Thousands (Dollar 4)

It would be so nice to have a female friend. Someone who would listen and sympathise what I’d lived through. I could talk to her about Elder and ask her opinion. She could tell me if I did the right thing by leaving, or if I’d been ridiculously stupid to walk away from the man who’d not only rescued me but given me back the will to live.

You did it for him.

I kept forgetting that part. I kept forgetting the agony I nursed was to protect him not me.

My silence irritated the officers.

Their patience ran out.

“Right, seeing as one of you is sprouting nonsense and another refuses to say a word, I guess we’ll have to bring both of you in.” The older policeman yanked Harold toward the busy road where rubberneckers tried to ease their rampant curiosity. “Let’s go.”

The young cop dragged me forward. “You, too.”

I went willingly, offering no refusal. A few stumbles and limps but I didn’t fight. Not that I could with the new aches and pains Harold had granted me.

Simone cried, “Wait, where are you taking her?”

“To be processed and questioned.” The young cop dragged me forward. At some point in my beating, I’d lost a shoe, and I winced as pebbles bruised my sole.

The older cop placed a pair of aviator sunglasses on as he left the alley and entered the sunny street. Pedestrians changed their direction and speed as we disrupted foot traffic, cutting in front of nosy tourists all eyeing me and Harold in the grip of law enforcers.

A small sedan with the police logo sat skewed on the curb as if Simone’s friend had hailed them down as they were driving down the road.

The blonde had done me a favour and stopped the beating, but now she’d taken away the chance of possibly being loaned some money and being free to find my way home.

I looked over my shoulder at Simone who stood with her arms crossed and worry on her innocent face. She waved hesitantly as I was marched away.

Would she come see me in jail? Would her father let her? Or would she forget about the poor little prisoner who tried to rob her the moment I climbed into that squad car?

Either way, it didn’t matter as my head turned and my eyes kissed the beautiful ocean no longer hidden behind buildings.

The horizon glittered with sunshine glory, but I wasn’t interested in the prettiness of this place. I didn’t care about the schooners and spinnakers and sunbakers.

I cared about one thing.

One thing that I searched frantically for even as I tried to look away.

I shouldn’t look.

I should forget—

Too late.

I couldn’t stop my tattered moan as I found the spot where the Phantom had moored, floating just out of harbour congestion, a beacon for home.

Only, there was no yacht.

There was no home.

Only an empty turquoise spot like a lost tooth in a jaw of bejewelled vessels.

Elder had read my letter and agreed with me.

He’d boarded the Phantom, taken one last look at Monaco, and left.

Something fissured inside me.

Something akin to a blade filleting my heart from my ribcage. Short, intense, blistering in its viciousness.

I keeled over as the young cop stuffed me into the back of their vehicle.

I fought my tears, straining to keep my eyes on the horizon, begging for it to be a mistake. That I’d been looking in the wrong spot. That the Phantom was still there, and by some miracle, Elder had ignored my need to leave and was this very moment searching for me.

Please…

But as the door slammed shut and the sounds of city life and traffic were muted, I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.

This hurt more than any fist.

Worse than any kick.

This was the worst agony I’d ever endured.

The agony of a broken heart.

The pain of a sailed away lover.

Chapter Five

______________________________

Elder

TWO OF THE worst fucking days I’d ever had.

Instead of my heart pain fading, it only grew worse.

Hour by hour, missing Pim tightened like a garrotte around my chest, just waiting for that perfect pressure to slice me clean through.

It took everything inside to stay the course and not turn around. To stop myself from wrenching the controls from Jolfer and reversing the moment Monaco vanished in our wake.

I gave up hoping for any resemblance of relief. If anything, this time sailing from society filled me with nausea at the thought of Pim out there…alone—surrounded by strangers and doing who knew what to survive.

What the fuck was I thinking leaving her?

I couldn’t sleep.

I could barely eat.

I rarely left my position on deck—staring at the horizon, desperate to find something to heal the parts of me that Pimlico had broken.

But nothing could stop the jangling discord in my brain. The unfathomable knowledge that I’d left something priceless behind. The awful swelling in my heart that I’d done something un-fucking-forgivable.