The storeroom door cracked open—just a sliver. A sailor peered through the gap. Dust, crates, and cobwebs everywhere, even strung across the door. Dim, nothing moving. He shut it again.
"No one inside," he tossed to his partner, and the two moved on.
Reiji and Shun both let out the breath they were holding. Ten minutes later, the door opened again.
This time a man and a woman slipped in. They knocked the webs aside with a stick, shut the door behind them… and immediately started making out in the dark, too distracted to notice the two boys tucked in the corner.
Reiji sighed. Enough of that. He shot Shun a look; Shun nodded.
They moved as one—Reiji clamped a hand over the man's mouth, Shun covered the woman's. Spinarak sprang from the shadows, webbing their wrists and ankles, then nipped each of them for a quick numbing dose. When both went slack, Spinarak sealed their mouths with silk. Only then did Reiji and Shun ease back into the corner.
It was just past one in the afternoon. If the couple had screamed, Reiji and Shun would've been forced to run again. This hiding spot worked; he didn't want to abandon it.
Staring at the trussed pair on the floor, Reiji's mind clicked. If they couldn't beat Ren's trio head-on, bring in a third party—crew and passengers—to jam the board.
He sketched the plan for Shun: get the crew's attention, make them hunt the intruders, and use that chaos to slip off the ship.
"I'll follow your lead," Shun said. He had no better option.
"Good. We wait till night."
They weren't here to kill anyone. The goal was a performance big enough to bring the captain himself down to the deck. A staged scene, nothing more. Killing strangers would make them the villains—and that wasn't a line Reiji planned to cross.
Meanwhile, Ren and his two partners weren't faring great either. With sailors on alert since dawn, the trio had been forced into hiding the moment they landed. They could confess to the captain and get shadowed till the ship reached port—but that would make any grab impossible. So they kept to the shadows, looking for Reiji instead. Which suited Reiji just fine.
…
By sunset, night fell fast over the sea.
"Gets dark quick out here," Reiji murmured. From the storeroom they couldn't see the sky, but the voices outside said it all.
They had already lifted two white sailor uniforms and caps from a locker. Ditto reshaped both their faces; Reiji even took on Ren's face for what came next. Each boy hefted a burlap sack and walked out like they belonged, down the passage and out to the deck. The sun was gone. Time to act.
They freed the woman first—wrists and ankles unbound, mouth still webbed. She was awake and watching.
When they opened the second sack, the man bolted. That was part of the plan: they'd woken him and cut his bindings right before.
Pelipper—one with each boy—swept past and clipped him with a wing. He crumpled. Reiji and Shun caught up, cursed for show, and gave him a couple of angry kicks. Reiji drew a knife and "stabbed" down toward the man's chest—careful angle, blocked by the woman's line of sight so the blade never touched.
Shun crushed a kitchen blood bag against the man's shirt the instant Reiji pulled the knife back. A sheet of red splashed out. The woman saw that and went rigid, hands flying to her mouth—though the silk gag would've kept her quiet anyway.
That was enough. Reiji grabbed the man by the collar and heaved him over the rail.
A clean splash. When they glanced back, the woman was gone.
Not really—she'd just folded behind a door, legs too weak to flee far. Reiji and Shun didn't push it. They barked a few more choice curses for anyone listening, scooped up the sacks, and left the deck.
Only after they disappeared did the woman stagger out and lurch toward people. She ripped the silk from her mouth and locked eyes with the first person she saw—Ren.
She collapsed, shaking, sure she was next. Ren frowned, baffled at her terror, then brushed past with his two partners.
Not killed. Not yet. Hope flared. She hauled herself along the bulkhead, hunting for a crowd. Sailors in white made her flinch; in the end she followed music into a small ballroom where passengers were dancing.
"Murder! MURDER! HELP—MURDER!" she screamed.
The music died. Heads turned. Two off-duty sailors rushed over, eased her into a chair, and tried to calm her.
"Miss, what happened? Who did this?"
"D-don't—don't come near me!" she sobbed. "You—you killed him—no—black clothes—black clothes killed him!"
They worked out enough between hiccups and tears to realize someone dressed as a sailor—or someone the woman thought was a sailor—had killed a kitchen worker and thrown him overboard. Reputation on the line, the sailors stopped the gossip before it spread and hustled her to the captain's room.
They didn't knock.
"Captain, we've got a homicide," one said as they ushered her in. "Victim's a cook—her boyfriend."
"Who did it?" The captain, a heavy-set man with a weathered white uniform and a brimmed cap, stood up, anger checked but visible. Murder on his ship required action.
"It was a sailor—no, someone in black!" the woman blurted, finally breathing again. Memory scrambled, she couldn't pin it down.
"Is it this man?" the captain asked, holding up a photo—Ren and the other two, snapped when they'd dropped onto the ship that morning.
"Yes! Him! He killed my boyfriend and threw him into the sea!" Tears again.
"Get her somewhere safe to rest," the captain said, then called the galley. The head chef confirmed the missing cook—the same man, gone all afternoon.
Another sailor burst in, panting. "Captain, we found the rail where it happened—lots of blood. No body yet. It's too dark."
The captain drew a long breath. Dawn intruders, now blood on his deck.
"Find them," he said, voice flat and hard. "I want to know who thinks they can kill my crew on my ship."
His palm slammed the wood so hard the table dented.
"Turn this ship upside down if you have to. You don't sleep until they're in cuffs."
"Yes, Captain!"
The order rippled out. Within minutes, a full grid search was underway.
(End of Chapter)
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