Prison of the Mind

The Broken Pieces Fall

Her eyes were wide, almost bulging, wet with unshed tears, and wild with a fear that he couldn't even begin to formulate a method to chase away. How long had she been there? Had she listened the entire time?

"How...how long were you-"

"Why would any woman touch you? You're disgusting," her voice cut in with a hiss, strained and scratchy, scrambling up his insides until he felt a little sick. How much more of her hatred towards him could he take?

It was starting to become irrelevant that it wasn't real.

"Lizzie..." he tried again, knowing that there was truly nothing he could say to...he didn't even know what.

"Don't say my name."

"...Fine. And plenty of women want to touch me, contrary to what you may believe."

"I don't know why. I would never...I would make love to a corpse before..."

She pressed her lips together, clenching her jaw, and for one second, he had the hope that she was reconsidering her words.

"I would die before I let you touch me."

It felt like she had driven a sword through him. He hated this, he hated that he hated it, the piercing...hurt that her words sent into his chest.

"Good thing it'll never happen then, hm?"

He couldn't help the anger that twisted his thoughts, but that didn't mean that he didn't regret everything nasty thing that he said to her. Especially when just for a second, hurt flashed through her eyes. He also didn't miss the irony that she was the one hurting him when it had been the other way around not too long ago.

"Don't worry Miss Swann, I won't be around much longer to bother you."

Shouldering past her, he didn't even bother to wait for her response.

She didn't care if he was leaving. It made her path to Port Royal, to Mercer, much easier.

That her father had been possibly killed in her absence filled her with such overwhelming guilt that she half-thought that her fever stemmed from it.

Mercer was a snake of a man, always creeping and crawling around, doing Lord Beckett's dirty work. She was sure that she had spotted him in Tortuga when she had been looking for Jack last time.

His beady little eyes had the worst kind of look in them, like a puddle of old oil surrounded by expired milk. She couldn't wait to watch the life leave them as he died.

Bringing the cup to her lips as soon as her hand stopped shaking, she sipped, squeezing her eyes shut to try and ignore the awful taste of the grog. Taking several deep breaths, she hoped that the herbs would work. This fever would do nothing but impede her progress.

There was a ship in the harbor, a merchant ship like the one that she had hid away on the last time she had come here, and she hoped that it would take her to Port Royal without a lot of haggling.

Her hair was tucked under her hat again, and she had bound her breasts back just like before. Taking a deep breath, she headed up the gangway of the ship, locating the captain pointing at the sails while talking to one of the sailors. He was a tall man with a brown wig and an angular face, with thin eyebrows and barely-there lips.

"Excuse me, are you the captain of this ship?" she asked, changing her voice to a deeper tone, hoping that it would pass as a young man's voice.

"Aye, that I am, young lad. What can I do for you?"