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“I was one of them,” I corrected, holding her gaze even though my eyelids felt like anchors.
“And what are you now?” She was still using that neutral tone, but she clung to the back of the captain’s chair as if it were a shield.
Clover was definitely afraid of me, and that hurt worse than any of the festering injuries screaming for my attention.
Clover was the only person I’d met in five years who treated me like a human being. Who touched me out of kindness rather than violence. I would never hurt her. I was in awe of her. That night on the ship, when I’d watched her face off with a fucking drone all by herself, her defiance had awakened something in me. She’d reminded me of who I used to be, who I wanted to be again. It might have been wrong to let her believe that I was an Irish hero rather than a Russian invader, but it hadn’t felt wrong. In fact, nothing had ever felt more right.
My purpose, my identity, my reason for living—it was all wrapped up inside my boots, socks, and blazer.
She’d asked what I was now, and the answer was simple. Hers.
But I’d scared her enough for one day. So, instead, I told her the only other thing I knew for sure.
“I’m just Damien,” I said, my eyelids drifting closed on the weight of that statement. “Damien Hughes, at your service.”
Then, I gave her a two-fingered salute and let the darkness pull me under.
CHAPTER 20
CLOVER
Damien Hughes.
The deep purr of his Irish accent was still vibrating through my chest when his body slumped over sideways onto the floor.
Shite.
I released the wheel, making sure it was tracking straight before I turned to assess the massive body lying unconscious behind me.
At least, I hoped he was just unconscious.
I hated him for what he and his men had done to Howth, what they’d done to my family, to me. I hated him for letting me believe a lie. He’d taken full advantage of my desperation and stupidity the night before, knowing damn well that I never would have touched him if I’d known the truth. I hated that he’d seen me naked and touched me without my permission at the fish market. Just like the rest of them. I hated the way he’d scared me back there, like my father, with his explosive rage and lack of remorse. But mostly, I hated how hard it was to hold on to that hate.
When I looked at him, I saw a friend.
When I heard his voice, I heard the green hills and rocky cliffs of home.
When I felt his touch, I knew I was safer behind enemy lines than I had been under my own roof.
And when I saw him unconscious and bleeding on the floor, all the hurt I’d been trying to hold on to dispersed into the air like a fine mist of seawater, exposing the tender, terrifying truth underneath.
“Damien.” I dropped to my knees, patting his scruffy cheek as I searched his body for new injuries.
I unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off his shoulder far enough to expose his new bullet wound. It had only grazed his arm, but the gash was deep, and he’d lost more blood. Blood that he probably couldn’t replace with his current level of dehydration.
I knew from experience that his dead weight was too much for me to move, so I slipped the knife out of his boot pocket—which was now lashed to my ankle—and cut as much of his shirt off as I could. Visions of a white room full of naked bodies chained to sinks immediately hijacked my mind. I could suddenly smell human waste, feel the scratch of a blade down my chest, and hear the tearing of fabric as my clothes tumbled to the ground. My heart began to pound as I sliced through the blue-and-white material, tearing it into bandage-sized strips, but I pushed the images away almost as quickly as they’d appeared.
I’m the one with the knife this time, I told myself. And I’m using it to cut up something of theirs.
I needed whiskey and water, so I stayed the course, traveling south at full speed along Ireland’s coast as I scoured every inch of my father’s filthy boat. It was agony, going through his things. I hadn’t been on his boat in years, but I’d spent so much time on it as a child that I still remembered every nook and cranny.
He couldn’t afford childcare after Ma died, so I’d spent every summer and school holiday out on the boat with him. I wished I could say that it had given us time to bond, but instead, it just gave him more time to yell at me. I was always getting in the way or touching something I shouldn’t, so by the time I turned nine, he’d decided that I was old enough to stay home alone—with a list of chores, of course—but for a year and a half, the Pride of Howth had been my sad, salty home away from home.
I saw my father’s face in every wet, reflective surface, saw his callous knuckles in every knot. As I tore through his belongings, I braced myself for his wrath, knowing that at any moment, he was going to come barreling out of the cabin, cursing and snatching things out of my hands and shoving me to the ground—or worse—but he didn’t. My heart raced, and my fingers shook as I rummaged through his storage bins, but no one came to hurt me, and the relief I felt made me sick to my stomach.
I found at least five nearly empty bottles of Jameson, dozens of crushed cans of stout, food wrappers with no food, and exactly zero bottles of water, but when I dropped to my knees in the middle of the deck—exhausted and defeated and dying of thirst—I stared at the buckets on the bow and realized that it wasn’t seawater sloshing around inside of them, like it would have been after a catch. Those buckets were full of rainwater. In fact, they were brimming with it.
Rushing to Damien’s side with my arms full of bottles, I soaked the fabric strips in what little whiskey was left and tied one around his heavy arm. The muscle immediately tensed in my hands as Damien’s face contorted in pain.
