When Whitley winds up on the top of a pirate hit-list thanks to her con-artist father, she must hide her identity and board another pirate ship, trusting in one shape-shifting pirate named Bluff to help her escape. Too bad you can never, ever, trust...
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Bluff
I lay on the beach, staring up at the blue sky. Soft white clouds float by slowly. Everything hurts. My skin stings where the siren's clawed at me. My muscles feel heavy and sore. My head throbs. But most of all, my heart is lying in shattered pieces, somewhere in my chest.
Why can't it storm? Thunder crashing, lighting striking. Water pouring from a dark sky. Instead, stupid chirping birds mock me from the forest where I built a shelter for us. The waves crash so gently, beckoning.
"This is your fault." I tell the water. The sea pulled her in, the way it's been trying to pull me my whole life. She just didn't know the risk.
Why didn't I tell her? Why didn't I warn her that the sea wasn't our friend? That being alone in the water is dangerous. If I had... well, at least she'd have been with me longer. Maybe I was always destined to lose. We were brought together, just to be pulled apart.
Fate won.
I lost.
You don't deserve her, the wind whispers into my ear. I sit up, surprised. I don't recognize the voice. It's not my mother—not this time.
"What?" I ask, wondering if I'm just going insane.
If you give up this easy, then you don't deserve her.
My stomach twists. "Who are you?"
No answer. I swallow and consider what the voice said. But how do I not give up? I can't exactly go into the Kingdom of the Depths. Their power would be so much greater than mine there. I couldn't beat one siren that far below the surface let alone a city of them. That's if I could even reach it. There's a reason my mother didn't raise me below—a half human baby couldn't have survived.
But then again, what does it matter if I don't survive?
I wouldn't win, but neither would they.
I'm what they want. They want her so they can control me. So what if I lose my life because of their stupid schemes and my stubbornness? At least I'd take their victory from them. I'd never know what it was like to be controlled by the woman I love. Maybe I'd even get to see the look on my mother's face when she realized that she, too, lost.
It feels like such a stupid plan, but it's better than laying here feeling sorry for myself. Screw it.
I stand and wipe the sand from my pants before stepping into the ocean but just as the cool water hits me, something gives me pause.
In the distance-- usually so empty, only blue as far as the eye can see— now there is the silhouette of sails. There's a ship coming.
