Ethereal

Chapter 26: The Search

I stayed in my room for the rest of the night, refusing to come out even for dinner. Thinking of the people waiting to be enslaved sitting right below me was enough to kill my appetite.

The ship was already docked back at Camp when I woke up the next morning. After I had left Jax's room last night, I changed out of his clothes and into a pair of loose-fitting pants that stopped mid-shin and begrudgingly into the shirt Jax had let me wear the first night I visited his room. My old shirt was torn almost from the neck down on my left side – probably done at some point during my tussle with Jackson at Sailor's Cove. I ripped a good five inches off the bottom and tied the remaining fabric into a knot on my hip, rolling the sleeves up until they rested just below my shoulders. Surely Jax had more on his mind right now and wouldn't bother asking about one missing shirt.

I grabbed the lantern from my room and closed the door softly behind me. I had no other possessions besides the clothes on my back, and those didn't even belong to me either. I wished for my bag that I had taken with me from the orphanage more than ever. Losing it had been a far greater tragedy than I had expected it would be – what I wouldn't give to wear some of my own clothes, and most of all to hold the picture I had of my family in my hands again.

I met Stew and Carlo on the top deck, already preparing a rowboat to take us back to shore. Jax was nowhere to be seen, though I would never admit out loud that I was looking for him through the crowd of crewmates hovering around the deck.

I also didn't see anyone from the Solomon Port trade on deck. They must still be below ship. I couldn't help but wonder how they were going to get them back to the Camp – was a larger passenger ship going to collect them? Would they have the chance to escape then? Something in my gut told me that even if those people were freed from their chains and were released back into the world, they would still find themselves being herded through the Camp's door.

I shook my head to clear it of thoughts. There was nothing I could do to help them now without getting myself killed in the process. My heart began beating loudly inside my chest. Is that what Jax thought? That if we tried to help them that we would be killed by Camp officials? Was he just trying to protect me?

"Ready, miss?" Stew said, turning my attention back to him. I nodded, taking his hand as he helped me into the rowboat. The thoughts still swirling in my head, I rubbed the dark skin underneath my eyes.

Stew and Carlo were quiet as the rowboat lowered onto the ocean, passing each other looks every so often when they thought I wasn't looking. Embarrassment crept up my cheeks. They must have heard Jax and I arguing last night. Considering how loud I was yelling I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the crew heard us too.

Stew tried to make light conversation with me on the trip back to the mainland, and Carlo even attempted to pull me out of my reserve a few times as well. I felt stuck in my mind, unable to stop thinking. Guilt began to tug at my chest once I realized that despite the age and lifestyle difference between the three of us, Stew and Carlo had become my friends at some point in time and they were genuinely trying to help me feel better.

I forced myself to laugh at Stew's corny jokes until it flowed naturally out of me. I fought with Carlo about my fears of being in the dark, trying to convince him that people my age could still be afraid of such things. We all chatted about what we were going to do once we arrived at mainland. Stew told me that Eli always paid his sailors a small reward fee for having delivered the cargo successfully, and the longer you worked the more you would earn over time.

Stew said he was going to take his money to the only tavern in Camp. Campers were forbidden from having alcohol, but certain officials were known alcoholics, and so no one would give them a second glance if they caught sailors smuggling the liquor in as long as the officials were promised a cut of it. Stew said he was a lover of gin and tonics, as were most of the crew, and that the first night back at Camp they would all celebrate together at the tavern.