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“Good,” Kragen backs away, straightening his wrinkled shirt. “Now, apologize.”
Jimmy makes eye contact with both Kragen and me. “I’m…sorry.” He stumbles through the words.
“Fuck you, Jimmy,” I answer.
“That’s my girl,” Kragen says, patting my shoulder. He turns back to the injured vampire. “Take us home.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy responds, opening the driver’s door. Kragen opens the back door, shoving me inside.
We sit in silence as Jimmy drives along the familiar roads of the Banks. The sun is beginning to rise, casting an eerie glow over the water.
Not too far from the Minnow Bucket, Jimmy turns down a secluded road. To the unsuspecting eye, it wouldn’t even appear to be a road. The SUV bounces along potholes as he carefully maneuvers through the maze of trees.
“Where are we going?” I break the overwhelming silence of the drive.
“I already told you. Home.”
The denseness of the trees clears, giving way to a large inlet, surrounded by old live oak trees. Sitting in the middle of the inlet is something I never thought I’d see again. Kragen’s ship is anchored, looking every bit the same as I remember from two hundred years ago. Holy shit. There’s a pirate ship in North Carolina.
“Is that your ship…the same ship?”
“It is,” he answers. Pride shows through his voice. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“How?”
“Just takes a little upkeep.”
Jimmy pulls the SUV to a stop, parking next to a small dinghy. Along the inlet, several men are walking around, performing their daily duties as if a pirate ship and a small horde of vampires is normal.
“Do these men realize they’re not in the 1700s?”
Kragen laughs. “They’re vampires. It doesn’t matter what century they think they’re in.” He turns toward me. “Don’t try anything stupid. I will not hesitate to kill you.”
He pulls me from the back seat, making sure to keepmy hands bound behind my back. I can’t take my eyes off the ship in front of me. How has he kept it hidden all this time? The sight sends chills down my spine.
Kragen shoves me toward the dinghy. “Get in.” I follow directions as Jimmy grabs the oars. We work our way across the crystal blue water of the inlet to the side of the ship. I can’t imagine how he managed to get it in here. The ship looks exactly like it did the day I escaped.
“Get up the ladder,” Kragen demands. I ignore his demand and leap from the dinghy to the deck of the ship. He follows behind, landing beside me with a smile. “I see you’ve gained a little rebellion since you left.”
He grabs my arms, pulling me toward the back of the ship and toward the room where I spent one hundred years locked inside. “Get in.”
“No,” I refuse. “I will not return to the bottom of the ship. You’ll have to kill me first.”
Kragen smiles, revealing the sharp teeth I remember. “Very well. Where would you like to go?”
“Home,” I retort.
“Since that option is off the table, let’s try again. Where would you like to go?”
I move to the edge of the deck, overlooking the water below, and sit. “Here’s fine for now.”
Watching the men move around on land and deck, my mind reels over possible outcomes from this scenario. Once Thorne realizes I’m not going to meet him at Connor’s office, willhe come looking for me? Did he get there in time to save Francis and the lycan? Questions fly through my mind in rapid succession.
Kragen sits at a makeshift desk, not far from my chosen spot. The man working in front of me is different. Not only is he dressed in modern clothing, he’s sitting behind a laptop, working. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was normal.
Other vampires are walking around the deck, working on different projects of their own. I recognize a few of them, but most are new faces. Some are dressed in modern clothes, while others are dressed the same as they were three hundred years ago. A young woman wearing a dress very similar to the one I wore all those years ago approaches me, standing several feet away. Her cheeks are sunken in, and her once vibrant eyes hold no light.
“Are you hungry?” she asks, rolling up her sleeve. Her arm is covered in scars. Anger fills me at the thought of these vampires using her as their donor. Our saliva heals wounds. The fact that her skin is covered in scars means that none of these assholes even bothers to heal their wounds for her.
