The room was dim and damp. Jayna's eyes struggled to adjust to the featureless gloom as she slowly roused from her drug induced slumber. Her muscles ached, her head throbbed and her mouth was dry. Her mind was still foggy and she struggled to process any thought or sensation outside of the intense feeling of thirst that was now creeping down from her mouth into her throat and stomach. The odour of dank, stale, moisture ridden air filled her nostrils. She felt sick and hollow.
The nausea rolled in waves up from her gut and through to her mouth and she managed to roll sideways in time to unleash a painful burst of watery vomit that only made her thirst-damaged throat burn even more. Upon supporting herself with her hands by instinct, she realised they were no longer bound. A small blessing at least. Although the red welts around her wrists were sore and scabbed.
She coughed and her throat throbbed with each contraction of the muscles, the sandpapery feeling only intensifying and forcing the coughs to become chokes. She wiped away the remains of the clear bile and barely managed to drag herself into a sitting position, her blurry vision finally adjusting to her surroundings. She took an assessment of the room, although there wasn't much to see.
The space was plain, the walls were covered in mildew and dampness, their material was indeterminable but as Jayna slowly ran her fingers along the floor and the wall behind her she found the texture slightly porous and uneven. The single dim light built into the ceiling gave little else away about the colour and construct of the space save for a sturdy looking door across from her, metallic and built onto sliding tracks. Jayna herself was slouched on a mattress – old and well used, frayed in places. It had no springs but was well stuffed, and was covered in various stains in shades of browns, reds and ocres; she suspected that it had once been white but now it was impossible to tell. As the list of possible atrocities that had been committed on the padded square flooded her gradually waking mind she scrambled off of it as fast as her cramping and heavy limbs would allow. She collapsed on the floor, face down, her cheek now damp from the thick layer of filth that covered the floor. Now she was still, she felt the uneven tilting of the room as it gently rocked beneath her.
Not a room, a cell, she thought. A brig. On a ship. Her eyes began to water as the memories of the road here came trickling back to her. The wind in her hair as she was hoisted upwards towards the looming shadow of a tider sky-ship, the smell of smoke and gunpowder, the sounds of death, the destruction of her home, the sound of the knife slicing through her fathers throat...
It was gone. Maybe. All of it or some of it, she had no way of knowing. The Capital had fallen at the very worst, or been severely crippled at the very least, and she'd had a view from both sides of the proceedings. Up close and personal - the dry spatters of Chandra's blood probably still dotted her face - and from above, helpless. The image of smouldering buildings and dead bodies left an ugly picture of destruction and death seared into her brain. Images she would no doubt forever see whenever she closed her eyes.
Jayna wept. What tears escaped her were intensely salty and stung her eyes. Her body didn't have much more water to lose. She wept for her father, for her mother, for all the lives lost, and for the desperate situation she now found herself in. A prisoner of a tider captain somewhere in the endless skies or seas, no doubt already too far away for any help to reach her. She was alone, cut off, vulnerable and with no avenue of escape. Even if by some miraculous act of God she could escape this room, she was on board a tider ship filled with dozens, if not hundreds of vicious criminals, scoundrels, rapists and murderers. And even if she made it through them, she was surrounded by miles of sea or sky. Swim and drown slowly, or fall to her death quickly. The choice would be hers. She managed a small laugh that the thought of escaping the ship was even a possibility to her drug-addled mind, and then almost instantly the laugh turned to tears once again, and as she sobbed she let the gentle rocking of the room cradle her into unconsciousness.
