Everyone starts to speak at once. Miguel and Eva are both worried, talking about how to find Luna. Dirk starts blabbing about how they can't just leave the ship unattended. Maartje somehow thinks this is all her fault.

"All right, we're not supposed to pull out for at least three more days. Here's what we'll do; Miguel, Maartje, Ruben, Laurens, and I will go and try to find her. Dirk, you stay here with the ship," Eva says and they all nod.

"I'll go with you guys," I volunteer, and surprisingly everyone shouts no.

"I will not have you endangering yourself like that," Miguel exclaims, and I barely restrain rolling my eyes. He's seen my back; he knows I have scars, and he obviously believes some of the rumors so he should know I can take care of myself. What is he worried about happening to me?

"On top of that, I don't fully trust you. At least not with looking for my daughter; everyone knows the Ice Queen hates children," Eva chimes in.

"And she called Luna brat nearly the entire time they talked," Maartje adds, causing me to throw a death glare in her direction.

"For me, brat is a term of affection. If you are younger than me, and being mildly annoying, you're brat. Even sometimes if you're older than me but we're close," I explain, trying to smooth things over. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

"Eva, you can't seriously be thinking about taking her out where people can see her? She could hurt people. No, I think she needs to stay on the ship, where I can keep an eye on her," Dirk speaks up, and I just stare at him, with a glare that hopefully tells him he has died over a hundred times in my head, right now.

Sadly, he doesn't get the hint because he's staring right back at me.

Eva is biting her lip, obviously conflicted by what to do. She probably knows what Dirk is probably wanting to do, torture me, and apparently she likes me so she doesn't want to let that happen. Actually, it's probably because she believes no one deserves it, but we'll go with she likes me for my sake.

"Dirk, Miguel is still in charge, which means you can't do anything to her. Just take her back to the ship, but her in-" She cuts off as she looks to Miguel.

"If Captain is fine, I would like for her to be put in the sick room, as she is still needing treatment and I want everyone to remember why," Miguel replies in a very icy tone. I think we could possibly bond over our hatred over him.

"You need to take her there, and leave her there. Post a guard if you like, but besides that leave her alone," Eva says firmly, and I close my eyes to keep from smirking. I have won yet another battle, so close to winning the war.

"And you, behave," Miguel says sternly, and I pull a perfect fake innocence look.

He gives me an unimpressed look that I know says 'save it because I'm not buying it for a second because I know you're thinking of ways to deliberately antagonize Dirk because he deserves it and he can't do anything to you.'

I sigh, and he smiles. It isn't until Eva and Maartje share a look that I realize; we literally just talked like an old married couple. We didn't use words, just facial expressions and tilts of our head.

Wait a second, why is this happening? He doesn't like me; he can't. He likes Eva. Maybe it's a play to try to make Eva jealous she will get with him because Dirk is an idiot?

But, no, that isn't in his character.

Then what is he playing at? Why did both of us just do this?

I am cut off from my spiral of self loathing by Dirk grabbing my arm, and literally dragging me out of the room. I honestly can't promise both of us will survive this. I'm used to being the one doing the dragging and giving out orders, not the other way around.

He keeps up a pace I'm sure he thinks is demanding, but for me is really just a stroll in the park. I deliberately smile which causes him to scowl and grumble under his breath.

When we reach Ocean Storm he thankfully lets go of my forearm, which I'm sure has bruised over.

When he starts to make an announcement, I zone out, since he has nothing important to say. Well, I'm sure he might have something remotely important, but nothing worth listening to him raising his already dangerously high ego for.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see someone dragging chains over towards us, and quickly get out of the little fantasy where Dirk's body is being burnt alive, and he's telling me everything he knows about Alistar.

"Now, Captain Storm has seen that I am clearly the better candidate for interrogating the prisoner, and has said that I am now in control of her. Thus being said, the first way I will break her is hanging her for a couple of days. No one is to give her any food or water during that time, and anyone found doing so will find themselves up by her. Captain Storm has left me in charge of both the ship and her, so you must do as I say for this," He announces, and then a crew member snaps the chains on me.

A long rope with a hook on it is lowered from the main mast, and Dirk drags me over to it. He then takes far too much glee in placing the chain connecting my hands on it, and then signaling for someone to pull the rope up. I wait a couple of seconds, until the man who pulled me up is halfway down the mast, before I start my small rebellion.

Even though I'm about ten feet above the deck, and one wrong move would get shattered bones, I start to climb the rope.

The risk is worth it when Dirk starts yelling and running around like crazy. When the man starts to climb back up again, I scale down the rope. However, the rope keeps on lowering, and I keep hanging on.

"Since you can't seem to take this seriously and keep on fooling off, I am forced to take worse measures. I was going to do it in a way where it wouldn't dig into your wrists as bad, but you regrettably leave me no choice," Dirk says, completely pretending to be contrite for no reason. He's not fooling anyone here; he's just being melodramatic in the most annoying way possible.

He then threads the chain through the hook, so that I will now be dangling through the hook. How this is supposed to be different from the other position besides the fact I can't waste energy by climbing up and down the rope in turn driving Dirk crazy. Both ways when I run out of energy, and accept fate, I would be hanging off the rope, with metal digging into my wrists, which would eventually cut.

