…go and get on with it.

Time to go. The odds that these people will say anything truly useful are slim at best. Besides, you can barely stop yourself from running over there and killing all three of them on general principle. Watching another **** could tip you passed the point where a suicidal charge seems like the best choice of action. That’s what you tell yourself at any rate, and that’s what you decide is the truth. The lingering suspicion that you may throw up with disgust at the sight of further violations isn’t allowed to enter into your thoughts.

You move into the space behind the crates closest to the stairs, ready for the perfect time to slip up them. As the greasy haired man leans close, whispering into the ear of the man in the stocks, you move. You glide across the open space with as much noise as a shadow before you enter the arch of the stone stairway. It’s brightly lit, with a lantern hanging from an old metal hook near its base that shines a light up its length. You barely give the light time to touch you as you breeze past, taking the wide stairs two at a time. The foundation stone is perfectly square, lacking the marks and grooves that form from years of footfalls; the perfect platforms to propel yourself up as fast as you can. Soon, the arch hides even your feet from the room below, yet being bathed in incriminating light keeps you moving fast. There’s an old wooden door ahead of you, leading into the mansion proper.

Four wide steps away from it, it suddenly opens.

You freeze as three people stare down at you, smiles slipping from their faces as their laughter fades and their brows pull together in confusion. A bald man leads the way, flanked by a hairy, primitive looking man and a woman that could pass for his twin if she had as much stubble. They all look at you, occupying a strange moment where no one knows what to do.

You snap out of it first, turning and running back down into the cellar. They stampede after you. You leap off the stairs, your noises and the greater one behind you turning the men in their seats. Even the unfortunate souls in the stocks lift their heads to see. Where to go? The window! You turn left, aiming for the corridor and the thin ground level window you came in through. It’s up high, but it shines like a beacon in the inky black darkness and you sprint for it, vaulting the crates and boxes you once hid behind as feet give chase, gaining ground. The light from the hooked lantern shifts and grows as someone yanks it from the wall and carries it in pursuit. Its beams catch on the forest of dusty bottle necks lining the walls, twinkling weakly back at you.

You don’t see any of it. The window is your world, growing with each step you take towards it. It’s so high! You see the shelf next to it and plan your jump; the bottle free diamond shaped hole as one step, then a leap from it to the window frame. If you can grab it and pull yourself up-

No more time for thinking; the moment is upon you. You jump for the shelf, catching it successfully with your foot, then jump for the window, arms out, hoping against hope you can reach it in time. Your fingers close around the old wood of the window sill. Success!

You pull yourself up as a body crashes into you below, and fresh air graces your face for a split second before you’re reeled back into the dark below, only, it’s not so dark now. The lantern and its carrier has caught up, bathing the corridors end in a very disturbed, flickering yellow light. The window is yanked away as arms lock around you and pull you to the floor.

“Grab him! Grab Him!”

“Gods!”

“-the Fuck!”

Arms are everywhere, yours and theirs. Soon, bodies are everywhere, adding there crushing weight to your flailing form as a group work to restrain you.

“Rope! We need some fuckin rope over here!”

Your terrified mind hears that word differently and your struggle intensifies.

You can’t get at your stiletto; even if your arms were not fighting with all they have, someone’s weight is pressing on your legs, pinning it to you. The black mask makes it hard to breath and blunts the few bites you manage to get in. Nails catch only cloth and your pathetic punches are pulled away from anything that could have gotten even the slightest grunt out of them, yet still you fight, breathing hard and thrashing for a window only occasionally glimpsed behind the bobbing heads of the growing group. You see a flash of the big man, naked and angry, before an arm snakes around your neck and cuts off your air, rolling your top half onto its side as your rear and legs stay pinned by the weight pressing down on them. Somehow, via some unspoken agreement, the group around you begin to drag you down the corridor and towards the space of the bigger room and away from the freedom promised by the windows moonlight. Fatigue sets in and your fight weakens. Six against one, with everyone bigger than you, is not a fight you can win. You keep up what you can; loosing is not something you can accept either.

As you weaken, an effort is made to pick you up slightly off the ground. The lack of air from the arm constricting your throat leaves you light headed, but your eyes catch a glimpse of the wooden crates stacked between the shelves. You can almost sense the disappointment coming from behind those boxes. You’re not giving up. You stick your foot out as much as you can, catching a shelf with your toes. A bottle is pulled out by the group’s insistence, shattering on the floor. The next foot hold is empty and gives you a few more seconds before the arms around your thighs move lower, freeing up your blade, and if your arms weren’t locked in the hard grips provided by several of the pirates then you could have done something with that. As it is, all you can do is buck your hips more wildly. Everyone is breathing hard by the time you pass over the boxes that once gave you shelter. Everyone except you. The scant breaths of air you managed to catch aren’t enough to keep the dizziness at bay. With more room, they spread out. The rope arrives.

“I’ll tell the Captain!” Running feet. Fading light. Your arms move up your back.

