When I heard Jess making promises to Cara my heart sank. I didn't like killing. With each life I had taken, a little piece of my soul chipped away. I had only killed twice, and, to be honest, they both really did deserve to die, but did killing them really make me any better? I was a murderer.
I took a moment away from stacking empty crates to look out over the horizon. In a few hours, we would see a ship there and we would take the boat out to meet it. We would give them the empty crates and they would give us full ones. That was our business. Smuggling stolen goods. Unorthodox, perhaps, but it made us a good living, and we were damn good at it.
"Are you okay?" The voice startled me.
I kept my eyes steady on the horizon, as I contemplated how to answer.
"I'd say I'm fine, but I know you see right through me. So there's no point in lying."
Jess was silent.
"Shit, Jess, what are we doing?" I turned to look at her. "We could die today, and we're making that girl promises to protect her and her baby?"
I looked deep into her eyes searching for answers to questions I didn't know how to ask.
"And killing," I turned away again and grabbed the rail of the boat so tightly that my knuckles blanched. "Are you really ready to kill for her?"
Several moments of silence passed before she said anything.
"You've killed for me before, and I'm grateful."
I felt the light pressure of her hand on my arm.
"I'm not asking you to kill for me again, or for her. But when she told us about that man," she paused for a moment and leaned her hip against the rail next to my hand. "That 'Sir,'" she grimaced.
"That could have been me, but you stopped it. I could be the one with some monster's baby, and frankly, I don't think I would feel the same way about it as Cara does."
I looked up and saw tears in her eyes. "Jess," I released my grip on the rail and reached for her, but she put up her hand to stop me.
"Look, I know you did what you did because you love me, and we've only just met this girl." She sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes with the palms of her hands.
"But she clearly didn't have a Beck to protect her when she needed it. It would be wrong for us to turn our backs on her now."
She looked up at me with stubborn conviction. "If it comes down to it, I'll gladly kill the bastard."
She turned to walk away, but not before I saw her lip quiver as she gave in to the tears. When she reached the cabin door she turned back to look at me again. "And we're not gonna die today," she said stubbornly. "We're not."
"I hope you're right," I mumbled as she disappeared through the door, and I went back to stacking empty crates.