Page 39 of If I Go Down with This Ship

Other than the furniture, it’s rather barren.I can’t tell based on the few belongings who, if anyone, it belongs to.

“Whose room is this?”I ask.

“It’s mine,” Captain Night says, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it over the changing screen.I turn away, suddenly unsure of where to look.

So it’shis room.It’s different from the cabin aboard his ship, and I yearn to yank everything out, to get to know him piece by piece.Did he pick out the furniture and the silks?Are those his clothes on the dressing screen?Where do the maps lead, and what does the parchment say?

He clears his throat as Adelphine returns with some fresh water and a cloth.She sets up at the table and gently pries Astra’s hand away from their face before soaking the cloth and wringing it out.Adelphine’s expression is soft and tender, and I blush, averting my gaze as if I’ve walked in on something I shouldn’t have.

My attention goes to the jacket over the screen for a fragment of a moment before I spin away.

This room is not a home.Other than the furniture andthe few pieces of discarded clothing, there is little to suggest someone truly considers it so.In fact, it reminds me a lot of my London flat.There is nothing to indicate how often he comes and goes, whether he has built a life here, or how long he stays.Not like the cabin on his ship, with its papers and books and pipe tobacco, and the single hook in the closet for his blue coat.There, he has built a routine, a life in that space.

This room is a temporary place to rest, a temporary reprieve from a life at sea.

I turn as Adelphine helps Astra stand, the bloody cloth pressed to their nose, the spatter of blood across their face mopped up for the most part.

“Astra can sleep in my rooms tonight,” Adelphine says, stopping before Captain Night.I open my mouth to say something, but her eyes snap to me with a raised brow, and I press my lips into a flat line.

Captain Night follows them to the door.“Of course.”

I don’t know whether I’m meant to leave or stay.There’s a strange sense of foreboding in the air, and my feet yearn to move.

To follow them.

Throat constricting, I watch as Adelphine and Astra file out slowly and close the doors behind them, leaving only him and me in this small, unfamiliar space.I wring my hands.They itch to reach out to touch him.I don’t know why I’m still here.I shouldn’t be.There is no reason for it, yet I don’t want to leave this place.

I don’t want to leave him.

Even despite what I saw.Even despite knowing what he’ll do, the lengths he’ll go to in order to protect his crew, to protect himself.How would he react if he knew the truth aboutme?Would he kill me, too?Dump me into the ocean and be done with me?

He crosses to the bloody bowl on the table, and gripping his shirt in his hands, he tugs it up and off.

Blushing, I force my gaze toward the ceiling and bite down on the inside of my cheek before my eyes find their way to his form once more.I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find him incredibly attractive, even covered in blood, even having seen him kill a man, but I am increasingly lost as to why I’m here, inhisrooms, watching him undress.

Unless Iamthat oblivious.Which, knowing my history, wouldn’t be entirely wrong.I’ve never been good at picking up on cues.

Oh, what the hell.

This time I stare like I mean it.

The muscles across his shoulders and arms ripple with each motion, and his sun-kissed skin glows in the torchlight from beyond the windows.But as he pivots to me, my gaze finds the scar across his chest, jagged and rising from his skin like corded rope.The blood across his face, neck, and chest has since dried, and it cracks and flakes as he moves.

And maybe I should fear him still, but I don’t.Wildly, I don’t.

Before I can think any better of it, I move to him.I take a piece of cloth and soak it in the water, a mirror of Adelphine’s actions only minutes earlier.He freezes beside me, his dark eyes tracking my movements, and I can’t help but think of the rock, the brush of my pinky on his hand, the way he looked at me.

The way I must have looked at him.

I clear my throat and lean forward.He flinches inanticipation, and I pause, the water dripping down my hand and pooling at my feet.When he doesn’t move away, I slowly begin wiping up the blood.

This could be going any number of ways.It could be like when I was sick and he cared for me.But oh god, does it go so wrong.

The bloodsmearsacross his skin, turning from a paint splatter to aslaughter, and it isnotgood.

If he was flirting before, I am doing the opposite.

“Ohmygod,” I whisper as it worsens.