At some point, after I met Fred and Morice, I fell asleep.
But I woke up to the sound of the only door shrieking open. It made me sit up with a jolt. Remaining on the floor, I crawled by the boxes until I found a space between them to make out the person who had entered the room and turned on the lights. My eyes squinted in pain at how bright things had gotten.
I made out Captain Gupta's daughter.
Nadine was a short young woman with short, curly blackish-brown hair. Her skin was a medium brown, and she looked pristine in a clean and simple white uniform. I imagined that this was a change of clothes. The way she walked on the soles of her feet suggested that she was more used to high heels than the pink flip-flops she had on.
Seeing her alone, I wondered if she had ditched the guard the captain likely assigned to keep to safe or if she had managed to convince her father that she was fine by herself. She smiled as she stepped inside this room and glanced around curiously.
Whimsical, I thought. An unusual sense of wonder came over me as I watched her.
"Big place," she said aloud, walking over to some boxes on the right side of the room. I broke into a light sweat. Even though this room was large enough to distract her without necessarily uncovering me in my corner, my situation became precarious the closer she moved toward where I hid.
She started to sing a song in what may have been Hindi, but I hadn't studied any languages spoken in India, so I had no basis for that assumption.
One minute I could see her wandering. The next, the lights went out, and she gasped. The door slammed shut, and another set of footsteps joined her.
Nadine screamed, but that scream was soon muffled as she struggled against a grunting man.
Without thinking about the consequences for myself, I emerged from the boxes and rushed the attacker in the dark. The man had shoved the captain's daughter onto the floor, and I accidentally kicked her arm . I jumped onto his back and wrapped my arms around his neck, putting him in a choke-hold.
He rose while grabbing my arms and slammed himself backward onto the ground. My head bounced off the ground, and his hefty body crushed my chest. But I wrapped my legs around his waist and held tight to his neck. Tighter than I've ever held to someone.
I heard Nadine get up and race for the door. She turned on the light and looked at us, eyes wide with fear. Opening the door, she screamed into the hallway. "Help!"
Immediately, multiple sailors came rushing in. She pointed at us, and I let go of the attacker, thinking they would help me.
Instead, one punched me in the face, and another kicked me while still on the ground. Nadine screamed again, pulling away from the concerned sailors to tell the ones beating me, "No, stop! He didn't hurt me!" She pointed at the one that attacked her, but the coward accused her of lying.
That got him beat up too. The ones who had jumped on me turned their attention to him.
"Thank you; I'm so sorry," she said to me, tears glistening in her eyes. As she was helping me up, two men apprehended me and yanked me toward the door.
"Where are you taking him?" she demanded, eyebrows furrowed.
"To the brig, obviously," one answered coldly. "This fella's a stowaway! He doesn't work here."
As the two dragged me out the door, I saw that a small group of workers had formed a crowd in the hallway.
I recognized the burly sailors Fred and Morice within that crowd as some others dragged me out of the room. The alarm I saw in their eyes lit a fire of distress inside me. They enjoyed me for the sex, but they hadn't been personable in the slightest, and I knew as well as they did that if I mentioned them knowing about my existence, they would lose their jobs.
Then they looked at each other. The sailors who had first grabbed at me dragged me up a set of stairs before I could make out anything they were saying to each other. It all happened too fast for me to process. But I could hear Nadine shouting, "Stop it! He saved me!" from way behind.
"Stand over there," one sailor said as he shoved me forward. I stumbled onto the slippery deck, falling face-first before hurrying onto my feet. I turned to the furious sailors and held my hands up. My face ached from the punch that had caught my left cheek, which was already swelling.
Nadine had gotten halfway up the stairs before some men stopped her to ask her about what had happened. I hated having all these eyes on me, full of confusion and hatred. I knew it was wrong to hitch a ride, but I genuinely hadn't expected this general disgust from the men working on board.
I assumed that a few still believed that I was the one who attacked Nadine since her hair was a mess and she looked shaken. If their issue was just a civilian hopping aboard, I had a few questions. More mechanics and sailors joined the furious crowd.
I saw a large man a little ways off on the other end of the ship, coming this way. His dark complexion and captain's hat made his identity apparent.
Before Nadine could convince the men to let me go free as the one who rescued her, Fred and Morice came toward me and grabbed me. I wanted to say something, anything, but the icy desperation in their similar blue eyes made me go mute.
Why didn't anyone notice them take me from the crowd? And where was Charles? I sweated through my shirt when we went to the railing of one side of the ship, where the ship's lights stopped short.
"Hey," I said, feeling the mist on my neck and the freezing metal railing on my back.
Morice replied flatly, "Sorry, kid."
He and Fred flipped me backward over the railing.
When I hit the water, my fingers and toes went numb in no time. Luckily the shipping wasn't moving, and the waves weren't violent tonight, but the low temperature of the water made swimming nearly impossible. It was getting harder to kick my legs and keep my head above water. My jaw seized up before I could scream for help.
I swam for the nearest UV light.
Those giant bulbs floating in the ocean gave off heat and illuminated enough of the water to make me feel less like I'd fallen into an endless black abyss where nothing but death would meet me.
But it was far. Too far for me to reach in my chilled state. The briny saltwater in my mouth made me sick. The ocean stole my energy, making my laggard limbs go stiff and my head submerge.
I thought my life would flash before my eyes. I didn't want to die.
Then a force pushed me deeper below the surface, forcing me down ... down ... down ...