CHAPTER 15: BLOOD THAT DOESN'T SING
The brig was wet, dark, and smelled of salt-rot.
They'd thrown us in together—me, Jack, Will—while Barbossa "dealt with arrangements." Elizabeth had been taken elsewhere, presumably to continue whatever role Barbossa had planned for her now that her blood had proven useless.
The ropes around my wrists burned where they'd rubbed skin raw. Minor pain. I'd felt worse in that tavern in Tortuga, when the knife had found my ribs and everything had gone dark.
You've died once, I reminded myself. Rope burns are nothing.
But the memory didn't comfort me as much as it should have.
"Well." Jack's voice emerged from the darkness. "This is cozy."
Will paced—or tried to, in the limited space. "We have to get out. Elizabeth—"
"Elizabeth is currently the only person on this island Barbossa won't kill immediately," Jack said. "She's leverage. Leverage stays alive."
"But they know my blood is—"
"Yes, about that." Jack's tone sharpened. "When were you planning to mention that Bootstrap Bill Turner was your father? Because that seems like relevant information for a trip to confront his former crewmates."
Will stopped pacing. "I didn't know—I didn't think—"
"Clearly."
"I didn't know my father was a pirate!" Will's voice cracked. "My mother never told me! She said he was a merchant sailor!"
"And merchants are famously involved in Aztec gold curses." Jack sighed. "Never mind. The important thing is that Barbossa now has the blood he needs. Which means Elizabeth becomes expendable, and you become very, very valuable."
"We have to escape." Will resumed pacing. "There has to be a way—"
"There's always a way," Jack said. "The question is finding it before Barbossa opens your veins over that chest."
I sat against the damp wall, watching the curse-chains pulse in my vision. Even here, even separated from the treasure chamber, I could see the threads. They stretched through stone, connecting to the cursed crew scattered throughout the island.
Hundreds of them, I realized. More than I counted in the chamber.
"You're quiet," Jack said to me.
"Thinking."
"About what?"
"How many of them there are. How they can't die. How we're three men against an army of the undead."
Jack made a sound that might have been appreciation. "Pragmatic. I like pragmatic." He paused. "You also pulled me out of that crossbow's path. Before it was fired."
My headache pulsed. The Curse Sight was fading now—I could feel it retreating, the supernatural overlay dimming toward normal vision. But the information it had provided remained burned in my memory.
"Lucky guess."
"You keep saying that." Jack's voice hardened. "Cotton's boom. The crossbow. The way you looked at those cursed men like you were reading them. At some point, 'luck' stops being an explanation."
"What would you prefer? That I tell you I can see the future?"
Silence.
"Can you?"
The question hung in the damp air. I could hear Will stop pacing. Could feel both of them waiting for my answer.
Tell them, something whispered. Tell them you can see curses. Tell them you know things you shouldn't. Tell them the truth.
But the truth would raise more questions. And some questions led to answers I couldn't give.
"No," I said finally. "I can't see the future. I just... notice things. Patterns. Movements. My mind works differently than most."
"Differently." Jack's tone suggested he didn't believe me. "Right."
Footsteps echoed from somewhere above. Heavy boots on stone.
"Company coming," I said.
"I don't hear—" Will started.
The door crashed open.
Cursed pirates poured in—three of them, bones visible in the torchlight they carried. They grabbed Will first, hauling him to his feet despite his struggles.
"Time to pay your father's debt, boy," one of them growled.
"No!" Will thrashed. "No, you can't—"
"Will!" I lunged forward, but rough hands shoved me back. "Don't fight them! You can't win against—"
A skeletal fist caught my jaw. Pain exploded. I tasted blood.
"Shut your mouth."
They dragged Will toward the door. His eyes met mine—desperate, frightened, the earnest young blacksmith facing his father's sins.
"Find Elizabeth!" he shouted. "Promise me!"
The door slammed. His voice faded.
Jack and I sat in the renewed darkness, listening to retreating footsteps.
"Well," Jack said eventually. "That's unfortunate."
My jaw throbbed. The taste of blood lingered.
"We have to get out."
"Obviously. But the how remains—"
"The door." I pushed to my feet, wrists still bound. "They didn't lock it properly."
"And you know this how?"
"I noticed when they opened it. The bolt isn't seated."
Jack was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed—soft, incredulous.
"'Notice things.' Right." He moved toward the door. "Let's see if your noticing is right."
It was.
The bolt had caught on rust, not sliding fully home. Jack worked at it with bound hands, cursing under his breath, until something gave and the door creaked open.
"I'm genuinely starting to wonder if you made some sort of deal," Jack murmured as we slipped into the passage. "Sold your soul for supernatural awareness or some such."
Closer than you know, I thought. Though I didn't get a choice in the matter.
The passage was empty. We moved quickly, shadows among shadows, following the route I remembered from being dragged down here.
"The treasure chamber," Jack whispered. "They'll take Will there."
"And Elizabeth?"
"She's leverage. They'll keep her close."
We climbed toward torchlight, toward voices, toward the center of the island where cursed gold waited for blood it was finally about to receive.
My Curse Sight flickered at the edges of my vision. Not fully active, but not gone either. I could see faint suggestions of golden threads, pointing toward the chamber like compass needles.
Will's going to die, I realized. Unless we stop them.
But can we stop them? Should we?
The curse needed Turner blood. Will's blood. Without it, the curse would never break, and Barbossa's crew would terrorize the Caribbean forever.
Except—
I remembered the movie. Fragments, pieces, not the whole picture. Will's blood did break the curse. But not like this. Not Barbossa cutting his throat over a chest.
Something else happened. Jack got involved. There was betrayal and counter-betrayal and somehow, in the end, the good guys won.
I didn't remember the details. But I remembered the shape of the story.
The curse breaks. Will survives. Jack escapes.
Could I trust that shape? Could I let events play out, trusting that the story I half-remembered would guide us to the right ending?
Or was my presence already changing things, butterfly-effecting the plot into something unrecognizable?
The questions had no answers. Not yet.
We reached the treasure chamber's entrance. Golden light spilled from within, accompanied by Barbossa's theatrical voice:
"At last! After ten years of suffering, the debt shall be repaid!"
Jack and I exchanged a look.
"I don't suppose," Jack said quietly, "you have a plan that involves not dying?"
I touched Will's copper medallion through my shirt. Thought about the curse-chains I could see, the debt-counters I could read, the architecture of damnation that my supernatural vision had revealed.
"Maybe," I said. "But you're not going to like it."
"I rarely do."
We moved toward the light—toward Will's execution, toward Elizabeth's captivity, toward the moment when everything would change.
Barbossa's skeletal gaze found us the moment we entered.
"Jack Sparrow. How delightful." His lipless smile stretched wider. "Come to watch your friend bleed?"
Jack raised his bound hands. "Actually, I came to negotiate."
Barbossa laughed.
But his hollow eyes moved to me, and something in them flickered with recognition.
"You," he said slowly. "The one who didn't scream."
The curse-chains pulsed in my fading vision.
He noticed, I thought. He noticed that I wasn't afraid.
And Barbossa, I understood suddenly, was very interested in people who weren't afraid of things that should terrify them.
His attention settled on me like a weight.
"What exactly are you, boy?"
I met his skeletal gaze and said nothing.
The silence stretched.
The curse-chains pulsed.
And somewhere in the treasure chamber, Will Turner's blood waited to pay his father's debt.
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