Chapter thirty one - lullaby

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I was starting to regret forgiving Gerard for telling the Hangmen all of our semi-secrets.

They had been following us at every turn, almost chasing us, tailing us, keeping their distance but never gaining on us, and never falling back. I almost wished that they'd just hurry up and attack us so that we could fire at them. Whose idea was it to put the goddamn cannons on the sides of the ship? Surely any pirate would want to fire at the people chasing him. I certainly wanted to.

Now, I wasn't scared, so to speak. I was logically worried. Rationally anticipating my doom. It was Gerard who'd gone and put a label on my fearful babbling. 'Scared'. As if. And Dewees had gone and fucking agreed with him. We were all scared, apparently. I didn't like to think of it that way, it made us seem weak, and the last thing we needed was to be holding ourselves in low esteem when we needed all the confidence we could get.

"Confidence is overrated," Gerard scoffed, much to my disapproval, as he unsheathed his sword and examined it in the morning light. "It's all made up. You fake it and everyone believes it. Simple."

I scoffed, and gave him a shove. "That's ridiculous," I said. I pulled the dagger I'd grown most attached to from its holster on my belt and pressed it cleanly to his throat. "Fucking ridiculous."

Gerard hummed, and twisted my hand so that I hissed and dropped the knife. I scowled, and he raised an eyebrow. "No, trust me. Every confident person is just pretending."

I pressed my mouth to his jaw in a kiss, and smiled slyly. "Even you?"

"Of course. I'm fucking terrified," he murmured.

"'We're all scared.'" I echoed his earlier words. "Maybe we are."

Gerard tucked his face into the juncture of my shoulder, and his breath warmed my skin. The air around us was cold, but there was a bubble of heat around us. "Sorry."

"You should be," I said. "You're a mess."

"I know, dear."

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A day before we made port, Bryar hoisted up a stolen flag, and tossed our monochrome colours below deck. We dropped the anchor in the Belleville docks. I promptly refused to leave the ship. "Don't hurt my father," I told Gerard sharply. "Or the lady Emily Bowers. Don't you dare."

"I won't dare, darling," Gerard said passively.

I was far from passive. "Why are we here?" I demanded. "Is this your doing?"

"No," Gerard said. "It was Lisa."

I had no words. "To what purpose?" I managed.

"The Hangmen want to turn us in, and in return be granted a pardon for their past violence. And before you question me, we're not just making assumptions here, we asked them."

"Right, lovely. So it was Lisa who asked them, and it was Lisa's idea to bring us here to our deaths?"

"It was Lisa's idea to bring us here to plead forgiveness from the King. She thought that perhaps the King's advisor might have some influence over our sentence. Perhaps even our freedom."

"Perhaps," I agreed. "Or perhaps he will be so enraged that his son has been cavorting with pirates that he'll hang us all anyway."

"At least maybe we'll get to bring down the Hangmen with us. And don't you want to make your peace with your father? Last I heard he thought you were dead. Wouldn't it be nice if he knew you were alive and well before he killed you?"

"You fucker, Gerard." This was not playful. I was considering pushing him overboard.

"I can swim, you know, darling." Fucker. Always knew what I was thinking.

"You can't swim with a sheet of flint through your heart, darling,"  I spat. "How could you? How could you tell them?"

"It wasn't anything remotely incriminating. I needed to know the truth about Ryan—"

"Ryan was a traitor," I said, "and so are you."

Gerard spat, and I lashed out with the dagger clutched in my hand. A moment later, blood was collecting in the crook of his arm and he was quickly turning pallid. "Frank," he said, grasping at my coat. "Frank."

I snarled and yanked my sleeve out of his reach, stepping back and slicing his forearm when he pleaded with me again. He clutched at the second wound, abandoning nursing the first, and dropped to his knees. I gritted my teeth to keep from shaking.

"Sorry, Frank, I'm sorry—"

"What's 'sorry' worth?"

