Free Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page A

captor a baleful
look and didn’t respond.
    “Let me put it
another way. Where did you get it?”
    When Rowan still
didn’t speak, the captain looked at one of the men holding Rowan. “Ask our
friend what language he speaks.”
    The man, a slim
black man who had called him mkubwa, stepped
in front of Rowan and slammed his fist into his stomach. Rowan groaned and
began to collapse but the other man holding him was now joined by a second who
held him up and his arms back.
    “I speak English,
you bastard,” Rowan growled.
    The captain
stopped throwing the lighter in the air and looked closely at Rowan. Without
another word, he tucked the lighter in his pocket and dismissed the men with a
wave of his hand. He turned to face the large oaken helm.
    When two men
dragged Rowan back to the lower level, a small thin man with long greasy hair
directed them to position him in front of the main mast. Rowan could tell this
was another man-in-charge, although nowhere on the level of the captain.
    The man stood in
front of Rowan with his hands on his skinny hips. He was short, his chest concave
and weak. He wore a green headscarf over dreadlocks that hung to his shoulders
and were coated in whale oil. He peered into Rowan’s face and nodded. “White.
Big as a bullock. English. Got people looking for ye, arsehole?”
    When Rowan didn’t
answer, the man shrugged. “Me name’s Mr. Toad,” he said. “I’m Quartermaster on
the Die Hard and I will own ye body
and soul for the rest of yer stay with us. Savvy?”
    Rowan nodded, his
face set in a scowl.
    “That’s fine.
Now. What work do ye do?”
    Rowan looked over
the little bastard’s shoulder to the endless waves and white caps of the
Atlantic Ocean.
    Somewhere over
there, beyond there, had to be North Africa and Egypt. But nowhere, anywhere,
would he find Ella and Tater. No matter how hard he looked.
    “I am talking to ye,
ye motherless bastard. What is it ye do? Can ye navigate? Cook?”
    Rowan felt his
eyes glazing over and he dragged them back to the little man in front of him.
He could see sadism nearly radiating off him in waves. He was an evil little
man looking to make the world a little more miserable for everyone in it.
      “It’s a long way where we’re going, so it
is,” Toad said, “and we won’t have any what won’t work. So I’ll ask ye again
and I know ye understand me. What work do ye do?”
    Rowan looked at
the man and spoke flatly. “None I’d be willing to do for you.”
    Toad smiled
immediately and Rowan saw the delight reach his eyes as well as his mouth. “Oh,
wrong answer, mkubwa . Wrong fecking
answer.”
    With a gesture to
the men holding Rowan that was imperceptible to him, Toad took a step back and,
without looking, reached for the coiled horsewhip that was hung by the ratlines.
Rowan was spun around and his face was smashed into the side of the main mast.
The men wrenched his arms over this head and lashed them to the mast.
    When the first
lash hit—a white-hot trail of agony that ignited all his senses and awoke
every nascent hint of dread in him—Rowan jerked violently in an attempt
to escape it. The next and the next and the next lash followed quickly,
brutally, crisscrossing his back in a demonic network of pain.
    As Rowan closed
his eyes to the torture, he tilted his head upward and looked at his hands tied
to the pole. Just before he passed out, he saw that his wedding ring was gone.
     
    Rowan opened one
eye when he heard the scurrying of rodent feet near his face. The movement
startled the rat but it didn’t run. For a moment, Rowan and the vermin just
regarded each other. Finally, jerking away from the beast, Rowan succeeded in
sending it scampering and he watched it disappear into the wall of the wooden
jail.
    He was sorry now
he did that. He was sorry he moved. He was extremely sorry he was awake. His
back was a latticework of undulating agony. Now that he thought about it, it
was the pain that wakened him, not the sound of