Stormborn) chapter 4

Instructions

Chapter 4 Jacqueline Lucas interested me. I had stalked my sister and her new family to find where they would be today, so that it was a smooth extraction. But Lucas—he was the one I could not seem to track. He was always somewhere new and different, never doing the same thing twice in a week. His movements were random, like he went wherever the wind blew him literally . As soon as we got far enough from port, I handed the wheel to Bastian and went to find Lucas, who had wandered off somewhere. I found him at the edge of the boat, looking out at the water. “The goddess truly blessed us today—clear sailing waters for miles,” I said, walking up beside him. “Who?” he said, like he did not know what I was talking about. “The goddess Amphitrite. She controls the sea.” “I thought that was Poseidon,” he said, looking at me. “I guess, but on this ship we thank the goddess Amphitrite, and we have never had a bad storm since I became captain of the Stormborn,” I said, which was mostly true. “So, you ready for your first lesson? Because if we don't start soon, we will be at the next port.” I moved to the center of the ship. “Don’t want to throw you over the edge,” I joked, putting my hat down on a crate. “Yeah, I guess,” he said, following me. “Okay, first you need to have a good form. If not, you can be knocked down easily, so you need to make sure your weight is distributed evenly between your feet.” I demonstrated what it should look like, but when it was his turn, he looked like he was in a plank on wood. His knees were not bent at all. “No, like this,” I said, showing him again. He looked at his legs. “No, you’re doing this,” he said, standing straight up. “You look like a piece of wood! You need to bend your knees a bit, or your opponent will be able to knock you down easily.” “No, they will not. Just try to knock me down lI’m a brick wall,” he said, straight-faced. He wasn’t joking. “Okay, fine,” I said. I ran straight at him, like I said he would. He fell; I didn’t even need to punch him or anything. All I did was run into him, and he hit the deck floor with a thump. I got down on one knee next to him. “I told you. Now, are you going to listen to me, or are you going to try to be a big man and do it wrong?” I said, standing up. “Listen,” he said, sitting up. “Good,” I said, putting my hand out to help him up. But before he let go of my arm, he stared at it for a second. I could not understand why until I saw what he was looking at. “What’s this?” he said, pointing at it. I yanked my arm away. “It’s my brand. Any pirate sent to be hanged is branded, so that even if they escape, one look at their arm and people know they’re a pirate. Even if we did try to blend in right men” I yelled that last part, raising my arm up. Most of my men were branded, but the few who were not—I hoped they would stay that way. Most of the ones who didn’t were younger, just boys who had run away and needed money, so they joined my crew without even knowing if they wanted to be pirates. Yeah, I care about my crew. I’m a pirate not a monster.