“Check him.” Your trousers are pulled down.

Three voices talk over each other at once, or seem to. It’s hard to tell, disorientated as you are.

One of them exclaims with shock “He’s a woman!” It’s the big naked mountain from the sound of it.

Another, the woman, says “I’ve got a blade!” Her words seem to come from your crotch and correspond with the hands groping at your thighs.

The third simply says “Fuck, yes!” It comes from behind, from the owner of the arm that blessedly eases from your neck as the man it’s connected to takes a look. He comes into your **** blurred vision, revealing himself to be the bald man, grinning like a fool. He pulls your mask down and looks at your face. “We’re gonna fuck you in half darling.”

You take a deep breath, feeling the incoming scream before it even arrives.

“No we’re not! Nobody fucks her! And don’t you scream or I’ll fill your face!” The giant naked man holds his fist in front of your nose. The threat seems at odds with what he said and your mind struggles to keep up. The older man you recently watched brutally violate another man chips in,

“That’s right! Captains orders! Any folk caught sneakin about gets locked up. We ain’t allowed to do nothin with em till the Captain says so.”

You manage to keep the scream in as you process the words. The only two people in this room that you know for absolute certain are rapists have just saved you from the act itself. You look at the woman now sitting on your legs, watching as she takes the vial of poison before pulling up your trousers and hiding the short hairs of your crotch. This isn’t good, but it’s a damn sight better than what you were expecting. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The bald man isn’t happy about it. “Your Captain maybe. Mines got no bones about takin what you can, when you can. If you lot don’t want a dip, I’ll do it myself” He looks at you hungrily. “I’m not lettin a fine fuck like this one get away.”

He’s the only one in yellow. The two that came with him are in red and white, Captain Washkin’s colours, and the two naked men spoke up for you. The third naked man with the greasy hair isn’t here. Evidently, he was the one to tell the Captain.

The big man pulls him back. “You want to fuck a cunt then cunt ho.” He points at the woman in the stocks. Her face pales further at the gesture. “As for this one, she’s goin in a cell. Vanessa, er, you better check er over.” He looks at the equally buff woman sitting on your legs and holding both your blade and your poison in her hand. She looks at him sternly and almost asks him something before thinking better of it and going to task, feeling up your body for further tools of the assassins’ trade. She finds nothing of course, despite some uncomfortably close and rough treatment around some sensitive areas. Her eyes catch yours when she reaches your breasts, expression embarrassed that she needed to feel them. Maybe she wants to confirm you’re a woman, as if your lack of manhood wasn’t apparent when they all saw your crotch. She’s silent on the subject. You suppose you should be grateful it’s not one of the men groping away so you say nothing as well.

The group locking you up and getting the Captain is bad, very bad indeed. Disarmed and captured is almost as bad as it gets, but as long as they’re not doing anything else to you, you’re not going to push your luck. If you can talk to the Captain then maybe... who knows. You could convince her to let you go? It’s a long shot but it’s something. An empty stock next to the other two catches your eye. For now at least you can be grateful it’s not something else.

When she’s done, they drag you into one of the cells that line the wall, the bald man furnishing you with a bitter kick to the stomach to aid your journey. The three walls of long metal bars offer no shelter from there sight. Worse, they offer no shelter from your sight of the stocks and the ‘alternative’ the bald man moves to accept. He moves behind the young woman and unceremoniously enters her. He looks at you as he starts to move back and forth. You look away as best you can.

The older man moves to the younger to finish his work. The tall and muscle bound man and the slightly less well built woman go off into the dark to exchange a quiet word. The shabby looking man, the woman’s twin, who came in so unexpectedly with her and the bald one, is back in the corridor they chased you down, the bobbing lantern light searching for accomplices’.

After a minute or so, the greasy haired man returns, out of breath. This is the first time you’ve seen his face clearly and you wish you hadn’t. A disgusting looking scar twists his mouth and face up, displaying the teeth beneath.

“Captains sounded a full search. She wants this one kept an eye on but... wait, he’s a woman?” The others sound the affirmative. “Huh. Well, she wants you folk to keep lookin. We’ve orders to check the island and ready for a fight if we have to.” He considers you further. His is another gaze you can’t hold, though more due to outward ugliness than inward. “I better let the captain know he’s a she.”

With that he departs and the others move to do so as well. The bald one makes no move to leave, distracted as he is, and the old man makes an exasperated gesture, raising his hands in despair and bringing them down on his victims rump with twin slaps before pulling out and moving to leave. The wall of muscle, currently hopping as he pulls up some rough spun trousers, stops him.

“You can stay old man. Don’t want you slowing us down.”

The older man look like he’s going to protest, but catches the others look as it flicks between you and the bald man. He gets the message, nodding as he returns to his task.

As you sit in the cell, arms very tightly bound behind your back, trying to block out the sound of slaps and grunts and squeals and squelches, you have nothing to do but wait and only the worst show in the world to pass the time with.