“Angel, I don’t think we’re going to Alejandro. I think our family took care of that bad man, but there’s someone else who is trying to hurt them.” I tried to find her in the dark so she could see my face, but I was unsuccessful. “Angel, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but you’re with me, and I’ll protect you as long as I live, you understand?”
“Yes, I know you will.” She said softly, a yawn punctuating the end of her sentence.
If there was one good thing about sleeping in a cargo hold, it was the ease of falling asleep. That rocking did wonders for the little girl.
“Ink, I miss Mikki.” She whispered as she drifted off to sleep.
“You’ll be home soon, I promise.” I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep like her, the promise searing itself into my very soul.
A cold splash of water abruptly woke me from my sleep. The blinding light from the open door at the top of the stairs leading to the deck of the ship was hurting my eyes.
“What the fuck?” I screamed as I tried to wipe the offending water off my face.
“Our wonderful vessel here has blown a gasket, so repairs are needed.” The man who’d been with us from the start of this fucked up journey said as he bent down to get eye level with me. “Unfortunately, that means we are stuck here for a little while, and some of the men are bored.”
I looked between him and the men that were smiling and waiting behind him. “What in the shit does that have to do with me?” I asked, almost scared to know the answer. Usually, when men were bored, they started thinking with their dicks. If they were going to try to ass rape me, they’d have to kill me first. I hoped and prayed they wouldn’t come for Angel. Either way, I’d be dead before that happened to either one of us.
“Come on up with us, let’s have a little fun.”
“Yeah, Lou. Bring him up!” The man in the back called out as he turned and walked up the stairs laughing.
“Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere.” I tried to push him away, but my hands and arms were tied to the ship.
“I think you will.” The one they called Lou reached over and tried to unhook my hands from the wall, and I kicked him with all I had, and he fell back. I would have jumped on him to finish the job, but I was still tied up. “Boys, this one is a little feisty!” He called up, and three other men came down. They swung at me, pummeling my face and abdomen with hammer-like blows. I was sure something had been broken. I was a skinny man, I tried, but I was never able to put on any weight. Fighting one man was enough to break bones, getting jumped by four meant I was going to die a lot sooner than I’d thought.
“Ink!” Angel screamed from the side. “Please stop! No! Please!” I covered my face as much as I could and just waited for it to be over.
“Alright, boys! Enough!” Lou yelled as he backed up from me. The rest followed suit.
“Now, let’s get back to what we were doing.” Lou bent down and grabbed my head, so I was looking into his face. “You’re going to come with us, or the next time we won’t beat you. The next time it will be her.” He pointed at Angel, who was pulling at her restraints, trying to get to me.
“It’s okay, Angel,” I whispered in her direction, trying to get her to calm down. I nodded my head once, and Lou made quick work of unlocking my chains. He left my hands tied up, and he picked me up so that I was standing.
“Go upstairs.” He growled from behind me.
I took a few steps toward the stairs before I looked back at Angel and gave her a small smile. She smiled back, her blue eyes twinkling with unshed tears.
I walked up the stairs and was surprised to see that we were in the middle of the ocean, no landmass anywhere as far as the eye could see. Lou had walked toward the end of the ship. The three men who helped him bring me up grabbed another rope and tied my hands tighter, making sure I had nowhere to go, but they did not tie my legs. They hooked a large clamp onto the rope in between my arms and pushed me toward Lou. The clamp seemed to be attached to a leash of some sort, although I couldn’t figure out where the end was.
“You know I was watching the discovery channel and discovered some fascinating facts about marine life.” He turned to look at me, grabbing hold of the rope my arms were tied with and checking to make sure that it was secure. “You know anything about marine life?”
What the fuck?
“No,” I answered suspiciously, did he seriously drag me up here just to talk? I was confused and petrified at the same fucking time.
“That is a shame. It’s really very interesting. Did you know that the orca is actually more dangerous than a shark? Or that we haven’t even seen the bulk of all the animals that live in the ocean? It’s all fascinating.” Lou looked down at the water below us. We were on a lower deck, only about twenty or so meters above the water.
I looked around again, the three other men all standing around, not making a move toward me at all. “What the fuck does this shit have to do with me?” I was getting pissed off. I didn’t like the fucking mind games.
As fast as lighting, Lou reached out and grabbed me by my shirt, holding me on the edge, the balls of my feet the only thing still touching the boat.
“What the fuck?” I shouted and tried to