"I'm so fucking sorry," he pleaded. "My dear boy, please—"

"I'm not yours." I aimed a sharp kick at his ribs. "Not yours."

I turned on my heel and left him for Dewees to find. I wasn't leaving this ship, and neither was anyone else, if I could help it. We could so easily just leave Belleville for the seas again, and never be caught. I didn't understand why Lisa and Gerard were so against it, and I wasn't willing to search out the answers. I locked myself in my room, and slept. When I awoke, the whole crew was gone.

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I stood my ground, a few feet away from the corroded iron of the cell bars. Gerard looked up at me apologetically. Lisa slept.

My father stood behind me, his hand on my shoulder and his eyes burning into my back. "Pirates?" he asked, a horrible sort of secondhand shame in his voice. "Really, Franklin?"

"Yes," I said fiercely. "Really."

Father sighed deeply, and his hand dropped from my shoulder. Gerard's eyes dropped to the ground.

My voice was quiet and hoarse when I managed to bring myself to speak again. "You're going to hang us, aren't you?"

Father sounded grave. His tone was cold. He was nothing like the father I remembered from when I was young. "You've given me no choice, son."

"There's no other option than to let your son face the gallows?" Gerard asked scornfully. I could tell what he was thinking, as usual. He was already at his lowest, awaiting death. There was very little he could lose, other than his dignity. But he had no desire to make an effort to preserve that. "I'm the most notorious fuckin' pirate on the west coast. Isn't it enough just to take me, and let your son go? That a pretty reasonable deal up on the table there."

"How do I know you won't just try to escape?" Father asked, his voice patently posh and clean.

"I'll give you my word," Gerard said honestly. "And let me tell you: if I'm anything, I'm a man of my word." Gerard scratched his head. "I roped him into it, it was all my fault really. It was us who took him in the first place. It ain't his fault if we treated him nice and he got a little used to it."

"I suppose," Father said, and I tugged desperately at his arm.

"You can't be willing to go through with this," I said. "Please. Let us all free, or take me down with them."

Father stayed silent and dark, his brow furrowed as he determined my fate. "Frank will go free," he said to Gerard after a moment.

"And the crew?"

"The crew have no reported crimes. I'm willing to drop the charge of association with a notorious criminal if you take admit to forcibly driving them to it."

"I admit it," Gerard said. "It was all me."

"You can't fucking do this, Gerard," I hissed, grabbing at his collar through the bars of the cell. Father stepped back in faint shock. Flakes of rust scratched at my face as I pressed through the gap and glared at Gerard, and he simply looked at me. I growled and tried not to let myself fall into tears, gritting my teeth and shoving Gerard to the floor of the cell. "Don't you dare do this!"

"Do you think I could really do anything else?" Gerard asked sharply. "Do you think I could just fucking let you die?"

I gripped the bars of the cell, and my throat started to burn. Tears welled behind my eyes, and a vicious sob threatened to spill from behind my gritted teeth. Gerard pulled himself into a standing position and just looked at me through the bars, his face resigned, but anything from bitter, and I clutched at his chest. "Please," I croaked. "Gerard, please."

"Frank," Father said comfortingly. I didn't turn around. "The man is laying down his life for you and his crew. You should be happy that he is dying for the most noble of causes."

I ignored my father. "Fucker," I spat at Gerard, the word tearing from my chest. "I fucking hate you."

Gerard remained quiet for a few moments, then took a careful step to the side so he could face my father. "Sir," he said carefully. "Do you think I could have a moment with the boy?"

"Of course," Father said. He stood still. "Go on."

"I mean. I mean outside the cell."

Father hesitated. "You must understand that this is an isolated incident, and I will make no more clemencies after this."

Gerard nodded obediently. "Yes, sir."

With slumped shoulders, father reluctantly summoned a guard, and unlocked the gate. Gerard held out his arms, and I felt my face scrunch up, and promptly collapsed against his chest, gasping with sobs.