She remained that way for some time, slipping in and out of consciousness, being woken by her desperate thirst before crying herself to sleep once more. Letting the gentle rocking of the cell help send her into more bouts of restless, terror filled semi-sleep. She knew her body was becoming dangerously dehydrated, but she had no way to drink, and no way to know how much time was passing. It could have been hours, or even days. She wanted to scream, wanted to cry out, wanted to rage and unleash profanities but her throat wouldn't allow it, she could barely even whisper. She felt like she was being driven slowly mad. It was an endless loop that refused to break. Sessions of dehydration and delirium interspersed with nightmare filled bouts of conscious sleep, peppered with mere minutes of actual rest. She didn't know how much more she could take. Surely she should be dead? Her body wouldn't take much more. It couldn't possibly. Her own stink began to fill her nostrils in the brief moments of cognitive thought - stale urine and sweat. Her clothes itched and adhered to her. Her crotch felt sore and her armpits stale. Any time she spent awake was spent writhing in discomfort. Sleep seemed the only cure but it refused to come easily. As always, she wept, until she faded away once more.
At some point, she was woken by a heavy metallic thud and managed to rouse herself in time to see the door slide open. The shaft of light hurt her eyes, although she suspected it wasn't much brighter in the space outside than in the cell, and yet the sudden but slight change in illumination forced her to close her gloom-adjusted eyes.
"Stand up," a voice said. It was raspy, light and not at all friendly.
Jayna didn't move.
"Stand up," the voice repeated.
She tried to respond, but all that escaped her mouth was a pitiful croak.
"I really shouldn't need ta ask a third time, you'll learn that pretty quickly here."
Jayna managed to open her eyes. Squinting, she looked at the man who leaned casually against the door-frame. He was wiry, small, and clad in jeans and an old but durable looking canvas jacket. His boots, like the rest of his outfit, were well used and filthy. Around his waist hung a sword belt, and around his torso was slung a gun harness, a few powder containers were nestled above the ammo-roller. Jayna couldn't see the weapons clearly, but his silhouette gave them away and sent a clear message. Slowly she rose to her feet. It took every effort from her exhausted, weak muscles, but she certainly wasn't going to give him the chance to ask that third time.
"That's better," he sneered, smiling. Jayna's eyes had adjusted and the face before her was weathered and stubble-ridden, framed by long greying hair that was tied back in a greasy ponytail. There was not a hint of kindness in his eyes.
Eventually she stood upright, finding both courage and strength, using one hand to lean against the wall. She looked at the ground, refusing to let him see her swollen and terrified face.
"Take off ya boots," the man said matter of factly.
Jayna, already straining with the effort to stand, reached down and released the buckle just under each knee. She then began the laborious process of unlacing each boot, working her way down each shin, using the wall for balance as the man in the doorway watched without comment. She focused with every shred of concentration left to her, motivated by terror than anything else. Her hands were clumsy and slow and they felt like someone else's. When she finally managed to kick off each item the man gestured.
"Over here please," he said. "And the laces."
She tossed each item over to him, weakly, and without comment.
"Now your belt," he said, removing a serrated knife from an unseen sheath.
The fear took hold of Jayna like a vice, He's going to rape me, she thought. This is it, this is how it will start. This is my life now. Thrown to each of the crew like some kind of sex toy until either they break me or impregnate me. Even then, that won't stop them.
She stared at the ground as fresh tears ran down her grubby face, unbuckling her belt with shaking hands. I won't scream, whatever they do to me I won't scream. I will keep my dignity. I will not break. I will not break. She repeated this mantra over and over as she removed her belt, trying to make herself brave, to make herself strong. It didn't work. She threw the belt to the man’s feet, trembling from head to toe.
However, to her surprise, he did not come to her, instead he bent down and slowly began attacking her boots with his knife, cutting each one down to ankle height, negating the need for lacings and fastenings of any kind. Her curiosity got the better of her terror and she made to ask what he was doing, but all her mouth would allow her was a whispered choke.
"Your corset," he said, without looking up.
She complied, almost robot-like, unlacing, unbuckling and unzipping the garment which she then tossed into the slowly growing pile of her possessions at his feet. She watched, standing in her piss-dried trousers and blood-and-sweat stained shirt, feeling the moisture of the cell;s floor sink into her socks as he finished hacking off the last piece of leather from her boots. He threw them back to her and she flinched as they hit the ground. She looked down at them, not daring to move for fear of what repercussions may come for her lack of understanding whatever form of torture game he was playing.
