Eliza walked the deck in the dark. She had been doing it nightly for almost a week. A steady amount of unease ran like a current through her veins. Fourteen years old, the youngest member of the crew, yet she had been taking on full watches for over a year. Always, she slept deeply and soundly out of sheer exhaustion. Never had her intuitive feelings woken her in a cold sweat and forced her to walk the length of the ship to scan it for the slightest abnormality. Then again, intuition was what her father was known for, perhaps she had inherited some of his foresight. She sighed and turned to return to her small room. Nothing. There was nothing. The midnight shift worked quietly and watched over The Defiant in ease.

Her bare feet trod lightly on the planks. She was dressed only in a light cotton shirt and a pair of airy linen pants. Something she had thrown on just to cover herself. She'd managed to attach her belt and with it her cutlass. Her right hand was bare of its usual jewelry and slid smoothly along the fabric of her clothes, pinching the excess in an effort to warm her fingers. Her left arm hung almost dead at her side. The chill of the night air compressed the metal of her hook and it felt tight against her skin. Stabbing a cold pain up to her elbow. Wisps of her golden hair caught the moonlight and outlined her shadow like a halo.

A startling movement along the rail raised a mental alarm that she was not the only shadow walking on the ship tonight. A dark figure crept ahead of her. Nearing the door of her father's cabin. The captain's cabin. No one but the mate should even be thinking of disturbing the Captain and Mrs. Smythe at this hour.

Eliza stiffened.

Slowly she watched the figure draw what was most certainly a dagger. It glinted in the waning moonlight. Eliza's heart jumped. She quickly darted her eyes around, the nearest of the night watch was high in the rigging and could see nothing. Her instincts took over and she noiselessly pulled her cutlass from her belt. The wiry frame of the shadow told her it was a man, its swift movements told her he was young. She trailed the villain as he reached for the door.

The moment was quick, a whirl of attack. She pounced him from behind and pulled him far from the cabin door. Wrestling the assailant to the ground, her cutlass at his throat.

"Eliza?"

She tossed her mess of tangled curls and let the little light of the sky reveal his face.

"Jonas?" she breathed, her heart sinking.

Jonas. Jonas, the ship's boy. But he was more than that. He was her ship's boy. Fifteen and agile. How many hours had she admired him in the rigging before confessing her feelings? And how so readily they were returned.

"Jonas?" she repeated, still unbelieving.

The boy was momentarily startled. A horrible dark expression washed over his face. It was brief, but Eliza caught it and was confused. He had never looked at her with eyes glittering a mix of anger and hate.

"Eliza, I were just lookin' for ye," he gave her a disarming smile.

It no longer seemed very genuine. There was something sickening under it. Some undercurrent of darkness. She looked at his hand she had pinned to the planks. It still held the silver dagger with a determined grip.

"Ye were goin' to my Da's cabin, why?"

"Oh, Eliza, don't be dense. Let me up, luv, an' we can enjoy a stroll to th' bow, or go up to th' crow's nest," he let the words roll off his tongue just the way he knew she liked to hear. Dripping sugared language that hit her stomach like a rock.

"I don't wanna walk… Answer me. Why were ye crawlin' about th' captain's quarters wit a dagger… Jonas? Jonas, answer me!" She slammed his wrist against the wood, knocking the dagger from his hand, hoping the action would prove her aim.

The easy grin dropped and she felt his muscles tense. She braced herself. He fought again to rise, but Eliza managed to bring her hook to his jugular. It made him freeze. Her cutlass could be forced from her hand, her wrist could be held, but her hook was deadly. He knew her accuracy and ability to wield it.

"Posiedon damn it, Eliza! Let me up, yer actin' crazier'n a triton. Do ye not trust me?"

"Ye be givin' me reason to doubt, Jonas. What be yer intentions?"

Sincerity flooded his eyes. "I love ye, Eliza." Her jaw dropped and her grip loosened. She was surprised at his sudden tenderness.

It was all he needed.

With a furious spin he pulled himself from under her and reversed their positions. Holding her hook arm above her head. She tried to scream but he covered her mouth.

"Listen to me, my beauty, an' we'll get through this together. I be goin' to rid th' ship of its captain. I be goin' to bleed him dry. I were dreamin' of this fer nine years. The day I kill yer father."