I lift both hands up, and pull myself up on the rope, to try to prevent the pain. The crew starts going back to work underneath me, while Dirk just continues to stare.

Around noon, I start to sweat all over. And not just, my hair is starting to get damp, sweating like what I usually do. No, the sun is directly overhead, wherever we are it must be summer because it feels extremely hot, there isn't a cloud in the sky, and sweat is dripping off me onto the deck, sweating.

Who knows how long ago I let my arms drop, but I can see little red droplets rolling down my arms. I can feel the chains digging into my skin, and every time I try to pull myself up, it hurts more, since I'm literally having to pull it out.

All the while this is happening, Dirk is still standing below, watching me. When he noticed I was starting to sweat, he would deliberately take long swigs of water, and even let some of it dribble down his chin, just to spite me. I'm sure you can imagine how my thoughts turned as he did that.

Eventually, Dirk gets tired of his games and goes to Eva's quarters.

Then, with the crew ignoring me, and the one true person who would hurt me gone, I feel safe enough to show how tired I am. However much I hate acting like it, and to some extent refuse to, I was in really bad shape just a few days ago. I'm better now, but still not the best. I'm basically running on nothing, solely because I feel like I have to. Because I know if I slow down, even for a second, I'm going to start feeling horrible again.

But now, it seems like I have no choice. I let my arms bear the full grunt of my weight, no longer even attempting to give them a bit of relief. I close my eyes as I can see my vision going out, and try to focus on something that's not the sun beating on my back. I just know I'm going to be sunburnt.

I can feel night start to fall, the air slowly getting cooler and the sun not being so intense. Everyone goes down to eat, and then the people taking watches come back up. I watch silently, hopefully with dignity.

Once the sun has finally sunk, and all the stars are out, I feel completely free to feel.

I close my eyes, and let every emotion wash over me. The hurt, the pain, hoping that Miguel will come back soon. Despair, in what will happen if he doesn't. Anger at Dirk for obvious reasons. And also, a little bit of fear. Alright, more than a little fear; a healthy dose of fear.

I look up to the stars, and remember the last time I could see them so clearly. I was with Amory. Where is he when you need him; surely he wouldn't stand for this.

Well, that's not completely true. There was also the one day, when I went to the bridge. If it wasn't for looking into the water, and remembering Brady's last words, and then seeing the child getting bullied, I might not have walked away. It was so pretty; the moon reflecting off the water, the stars glimmering, everything. It's weird I can remember that now, but I couldn't see it then.

The night doesn't last long enough. Before I know it, the sun is up, and my headache has worsened. Today I'm a lot more resigned. No trying to keep myself up, no fighting back.

I don't look down, don't watch the crew scurry around. I don't want to see the stupid red head. When the others show up, he needs to hope I'm unconscious, or so weak I can't move. If not, he's a dead man.

Wait, I need to get my information. I need to find out who the second person is, then I can kill him.

Maybe I just wound him, that way he's forced to stay in the same place as me. Then, we're both too weak to harm each other, so they leave us alone. I get the rest of the information, then put him out of his misery.

No, that's too merciful. For what he did to others, and myself, he deserves worse.

What about poison? I mean, I didn't get it the first time, but no one gets lucky enough to cheat Lady Death twice. I don't have any with me, but I'm sure they have some herb or something that would do the trick.

Or, I could just go with the simple knife in the heart. I mean, it's not as long, but it is effective.

Oh, perhaps the lung. That way it's a longer and more violent death.

It would make my escape harder though, because once I do this, there is no way I would be able to stay.

Perhaps I just attack him, and bide my time. Though, I'm not completely scraping the knife lung idea; it's too good of an idea to waste. Maybe when it's time to leave.

I spend most of the morning thinking. Mostly about the painful deaths I will make Anderson, Dirk, Alistar, and a few other people. A lot of ignoring Dirk, as he is doing what he did yesterday, though there's no crew around today, besides a few he told to stay around and guard the ship.

By midday, my arms are beyond feeling like they're been murdered, and all I want to do is for this feeling to stop. Actually, they don't feel like they've been murdered. If they'd been murdered, I couldn't feel anything, and for some comforting reason, I'm not at that stage. Probably because if I was at that stage, my arms would be numb, which means they might have something permanently wrong with them.

I don't know, but I feel like I heard a lecture about permanent nerve damage if hung for too long. Or perhaps that was only if the joints were dislocated.

The evening passes the same as the last one did. Boredom is the worst thing, I think. After so long, you just get used to the pain. It's always there, and as long as I don't move, I don't get any new waves of pain. Boredom, nothing helps that. I don't have any codes to solve, any orders to issue, anyone to interrogate, anyone to debrief or brief, anyone to talk to, nothing mentally stimulating. You can only spend so much time in your head before you become insane, and I think I've already passed that point.

Then, as I'm looking towards town because the glare off the water is awful, I see something that makes my heart lift and I want to shout for joy.

Off in the distance, I see a group coming back. A group that looks like it's made up of three guys, and two females. And one of them is wearing a purple overcoat. The group has returned, and just in time.