already losing blood from, and she passed out. I'm not saying she's in good condition, but she has a good shot of recovering." she says and I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

"Thank you." I whisper, on my knees as I looked at Shayla, who seemed baffled. "Thank you." I say again and she shakes her head. "I'd save Bella any time. You..." she stops herself, her eyes softening and she lets out a sigh, moving over to me and placing a hand on my shoulder, a small smile coming to her face.

"You're welcome." she says warmly and I reach my hand up, grasping hers firmly and she gives me a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry. We know Bella, she's a fighter. She fights through everything." Shayla points out and I feel a smile come to my face, which felt quite foreign to me. 

"You're right." I whisper and Shayla gives me another squeeze before standing up. "Help me move Bella to the bedroom. She doesn't need to just stay on the ground." she says and I nod, finally standing to my feet, my body not feeling as heavy, like a weight of relief was lifted from my shoulders.