The man then hacked and pulled at her discarded corset, removing all laces, straps and buckles. That too, was then thrown back at her. He stood, glaring at her, his weasley face unreadable.
Slowly, Jayna bent down and reached for a boot before she heard:
"Take off your bra."
She froze.
"I'm sorry?" she finally managed a croaked rasp.
"Your bra. Take it off."
I won't break. I won't scream. I won't break. The mantra cycled through her mind again. She reached under her shirt with trembling fingers that would now barely function. It took her several attempts, her terror increasing each time. What if she couldn’t complete this simple act of self-abuse? Would he hurt her? Would she be made to do even worse things than her mind had already conjured? Her fingers finally found a firm grip on the clasp, she released it, shimmying uncomfortably as the man watched her with cold eyes. She pulled the garment from underneath her shirt but it wouldn’t come, finally she understood why. Turning away, she unbuttoned her shirt and removed it, feeling his eyes gaze upon her back. She slipped out of her bra, before quickly throwing her shirt back on, desperately trying to reduce the number of seconds he could look at her exposed flesh. She turned to face him and threw the bar at his feet. He reached down and picked it up. Then, blessedly, throwing his full weight behind it, he closed the door, leaving her alone in the gloom.
She heard the mechanical lock slide into place and the very faint sound of footsteps growing quieter. All the adrenaline and fear evaporated from Jayna's body, replaced with a wave of relief that literally floored her. She collapsed onto the mattress, almost fainting, in fresh floods of tears.
With the various sedatives now clear from her system Jayna had a much clearer sense of time passing, although she still could not tell exactly how long it was until her second visitor arrived. She was awake this time though, sitting on the mattress and letting the gentle rocking of the ship relax her, listening to the distant sounds of the engine and the various creaks and groans of the vessel. She'd grown fairly certain that she was on a boat, and not a skyship. Meaning that she'd been transferred off the Crimson Sunrise whilst unconscious sometime before she'd first awoken in her new home in a haze. She recalled three bouts of sedatives, one in the passageway, one as she'd reached the skyship, then the gassing in the first cell. There may have been more but her memory didn't seem to be functioning properly. A boat though, of that she was certain. Most likely the Ocean Ghost given Goodman's words to her, but she may have imagined that. It was getting harder to separate fact from fiction. Definitely a boat though. When the idea had first solidified itself, she was surprised to find she wasn't faced with a new wave of fear. The situation seemed somewhat inevitable, and finally having a clearer sense of a place and time - or place at least - had given her mind an anchor point. Something to hold onto. She'd almost gained a new awareness of the world and her place in it. She felt, perversely, somewhat calmer. It was a kind of meditation, and helped take away from the intense and debilitating thirst that ravaged her body. She'd grown beyond hunger many hours prior.
When the door opened, Captain Goodman filled its frame.
The Ocean Ghost then. She was not afraid at the thought. Perhaps meditation had become catatonia.
"How are ya?" His voice was a deep rumble.
"How long -" Jayna croaked.
"Doesn't matter." He was clipped, terse and without a shred of politeness. "I get your sense o'time's all in a tizz, the drugs we gave you'll do that." He reached behind him and pulled in a small metal chair from the corridor. He then produced a jug of water and a dented tin cup. He sat down on the chair, and filled the cup.
'You'll be thirtsy, no doubt about that. A side effect of the sedatives.' He held the cup out to her. She looked at it in silent refusal. She was thirsty, so desperately thirsty. But would not trust anything the man gave her.
"Suit yourself," he drank deeply. "I ain't done nothin' do it. You're much too valuable to come to any harm, you know that." He refilled the cup and placed it on the floor, an even distance between them. It was only then that Jayna noticed the polished grip of his weapon nestled beneath his jacket, it was jet black, perhaps ebony.