Eliza winced and tried to regain the upper hand. He held her fast.

"Don't struggle. Don't fight. When I do this we can be free together, me and yeh. I'll take th' ship, it be rightfully mine anyhow and I'll take ye as my prize. Oh, ye be wonderin' why? I can see th' storm o' confusion an' anger in yer eyes. But look at mine. Do ye not see the years of pain? Th' lost life? My father, taken from me by his hand? His ship, my inheritance, sunk? His crew murdered? An' why? To save little precious yeh. Well, th' tables be turned don't they, little Eliza? Here ye be again at the hands of a Sage, only this time it not be Dark Derek, but his son!" he hissed to her, face contorted with rage. She realized with horror that the features she had spent hours memorizing were grotesquely familiar to a face out of her past. One that woke her with nightmares.

"Nnnh…Jonnnhaa…" she muffled through his hands.

Memories flashed through her mind. Dark Derek the Savage Sage, a pyrate like her father who held a deep seeded grudge against the Smythes, took the then five year old Eliza and her mother hostage. When his demands went unmet he cast Eliza from the ship. The near drowning still haunted her. She was fortunate her father arrived in time to save both her and her mother, killing Derek in the process. How could her Jonas be that foul man's progeny?

The cruel smile that crossed his lips was so far removed from the gentle secret smile they had shared.

"Aye, ye recognize me now don't ye? Ye see him in me, ye see th' man who made ye nothin' but bait." He slid a hand up her thigh and pressed his fingers hard into the thick jagged scar he knew was there. The scar given to her when Dark Derek had forced her from the plank into shark-infested waters. "Don't worry, I won't let ye die, little Eliza. But yer family won't be so fortunate. No they will pay fer what they've done." He smiled again a sharp-toothed triumph. But the evil laughter of victory died in his eyes and they went wide with surprise. He coughed and blood came to his lips. His eyes flickered down and back to her tear stained face. When had her hand escaped his grasp? When had she found his discarded dagger? His body slumped lifeless on top of her. She sobbed loudly and shook.

Footsteps came thudding across the deck toward where she lay.

Slowly Eliza pushed the body off of her as her shipmate approached. She felt their assistance and stopped pushing at Jonas's limp form. She pulled her arm back, covered in blood. The dagger cluttered from her hand. Jacque the Blade stood over her. He looked down to her face and to the dead ship's boy. Without words he picked up the vengeful boy and carried him toward the deck rail. Eliza struggled to her feet and followed the young Cajun. Jacque's back was to her and Jonas balanced on the rails edge. Arms dangling, his neck at an impossible angle. Her eyes focused on his lips, the ones that had so monetarily spoken mutiny, of death and retribution. Lips tinged blue as the blood seeped out through his shirt. Lips that reminded her of their ghostly feel as they whispered sweet things in her ears and smiled against her skin. She shivered.

Somewhere far away she could hear the chinking as Jacque attached the chains to the corpse. Somewhere her unemotional sense told her that it was so he would sink to the ocean floor where he would rot away into nothing. Eliza let out a gasp as the body slid soundlessly over the edge.

Jacque turned and walked to her side. He took the blade from her hand and cleaned it with a tail of his shirt. Quietly he began.

"T. Izza, " the pet name he used for her was soft and made her feel so very small. "Many men are lost at sea. Storms and hurricanes take them from their decks without mercy. She is wide and vast. We look out at her crushing blue, at her overwhelming beauty and forget she is as much dark and ugly. She can seduce like the cruelest of mistresses. Her waves whisper things late at night to children and old salts alike. She begs for sympathetic ears to do her evil bidding. He was lost T. Izza, and not by your hand. Some are lost to her long before they die."

Eliza flitted her eyes to look up at Jacque. A wordless thanks. She knew he would say nothing, or fabricate a story to explain the boy's absence. The word mutiny wouldn't be heard among the crew or be uttered to her father's ears. All was well and the ship was quiet. He handed her back the clean dagger and turned to walk away. She watched him head for the bow, whistling. Eliza picked her head up and ushered herself back to her room. Her bare feet spattered with blood. She wedged the dagger in her belt and wondered briefly if she would sleep.

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