Take My Hand

he night was a rough one. A storm came up. We had to work the whole night to keep the ship up. That's how tough the storm was. Not that we weren't used to this. It was a normal routine, but it still left us exhausted. Yeah, even me the captain. I had to stay by my crew to instruct them. Without me it would all end up in chaos. I don't want to offend anyone but I doubt any one of my crew would be smart enough to organize a whole ship. Of course, this was pretty much the only thing they knew how to do and they did it good but they couldn't give orders and put it all in line like I could.

My whole body was shaking underneath the five blankets from the chills that ran up my spine and back down. I was sweating in the heat but felt nothing but the cold. A massive headache tormented my brain, causing dream figures of mine to pop up in my cabin randomly, creating things that don't exist. Voices talked to me from far away and the sailor in front of me was talking but the words out of his mouth made no sense. I couldn't keep anything I ate down.

That had been the worst illness that had ever fallen over me – one of the rare ones that had affected me at all. I didn't get sick easily and usually it was nothing more than a rough throat and cough that I could hide. I had a tough organism.

But the worst part was that the whole crew had seen me in my helpless state and when I came back to myself chaos had taken over my ship. It was terrible. I had been sick for a whole week. In only seven days it was like hell had run over my Ambrose. My poor ship.

Dirty as she had never been before, ropes all tangled up in each other, vessels loose, crates all over each other in heaps they didn't belong and pirates rushing around the ship with no orientation, shouting things at each other.

I had gotten so mad at the crew that I had forced them to work until they fixed everything. I didn't let them rest before they did. Maybe it was a bit harsh but they needed to make up for the mess they made. What would they do if I died? They would suck up. They had to learn their tasks so good they would do them without thinking so that everything would've been taken care of and then they could survive. But try to teach a human that. Impossible.

Thoughts kept running through my head even if I was tired as hell while I was lying in my hammock and yet I couldn't sleep. The sea was calm again, rocking the ship lightly like usual. I should've fallen asleep the moment I had laid down. The soft rocking and the sound of the waves against the sides of the ship usually lulled me to sleep quickly. But I was wide awake.

My thoughts didn't stray from the spy we had found the day before. Something was weird about him. Something about him just made me edgy. He didn't look anything special. He wasn't intimidating, not all that big either and he sure didn't look like he could hurt anyone in any way. Was it that that made me so uncomfortable?

I really didn't know. Maybe it was the innocent look of his light green eyes when he had looked up at me, so full of fear and terror. His angelic features had turned into such a grimace, I felt like some kind of monster. Was I really that terrible?

I knew my crew looked up at me with the same fear but it was overruled by respect and it was what was asked of them. I was their captain, they had to respect and fear me. But a stranger who doesn't even know me? To cringe at my sight right away?

He's a spy , I reminded myself. He was trying to find out something about us and report to our enemy so that they can defeat us. He has to be afraid of me. I could be his death.

My eyes narrowed at the opposite wall. Well, this spy wasn't going to get away from trying to spy on us so easily. He needed to be punished.

I stood up and put my coat back on. Maybe he would be ready to talk now. I would see to it that one of my men would be ready to get the answers out of him in case he didn't open his mouth.

I set my mind on not leaving and not letting loose before he spoke.