Warning everyone: This chapter has a bit of violence. Nothing I think is that graphic, though I may be wrong. If you have a weak stomach, you might want to be careful.

I must have fallen asleep, because next thing I know I'm woken up by a kick to the stomach.

Upon feeling the sharp dig to my ribs, I curl up to try to protect them and my stomach from any further attacks, and open my eyes, though keep them cast down, to let whoever was waking me up in such an awful manner know that I'm up. They could have just banged something against the bar, which would have been just as effective.

A minute later, when I feel no further attack, I uncurl myself, and start to stand up.

"Don't. You will remain kneeled when Captain Van Acker comes down here to hear your side of the story and then sentence a punishment. I do hope you have an appropriate excuse for what you did, though I wouldn't really complain if you didn't." The voice of my punisher says, and just my luck, it's the uncle.

I dip my head down even further, to where my chin is touching my thoracic outlet, to show that I understand.

He grabs my hair, pulling my head back to where I have to look him in the eyes, "For further reference, when one of us tells you something, you need to reply with 'aye sir' 'aye ma'am' or their appropriate title. Anything less is considered an insult, and right now, none of us like you, and would all love an excuse to hurt you for what you did to our Captain, whom most of us that will be around you are related to, in love with, or she has saved our lives multiple times, so I would suggest not giving us an excuse to hurt you. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir." I say, wanting to avoid further pain, and he lets go of my hair. I start wondering what in the world I could have done to warrant that reaction. I know that she isn't dead, so why would he react that violently?

It must be sentiment of some sort. Most people are funny about their family like that. They probably don't want to murder most of them, or have had a hand in all their deaths. I finally decided, though I'm not satisfied with that answer. Though, there's no other logical solution.

And, there's Rule 15: Once the impossible is elemationed, the possibility left, no matter how improbable, is the truth. If there is no possible answer, then you're an idiot and elemitated it, and now have to redo everything.

Even if he doesn't seem like the type to get all that sentimental, what other solution is there? Besides, he is human. We simply can not help being sentimental, no matter how much we would love not to be.

After about five minutes of kneeling, waiting for Captain Van Acker, I start to feel the cold seeping into my bones, making them ache.

Or that might have been sleeping on the floor since my cell has no pallet, chair, or anything to lay on but the floor that is covered in dirt, and other substances that I'm sure I don't want to know what they are, though I have a few good guesses.

My mind starts to wonder, on to how much I want to tell her. How much about why I did what I did. Surely not the whole thing; not only would that jeopardize CHIP, it would also put me in far more danger, and most likely get me killed. That's if they don't kill me because of my reputation as Ice Queen, or whatever I might have done to their Captain.

Eventually, I hear the heeled boots slowly clicking their way down the stairs, and I feel like I'm going to throw up from the nerves. There's no way that this can end well, and it'll be a miracle if I get out of this alive. Though, they might keep me alive just to torment me more. Or try to get information about CHIP out of me if Avidgor told Dirk, and then Dirk lied and told them about CHIP.

You shouldn't have hesitated LB. Then you wouldn't be in this mess. You should have just slit his throat, and then moved on with it. After all, didn't you learn from history to gloat about your kill and monologue about it after their death, and not before. Then some meddling person can swoop in and ruin your plan, and get you sent to prison or killed.

Yes, I should have remembered Rule 4: Work first, talk later, play never. Let your work be your fun, and socialize after it's all done, so as to not let anything get in the way of work. After all, one wrong move and you're dead.

When Captain Van Acker steps into my sight, I blink a couple of times in shock.

She looks completely different than what she had how ever many hours earlier the incident was.

Her skin looks unhealthy. A sunken pale look, as if she's had about a hundred too many sleepless nights. The bags under her eyes don't help matter any, nor does how frail she seems.

Perhaps the most concerning thing was that the sign of pregnancy was missing. It was almost as if... Oh no. I'm doomed. There's no way I'm going to survive all this.

"What do you have to say for what you did?" She says, her voice raw, as if she's been crying or screaming for hours. I'm sure she did both.

"It was only supposed to hurt your finaccee. No one was supposed to be with him, and when your crew was, I decided to go ahead and just poison him. After all, you were the only one sitting close to him and you weren't supposed to have acholah. If I had known this would have happened, I would have just slit his throat in the alley after he got drunk." I state, not even bothering to defend myself since I know it's pointless. She's going to hurt me for killing her baby no matter what I say or do, or however much I try to get her to see my point. Why waste that time and effort?

"But you did mean to kill Dirk, and leave my child fatherless." She says trying to channel a fearsome, leader tone, but the one that breaks through is one of a broken mother who just figured out that their child died.

