Chapter 11: Jillian

"Zach! Look out," Jillian cried as Sean stepped around behind Zach to crack him on the head with the hilt of his sword. Zach fell like a stone across Arrais' body.

"This be our island!" Sean yelled as he lifted his sword towards the stunned guests. "You can yield or die!"

The crew of the ship jumped over the railings brandishing swords, flintlock guns, and wooden belaying pins as they ran towards the panicked crowd. Jillian got pulled along with the retreating hotel guests as they ran for the stairs.

"Not so fast," Sean growled as he rushed over and grabbed Jillian's arm. "Cap'n's gone for the day, so now you're mine."

Jillian fought hard, pulling against his tight grip by dragging her feet. The heels she had on skidded over the surface of the cement wharf as Sean dragged her along after him. "Let go of me!"

"That's the kind of fight I like to see in a wench!" He sent a wicked leer at her with his words.

Jillian beat her fist against his chest and face, but he didn't seem to notice. He smirked at the crew chasing the fleeing guests. Before she could stop it, he had pitched her over his shoulder to carry her up the stairs after his crew.

From her inverted view, she saw the bloody result of the crew's passing. Men dressed in costumes lay moaning on the ground clutching their wounds. One crewman was holding down a screaming woman on the staircase, her dress pushed up around her hips as he thrust into her. A surreal sense slowed Jillian's perception of time when they passed them, like a horror movie shown in slow motion. For an instant that felt like minutes, her eyes locked to those of the woman being violated. Jillian finally had to shut her eyes against the broken, pleading gaze.

Bouncing up the stairs forced the remnants of the rum drinks back into her mouth. Jillian gagged and coughed before gripping his thick leather belt to push herself up. Taking the pressure off her stomach gave her a moment to breathe, but her nausea returned with a vengeance when she saw Zach still prone over the body of the captain. She almost gave up hope until she saw his foot twitch and his hand clench into a fist.

"Zach!" Desperation spurred her to call out to him. He had to get up before her abductor got away. "Help! Zach!"

"Shut it," Sean growled and punched her hard on the thigh, making the muscles there ball in a cramp.

"You'll never get away with this!" Her panic drove the ridiculous words out, but she had to say something.

He chuckled as they reached the top of the stairs. "The worst that can happen is that I'll die. I've died everyday that I've lived, just like I'll be dead again tomorrow. But between now an' then, we're gonna have us a party."

Jillian had never been in a situation this dangerous before. The worst had been a drunken date in college that got a little too pushy, but a knee to the groin took the fight out of him. She didn't think Sean would give up so easily, but she intended to fight him every second, even if it killed her.

A loud burst of explosions made her scream before she recognized the nearby sound of automatic gunfire. That made her recall that the hotel manager, Victor Montoya, had said something about hotel security. Sean paused and turned, allowing Jillian a moment to look back at the dock. Zach was rousing, but too slowly to prevent Sean from stealing her away.

"Help!" she called out, hoping the security team was close enough to hear her. "Help me!"

Just outside the ballroom, four pirate crewmen armed with flintlock pistols and swords rushed a single man dressed in black fatigues and carrying an assault rifle. He mowed them down with a spray of bullets, then ejected the spent magazine to replace it with another from his belt.

"What kind of gun is that?" Sean whispered to himself. His confidence seemed to falter for the first time as the screams and archaic curses of the wounded followed the shots.

"The kind that will kill you all! You have no idea what you're up against."

"What d'ya mean?" he asked her over his shoulder.

"They're soldiers, you idiot, not a bunch of stupid islanders." Jillian put as much confidence in her tone as she could muster and spun out the story she wished was true. "They have guns that can shoot a hundred times a minute without reloading. They wear armor that stops knives and bullets. They can even see in the dark as well as you can in the day. You might have surprised them showing up the way you did, but there's no way you can win against them."