Ethereal
Chapter 24

Solomon’s Port

The remainder of my time on the island was a blur.

Jax loaded me into his own rowboat, swaddled me in blankets with a whispered promise that he would take a closer look at my cuts and bruises once we got back on board. I trembled at the thought of being back inside his room, remembering how the last time I had been inside I’d barely made it out in one piece.

I curled up on the bottom of the rowboat, nestled at the bottom of Jax’s feet as he and two other men rowed us back to the ship. The rhythmic rocking of the boat coaxing me into an uneasy sleep.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself back on board, tucked into Jax’s bed.

I was alone in the room. Sunlight beamed through the porthole, sending light tumbling into the room. Sitting upright, I stretched my arms over my head and arched my toes outward and gasped as a sharp pain radiated from my side.

I lifted my shirt to see several patches littered my ribs with long lengths of gauze wrapped around my middle to keep them all in place. Though the bandages had recently been changed, the gauze seemed to be reused, as both new and old blotches of blood stained its fabric. I tried to peel one of the bandages away from my skin but quickly stopped when I saw the angry purple and black bruises that were painted across my ribcage.

I rolled up the long sleeves of a white tunic I had been dressed in – it was Jax’s from the smell of it– and spotted a similar bandage on my elbow where I had fallen by the tidepools.

I licked my lips, my thirst demanding my attention. A liter of water was left on the bedside table for me to drink, and I hastily swept it up and drank its contents. Almost emptying the pitcher, I tried to itch a spot on my neck but found myself stopped by another wrapping of gauze and bandages. Jax had really come through on his promise of playing nursemaid for me.

My stomach rumbled then, carrying my feet out from the bed and against the cold wooden floor. I stood for a moment, making sure that I didn’t lose my balance and fall, before shuffling towards the door.

I peeked into the hallway but heard nothing. There were no voices, no distant hissing of Grouch-o’s soup pot as he prepared dinner for tonight. The ship itself was still, as the floor below me didn’t sway to its usual pattern when we were at sea. I felt my eyebrows scrunch down in confusion. Where was everybody?

My feet patted down the hallway and into the kitchen. Grouch-o was nowhere to be found. While this was normally a very concerning sign, as Grouch-o never left his post during the day, but my hunger had reached a point where it could no longer be ignored and everything else faded into the background.

I grabbed an apple and peered down into the depths of Grouch-o’s pot, the smell of the soup not as revolting as it usually was. Stealing a ladle from the counter I scooped myself up a bowl and sat down at one of the tables, wolfing down my meal.

I had just taken my first bite out of an apple when I heard a shout from the top deck. The door was closed, only letting me see the shadows of feet walking past. The answer suddenly came to me. The stillness of the ship, nobody below decks – we were at Solomon’s Port! Everyone must be above deck assisting with moving the trading goods. That’s why Jax wasn’t with me when I woke up. That also meant that I had been asleep for the better part of the day, and that we would be back at Camp by tomorrow at the latest.

The thought of Camp made the frown deepen on my face. I had only spent half a day inside those walls, and I never wanted to go back. My family was in there somewhere, and I had to replace them.

I finished off my apple and headed back towards Jax’s room, my fatigue already returning. After my little adventure at Sailor’s Cove, I wouldn’t mind missing out on Solomon’s Port.

Another shout from above me made me pause. I turned back to the door that led to the top deck, a bad feeling forming in my stomach. What if Jax and the crew were in trouble? There wouldn’t be much that I could do, but what kind of person would I be if I didn’t at least check to make sure they were okay?

I climbed the stairs up to the doorway, ignore the burning pain in my sides, and opened the doorway to peer outside. I froze as I stood in the doorway, all the blood in my body pooling at my feet.

A man stood next to Jax, a long leather whip in his hand, as the two stared out at a group of dirtied men, women, and children that were huddled together on the deck. I could only stare, my legs refusing to move as I looked from their faces and down at the metal chains that linked them all together.

Slaves. These people had become slaves.

And Jax was here to bring them back to the Camp.

I could see no other reason why all these people were chained together on Jax’s ship. The only reason we had come to Solomon’s Port was to collect a new bounty for the Camp, a new group of working hands to do the Citadel’s bidding.