"Yes, I did. Though, I highly doubt the child would be fatherless. Someone would jump at the chance to fill that role and be your husband, and they would be better off not having him in their life." I respond, keeping my tone neutral, though knowing I'm now treading in more dangerous territory than normal.

"You think that a child would be better off not knowing their father?!" She says, the fire lighting back up in her eyes, and her tone raising sharply.

"If their father was Dirk Bosch, then yes, they are better off not knowing him. And the reason that I do say this is because you don't know the real him. He's manipulating you, but you don't see it yet."

As soon as these words come out, I know I've messed up and said the wrong thing. The look in her eyes could have killed me right there, and I'm honestly scared to see what she has planned.

"I don't need to talk to her any longer; I know the punishment that I'm choosing. Bring her out on top for it." Captain Van Acker says, and I feel a fixture of fear and adrinimal run through my veins at those words. I know that I'm doomed. I just don't know what she's going to do to me.

As she walks away, Ruben grabs my arms harshly, making sure that one of his hands is on my hurt wrist, pulls me up, and immediately starts to drag me out of the brig, and back onto the deck.

I hurry along, as to not make my limbs hurt any more than they already do, and will when he's done with everything, though I don't have much hope that that will happen. Not that it helps much, as he goes at an impossible pace for me to keep up with while being strong armed, and won't give me a chance to get my feet under me.

Once on deck, I see that I've been down there for nearly twenty-four hours, since it's just before sunset.

I don't think I slept that long, so I was either thinking about everything while sitting in the dark. Or I really did sleep that long and was just catching up on some much needed sleep. Either or, you choose whichever you think is most like me.

The uncle goes and ties me to the mainmast, and I immediately know what's about to happen. I guess I'm lucky it's just a flogging, instead of kneel hauling. After the last pirate experience, I haven't been the most comfortable around water, or in it for that matter.

Someone, I think the person who's fault it is on why I'm here because he simply wouldn't die (I mean seriously, is that too much to ask? Having the grace to die when someone tries not once but twice to kill you, and you deserve it?) hands her the cat of nine tails.

"I never wanted to have to do this to anyone. But, this thing has done an unspeakable crime, and for that, she must be punished in the harshest way that I can think of that will keep her alive."

As Captain Van Acker says this, the whip hits my back. I pitch forward slightly, and grit my teeth.

She's inexperienced at this, and it's making it hurt a heck of alot more than when Charles did it.

Four later, and I can feel the blood starting to pour off my back. The pain is agonizing, much worse than when Charles ever did it.

It's because she's so inexperienced. And she's hesitant before doing each one. Which means that she knows what it's like to do on this side, most likely why she let me keep my shirt on. That and she's also a fellow woman and knows how embarrassing it would be to go through this without it on.

Five after that, and not only is my back bleeding, but my legs and shoulders too. All the cuts are shallow though. Just enough to sting, burn, and bleed, but not enough to cause nerve damage or anything serious.

"Since I have been satisfied with my part of the punishment, and the crime was directly against Dirk, he will finish out the rest of the punishment, which I have no clue of what is in store." She announces after finishing the last hit, and dragging the stones and bone pieces across my back, breaking the skin.

While the pain is still awful, I know that it is only going to get much worse. Dirk has anger management issues, a perfect target to put his anger out on, and Avidgor has been feeding him who knows how much information about me. In other words, I'm doomed.

After Dirk takes hold of the whip, all that I feel is an excruciating pain. One hit after another after another happens. If the Captain was trying to avoid giving me nerve damage, her fiance is trying to do the exact opposite.

After the tenth whip from him, twentieth total, I let out my first sound. A whimper of pain. Everyone acts as if it hadn't happened, except for Dirk who lets out a low chuckle of amusement. Stupid sadist.

Everyone after this, he drags the whip across my back, especially when he hits me shoulders. And everytime, I let out a whimper from the pain and bit the inside of my ship to keep from screaming and to keep the tears from the pain in.

On the thirty-ninth hit, I finally do it. I let out a shriek of pain. I felt so weak afterwards, but I couldn't keep it in. The pain is just becoming too much for me to take.

Dirk gives me one more hit, three times what Captain Van Acker gave me, and I feel as if I'll die. I know that I will at the very least pass out from the pain if she lets all her family or, even worse, the entire crew, do this.

After this, Dirk stroods over to me, and my breathing increases rapidly, as fear incases my brain.

What is he going to do to me now? It should be over shouldn't it. Would forty whips with a cat of nine tails satisfy his bloodthirst.

But the Captain said punishments like plural, and I somehow don't think she was counting every whip mark as a punishment.

But she has experienced this stuff first hand. She should know how much it hurts, so why would she let him do this, and something else to me on top of it?

He comes over, and unties me from the main mast, and then drags me over to the port side, and my breathing becomes even more rapid.

