For Ransom

Chapter 7: A Storm Was Coming

Soraya

Soraya had a bad feeling about this ship from the start. So when she had seen that pathetic excuse of a captain draw the pistol from her peripheral, she knew she should have listened to her instinct.

Soraya twisted to expose her right side, knowing that the bullet was coming. At least let it hit the leg. A blow to her abdomen would be fatal and if the bullet shattered any bones, she was just as done for. And there was no way in hell Soraya was dying at the hands of these cheating pigs.

Pure agony lanced down her thigh until it was the only sensation she was aware of. She barely heard Alessandro's shout as she crashed onto the floor of the rocking ship. She had a faint idea that someone's steady arms, likely Tom or Carlos, were heaving her upright as another pair pressed a piece of cloth against the bullet wound in hopes of staunching the blood.

Stay awake, stay awake. She repeated those words to herself over and over and over again, like she knew nothing else, like nothing else mattered.

A storm was coming. The sky had glowed with that ominous yellowish gray, mother nature's only warning before she unleashed her wrath. Everything about this situation was a bad omen. If they did not move soon, they may not survive the night.

She blinked, forcing her eyelids to remain open so she could speak. She needed to speak. She could not afford to pass out right now. Alessandro's concerned face, harsh with intense fury, appeared in her spotted vision. He was saying something, but her mind couldn't interpret it, not when the pain in her leg blocked all her senses and rendered her brain useless. She gritted her teeth. She has been through worse and she would get through this.

"Take it all. Everything they have, including the woman." Soraya managed to choke out. She dragged her eyes so they met the azure orbs of the pirate hunter, making sure he heard everything she was about to say.

"And I want every single one of those bastards slaughtered. Let's move out before dusk."

Alessandro nodded, his face deathly serious. It was at that moment that Soraya was eternally grateful to have him in her crew. No one but the pirate hunter could enact the vengeance she desired.

Those bastards would pay for what they had done to her.

She let herself fall into the abyss of unconsciousness.

Alessandro

A haze settled over the pirate hunter. He could never describe the feeling to anyone, but it had always been there, a part of him that lay dormant like a monster in the shadows, a beast in hibernation. And when it awakened, he prayed for all those that it came into contact with.

"The calm before the storm," He had told a friend once before one of his many assassination missions. His mind and body morphed into a single entity and suddenly, everything seemed to still as his own body surpassed time itself and his senses were refined to perfection. Alessandro had mastered this state, read about it in the books of old. The deadliest warriors and soldiers from the Pre-Oceanic Period had experienced the same sensation, though it had been given many names. But the state all resulted in the same thing: a blood bath.

Alessandro had always been good enough at everything. He could read well enough, his cooking was edible at best, his sense of direction as good as it needed to be. But it was not until that fateful day, twelve years ago, when he had figured out what he was great at. Memories flashed before him like bolts of lightning, images of when she had been taken hostage by that horrible, horrible old man, when he had tracked them relentlessly day and night for weeks. Alessandro would never forget that night he finally found them. He left every man on that ship mutilated beyond recognition.