She scuttled towards the water, slowly at first but her confidence growing with every inch forward. She grabbed eagerly at the cup.
"Not too fast, you'll make yourself sick," he said. She forced herself to drink slowly, savouring every drop. The water had a metallic, bitter taste but at that moment, she couldn’t imagine anything sweeter.
"Sorry about the..." He gestured to her ruined clothes. "But you're not leaving this room, not even by suicide. So no cords, buckles, wires, belts, anythin' sharp or tight. We made sure to box in all pipes and fixin’s, you'll notice the ventilation shaft behind you's been welded shut.'
Jayna had not noticed the small grate on the wall, half covered by the mattress, the idea of her being able to fit anything more than an arm inside it was ludicrous.
"If you refuse to eat or drink, we'll force ya. If you decide to do something stupid like smash your head against the wall, well, we got guards outside the door twenty-five eight and they'll come runnin' at the sound of the first thud."
"What do you plan to do to me?" Those first full words in who knew how long made her throat ache, but she tried to add as much confidence to them as she could.
"Do to you?" the man said, feigning confusion. "You know who I am, yeah?"
"At least kill me quickly," she said.
He sniggered then, barely a laugh, but it was filled with malice. "I ain't gonna kill ya, that don't serve my intentions at all."
Jayna said nothing, she had nothing. Her mind was blank, completely empty with a new kind of terror. Not the fear of physical violation that she had had with the other man, but a deep and horrific fear of the complete unknown. At least the idea of rape or physical injury was something tangible, even the fear of death was something she could grasp, but this...this was new.
"The other man - " she finally said.
"My Bo'sun, Woody Smytheson. Did he hurt you?"
"No."
"Good." He sniffed and spat a thick wad of phlegm on the ground. "Heiress, you've been raised to believe that as a society - as a class - that we're a plague to the people of this planet. You forget none of us had a choice in the matter. I didn't get asked to be born on these waters. You didn't ask to be born in Court with silverware shoved up ya royal ass, but here we are." He gestured around the cell. "Each of us born into our respective place, places that led us down our own paths until inevitably - " he clapped his hands together with such force Jayna flinched. He continued " - we collide. Here. Now. Like this. Somethin's wrong, broken, if a situation like this has to rear its head in order for anybody to get any serious shit done, am I right?"
Jayna could only stare at his feet, too afraid to look in his eyes.
"I ain't gonna touch ya. I ain't gonna hurt ya, not unless you put a foot outta line in a way I don't like. I don't really want you in this here room for any longer than need be, but I need you to cooperate with me. I have something I need to show you."
"What could you possibly have to show me?" Jayna asked quietly.
“I'm gonna make you an offer, Heiress, eventually. And I hope by the time I make you that offer, you'll be willing to accept it. I need you to just keep ya eyes open and ya wits sharp. Jus’ try and learn from me and I'll learn from you. This ain't a one way street, you'll see that's an important part of what I'm tryin' to achieve here.”
Jayna listened, taken aback by the forthright attitude of the man before her, this was not the Locke Goodman she had heard so much about over the last twenty five years of her life. She mustered just enough courage to look the man in the face.
"And if I refuse?"
He turned suddenly colder, if that was possible. "You're not in a position ta refuse."
He stood up, picking up the chair and water jug as he did so. Jayna shuffled forward holding out her cup as she did so.
"Could I have some more water, please?"
Locke looked at her for what seemed like an eternity, then moved to the door and banged on it sharply three times, it opened, guided by unseen hands. He turned to her, held the jug out and poured the remaining water onto the floor. Jayna watched helplessly as the liquid spattered onto the dirty, moisture laden surface.
"It's bin fun," Locke said, closing the door behind him.
Jayna threw herself forward and, ignoring the muck floating in it, lapped at the deepest puddle she could find. Even now, filled with filth and grit, the water tasted so very, very good.
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