My eyes connected with a girl who sat next to a much older woman with frayed grey hair that was braided behind her head. Her arms were wrapped around the woman’s shoulders, helping her to stand upright. We stared at each other, her face giving away nothing as she took in my bandaged neck and arms while I counted the bruises that dotted her skin. She looked to be the same age that I was.

My knees buckled beneath me, and I forced myself to take a step forward to keep myself from falling over. Everything around me seemed to blur as I ticked off the number of children lying curled up either on the floor of the ship or in another person’s arms. There was too many of them to count.

“Jax?” his name left my mouth before I could stop it. The word sounded strange on my tongue, as though this were the first time I had ever said it.

Jax and the older man next to him turned, Jax’s eyes widening and the man’s narrowing in interest. I finally tore my eyes away from the group of chained people huddled together and made myself look at Jax. What was he doing?

“Who is this?” the man next to Jax said, his voice heavy with an accent I couldn’t quite place.

Jax didn’t answer him, his eyes trained on me.

“Go back down, Nor.” He said. There was no room in his voice for an argument.

“She calls you by name, not title.” The man said, his hand curling the whip around his wrist. His gaze swept over me from head to foot, a sinister smirk in his eyes.

“Nor,” Jax said, his eyes darkening. I could almost feel the anger radiating off him in waves, the heat spreading through my cheeks.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, taking another step forward. My hands reached out to them, palms up, and motioned to the group of people behind him. “they haven’t done anything.”

“Enough!” the man said, his whip cracking down just a few inches from my foot. I saw the gash mark the leather left behind in the wood, pulling out a nice-sized chunk and took a step back. “You’re about to join them if you don’t shut your mouth, girl.” The whip snaked back around his ankles.

I looked from the man back to the group, their attention now focused solely on me as they waited to see what I would do next. There was no emotion in their eyes as they watched the scene play out before them. The girl that was holding up the elderly woman was the only one who gave me a somewhat curious look, as though she was trying to figure out what I was doing.

Jax stepped in front of me, his face blocking them from view. I blinked, his arms wrapping around mine as he spun me back towards the door that led below deck. My head was swimming. My feet felt like lead, Jax’s hands burning coals as he pushed me through the door and slammed it behind him, leaving me alone in the darkness.

I don’t know how long it took me to get back to Jax’s room, only that by the time I had closed his door and sat down on the bed he was suddenly in front of me again, being far too close for my liking.

“Nor?” he said, kneeling in front of me. His voice sounded like he was miles away. “Nor?” he said again, this time grabbing my hands and squeezing them tightly in his. Jax rubbed his thumb over mine in a soothing motion, and something about the action jogged me out of my haze. I ripped my hands away and stood, moving until there was several feet of distance between us.

“You’re trading people, now?” I said, my tone accusing. Jax cast his eyes downward. There was no lying or avoiding the truth now after everything that I had seen. But what was I looking for, asking him questions that I already knew the answer to? Why did I go back to his room?

Maybe there was a small part of me that wanted him to convince me that what I saw wasn’t what it looked like. That the group of chained people were not being sold into slavery after all, and they were just an unfortunate group of people that had been shipwrecked off the coast and Jax saved them and brought them with us to Solomon’s Port. I wanted him to persuade me, coax me back to the place we had existed in before I decided to climb those steps and saw the looks of defeat carved into those people’s faces.

“My orders were to bring them back to the Camp. This is above me, Nor, I don’t have a choice.” Jax said.

“We always have a choice, Jax.” I said.

He shook his head. “Not this time, Mousey.”

A strangled sound escaped past my throat, as if Jax’s words were choking me. A sharp pain split down the center of my chest; my bones felt as though they were being snapped in half. I wanted to rip out my hair and scream.

“Some of them were children, Jax. Little kids!” I said, my voice rising with my temper.

“What did you want me to do, Nor? The Port Master was right next to me. He would have reported everything back to Eli, then everyone on board would be executed! Did you want me to drop them off in the middle of the ocean to drown? To try and swim back to shore? You saw all those kids, Nor, they’d be lucky if they got thirty feet.”

“You’re acting like you’re innocent in all of this! You’re just as guilty as the officials that brand them! You’ve been in the Camp longer than I have, you of all people should know how wrong this is!” I said, my screams bouncing off the walls. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire ship could hear me right now.