No, no, no. I will not go through that again. It was bad enough with Merrick, I refuse to do it again.

Yet, you are so weak it isn't like you can fight them. Heck, if it wasn't for that vial excuse of a man holding you up, you would be passed out on the floor from the pain. Either that or collapsed, and it's most likely the former rather than the latter.

They set it up from the rigging, then connect me still tied up to it, and then put me over the edge.

"Since I have hurt her so badly, I decided to help her treat the wounds. I will now soak her in salt water to help her cleanse the wounds that I inflicted on her." Dirk says before giving me an awful smile, and pulls the rope.

Water floods all my senses, and I try to thrash, but it's hopeless. I flood under the hull, and feel the barnacles ripping my shirt and back to shreds.

Please let my shirt still cover the front of me. Please, please, please. I beg silently, and I hate how the pain starts to fill all my thoughts besides this.

After what feels like all my skin has been scraped off my back and shoulders, they pull me up. I want to scream, but it hurts to just blink my eyes or breath, much less do something like that.

They get me over and back on the right side of the railing, with all of my body thankfully covered though my shirt has seen much better days and there's no way I'm getting all those blood stains out.

No one says anything. Ruben looks at me, his expression indifferent and unreadable. The man that I assume is Laurens, considering he fits the description of everything that I've heard about the crew, and Captain Van Acker both look at me in sympathy. The cousin doesn't have a look I can't place, maybe disgust? The Spaniard shows pity, as if he feels awful. And Dirk, Dirk looks at me as if he wants to do more, but he knows that Captain Van Acker won't allow him to.

The crew, their looks vary from every one that the inner crew has, all the way to looks that sends shivers down my spine. It's the look that makes me ecstatic that the Captain is a woman, hopefully won't let her members of the crew do some other... common practices of what pirates do to female captives. Let's just hope that the cell door is never left unlocked and leave this train of thought off at that.

The crew leaves after they see that no one else will be torturing me. Though, they all follow Dirk's lead. Captain Van Acker looks at me, before going away, and calling her crew with her.

As Ruben passes by, he whispers something in my ear. "You are meant to be back in your cell in ten minutes. I don't want to hear any excuses, especially considering what you've done to my family, you should try to be there on time, because if you aren't, I will make the recovery time for this double."

Once he says that, I try to stand up, and thankfully no one is around to see me hit my jaw on the floor and flail out.

I hear footsteps, and look up slightly to see the Spaniard right in front of me. He holds out his hand, and I flinch slightly, scared of what he might do to me.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you right now." He whispers as he grabs my bad wrist.

Something in my face must show the extra pain I got from him grabbing that wrist, because he adjusts his grip to higher up my arm, which I don't understand why. After all, I'm his enemy, yet he's worried about me not getting into extra pain, and, not only that, but preventing one of his own from hurting me further, probably going against his Captain, whom he obviously loves, orders to do so.

Why? What does he have to gain from it? I'm obviously the one without power here, I mean heck, I can't even kneel without help, so why is he helping me? Why is he risking getting himself hurt for the likes of me? The only other person who did that was Brady, and look where that got him from.

These thoughts pound through my head as the Spaniard leads me back to my cell. He doesn't drag me, or strongarm me like how I've been treated since twenty-four hours ago. He is gentle, and if he wasn't a pirate and hadn't dragged me off of Dirk and made my mission next to impossible to accomplish, I might consider him a gentleman. He certainly looks the part with his well kept, nearly black, hair, and dark brown eyes to match it, with a nice olive complexion.

We go to where the air is fairly stagament again, and I start coughing like crazy, causing pain with each lurch forward.

He simply looks at me, opens my cell door, and then tosses me in, with my back hitting the wall. Fear comes into my head, wondering if I was correct about my suspicions of his intentions of helping me.

"Don't think that this small act of kindness means that I like you. It was Eva's and my child that you killed, and not only did you kill it, you caused Eva a world of pain. But I was raised to treat women with respect, even if they don't completely deserve it, which I highly doubt you do, so leaving you there for the crew to do whatever they wanted with you when you were about to pass out from the pain just wasn't something I could do. Besides, passing out would be nice to you since you couldn't feel pain anymore, and you'd likely die far too soon than when you should." He spits out, before slamming my cell door shut, and leaving me how I was before, just in so much pain I can't think straight.

*Sees your pitchforks and flaming arrows.* *Ducks behind a shield* I didn't write it, the characters wrote themselves, and for some reason, they all hate LB. If you really want to blame someone, blame Dirk since it's all his fault. *Sees Dirk disintegrate by one glance* *sinks behind shield further* 

So, vent out everything. Tell me how mad you are, all your thoughts and feelings and emotions. Tell me some predictions, tell me everything. If you thought it while reading this chapter, I want to hear it.