Scars

Anna couldn’t believe what he had just asked of her. Knowing what he knew about her past, he had asked her to do it anyway. One night, as wonderful as it had been, couldn’t unclench the knot in her stomach at the thought of anyone else hearing her sing. To cover her unease, she dressed again, while Jack paced up and down the cabin with his eyes closed, making plans either to spring his crew or to make life miserable for them. Or possibly both. He certainly looked murderous enough.

“But,” whispered a voice in the back of her head, “his eyes are closed. He can’t see you. And even if he could, he wouldn’t hurt you. He proved that. Try it, for him.” She drew a shaky breath and let it back out again, and with her eyes fixed on Jack’s face, she drew a second breath and let it out singing.

Jack’s eyes flew open and Anna’s singing faltered. His intense black gaze locked on her face and she saw the pirate rather than the lover. She couldn’t keep singing for the pirate. He would hurt her. He would…

Jack saw her start to panic and cursed himself for letting his plans get ahead of him. “If she can’t do it, she can’t do it, and I’ll have to come up with another bloody idea. Just wonderful. All right. If I can’t—“ She was singing again, and he looked at her astonished. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, with her eyes closed. From the sound, she could have been back behind the tavern, thinking she was alone. He let her get to the end of the song before he put his hands on her shoulders and raised her to her feet, gently, and kissed her hard.

“Luv, you’ll save me yet! Can y’do it again?”

“I…think so. All I have to do is sing?”

“Aye, luv. That’s all. I promise. Come on.”

Fifteen minutes later, Anna was wishing she had never woken up that morning. Jack had set her on a corner of the square two streets away from the jail. “Let’s see if you really can draw men from two streets away,” he had said. She didn’t know if she could either, but she had to try, for Jack’s sake. When she closed her eyes, she imagined him looking at her the way he had the night before. The man she had seen then would never have hurt her. He had been patient with her fears, and had helped her and made her free again. And the least she could do was sing for him. She closed her eyes and drew her lover’s image in her mind, and sang to it.

Jack, who was lurking around the side of the jail, heard her, and hoped she could keep it up for the time he needed. Anna’s voice drew people from three streets around her. It didn’t draw the jailers, but Jack had planned for that. He simply killed the two jailers, took the keys off one of the bodies, and unlocked the cells.

“Right, back to the Pearl and be quiet about it, y’bloody sea slugs! Take these buggers with you, row ‘em offshore and sink ‘em. And the next time y’go taking apart a tavern, do it without the bloody Navy!” The crew murmured “Aye aye, Cap’n”, grateful Jack couldn’t spare the time to tell them what he was really thinking, and melted away through the streets, Cotton and Gibbs taking one jailer apiece and carrying them so as to make them look merely drunk rather than dead.

“Bloody hell,” Jack muttered. “It actually worked. She actually did it.” He sighed. Now he supposed he should tell her he was leaving. Even in relatively lawless Tortuga, he had to make himself and the Pearl scarce for a while. He went back toward the voice that had drawn him once before. When he reached the square, he stopped and a real, honest-to-goodness smile spread over his face. There was Anna, standing on the corner where he’d left her, with her eyes closed, singing. Somebody had put an upturned hat on the ground beside her, and there was enough money in it already to see her well fed for a week. She’d be all right, he thought. He just hoped somebody pointed out the hat to her before some thief ran off with it.