“You’re right, Nor, I have been at Camp longer than you. I’ve seen the starvation, the murder, the beatings and the rapes, all the death that festers in that place. If there was any way I could help them I would.” He said. Jax was too calm, his voice even and unflinching. This only served to anger me more – I wanted to see him affected by this like I was. I wanted him to be upset about the lives that were about to be ruined.

“You would help them? You? The first time I ever saw you I watched as you pickpocketed an official and nearly get a child killed because of what you did! You’re as much of a liar as you are a thief. Don’t act honorable on my account.” I said, seething. We were toe to toe now, my hair flying around my face wildly as I threw my hands up around me. I probably looked insane to him, my face beet red and my teeth bared. But in that moment, all I saw was red.

“Yes,” Jax said, his hands pulling into fists at his side. Something I had said finally seemed to strike a chord in him. “I did steal from an official. And I did almost get a child killed, but I saw you stand in their place. Did you really think Eli cared enough to save you from that official? Who do you think actually saved you?”

The memory of the market square resurfaced in my mind. Jax stealing from Edwin, then Edwin blaming it on the innocent child. Me, jumping in the way of it all, and then being whisked away from it all by Eli. Only to be placed under Jax’s watchful eye – none of it had been a coincidence. How had I not seen it before? Jax had taken pity on me that day in the market square, begged Eli to save me, and was trying to make it up to me since then. Everything he has said, everything he’s done, was done only out of pity.

“You saved me from Edwin. But that’s all I am to you, then?” I said, “A pity-project? Just a way to correct your wrongs?”

“You were at first.” He said honestly. His words slapped me in the face, my gut tightening. Had anything between us been real? Did he ever really like me for me at all? Or was this entire relationship one big façade? At what point did his act end and reality begin?

Jax must have seen the turmoil on my face when he quickly stepped forward, saying, “But then I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Nor. I’d barely sleep at night, wondering what you were dreaming of. But I couldn’t replace but a few spare moments in the day where I could talk to you. Whenever I managed to catch you alone, your words were stuck in my head for the rest of the night. Your eyes haunt my days, your voice whispers in my ear whenever you’re not with me, and I dream of your lips on the nights when I can sleep. You are my obsession. You have to know I mean that, Nor,” he stepped forward, reaching for me.

I absorbed his words, trying to make sense of them with all the other information I had just learned. My mind was slow to think of a response, but when Jax took my hand into his, I let him. He pulled me away from the door until we were separated by only a cold sliver of air.

Stealing from the official, getting me stranded on his ship for his own selfish reasons – of all that I could forgive.

“But those people,” I said, talking about the group that was being shipped off to the Camp tomorrow morning. What about them?

“What about them?” Jax said.

“What do you mean ‘what about them’? How are we going to help them?” I said, my fingers tightening around his.

“We don’t.”

“Bullshit! You can, you just don’t want to!” I said, pushing him away. I saw Jax grind his teeth as his jaw tightened. His next words came out slow, packed with a razor-sharp punch that made me want to vomit.

“You were in the Camp for one day – I’ve lived there for twenty-one years. You have no idea what it means to be a part of this world. You’re just a child.” His words acted like ice in my veins, silencing me.

I didn’t know he had been inside the Camp for over two decades. How could I? I barely knew anything about this boy, and yet I was willing to give up my freedom if that meant I could be with him.

I thought about my family, the forced separation and the years I spent waiting for them to come for me at the orphanage. Then seeing the same place that had once been a second home burn to the ground with my friends and mentors still inside of it. Fleeing to the last Citadel only to be captured and branded a slave, thrown on a cargo ship that traded in slaves. My life was marked with ruin, and I never bragged about it. How could he suggest that my pain was any lesser than his?

We both suffered, that much was true. The only difference was in the ways we suffered. My thoughts blurred into one slurred mess within my head, my words failing on my tongue.

Jax took my silence as a sign that he had won the argument, that he was right. His facial features softened, his voice losing its hard edge as he stepped closer to me with his hands reaching out. Trying to hold me, trying to cage me in.

I stepped out of his grasp, my hand on the door.

“I should’ve left when I had the chance.” I said.

I didn’t dare glance back as I slammed the door closed behind me. My ears strained through the pattering of my feet and the distant crash of the waves against the hull for any sounds of a door creaking open, and a pair of feet following after me. But I heard nothing. He wasn’t coming after me.

I was born alone, and I will die alone. Others may accompany me along the way, but in the end, the hardest journeys are the ones I embark on alone.

And so, I continued forward.