Read Chapter 12: The Cursed Cargo

The cabin they’d shoved him into was the ship’s old infirmary, stripped of anything useful. Mack sat on the floor with his back against a bolted-down cot, wrists bound with a zip tie so tight his fingers were starting to tingle. Rosa was across from him, knees drawn up to her chest, her face averted. She hadn’t looked at him since Cruz’s men had thrown them inside.

Abigail sat near the porthole, trying to peer out at the dark water. Two of the crewmen—old Santos and a kid named Piper—huddled in the corner. The rest of the crew were in the adjacent cabins, maybe six total, all of them bound and guarded. Cruz had been thorough.

“He’s going to kill us,” Piper said, voice wavering. “He’s going to cut us open one by one until you tell him where the gold is.”

“He’s going to try,” Mack said. He flexed his wrists, testing the zip tie. No give.

Rosa finally spoke, her voice flat and tired. “He won’t torture us. He’s not a monster. He’s a businessman. He’ll squeeze what he can and leave us adrift.”

Mack laughed, a bitter sound. “You would say that. You’re the one who sold us out.”

Rosa’s jaw tightened, but she held his gaze. “I sold you out to save us. Liam was dead. The ghosts were real. I saw what that gold did to him. I made a choice.”

“You made a choice that got us all killed,” Mack said.

“Guys,” Abigail cut in, her voice low and sharp. “Not now.”

Outside, the Sea Serpent’s deck hummed with unfamiliar voices. Cruz’s crew. Maybe eight of them, from what Mack had seen during the seizure. They’d come aboard in a launch, armed with rifles and machetes, taking the ship with almost no resistance. Mack had been on the bridge when they boarded. He’d tried to talk—Cruz was a fence, not a pirate—but Cruz had waved a pistol in his face and told him to shut up.

That was hours ago. The sun had gone down, and the only light in the infirmary came from a flickering fluorescent tube that buzzed like a dying insect.

Then the screaming started.

It came from the deck above, muffled but unmistakable—a full-throated scream, man’s, cut short. Mack’s head snapped up. Santos crossed himself. Rosa’s eyes went wide.

Footsteps pounded overhead. More shouts. A gunshot. Then silence.

The door’s lock clicked, and a moment later it swung open. One of Cruz’s men stood there, a young guy with a shaved head and a rifle slung over his shoulder. His face was pale, slick with sweat. He stared at them without speaking.

“What’s happening?” Mack asked.

The man opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes darted around the room, as if looking for something unseen. “There’s… there’s someone on the boat,” he said. “Wet. He’s wet.”

Mack felt the cold settle in his chest. “Where?”

“The hold. Near the engine room.” The man’s voice cracked. “He was standing in the scuppers, just watching us. Then he grabbed Pinche and threw him overboard. Like he was nothing.”

Rosa was on her feet. “Get these off us,” she said, holding out her bound wrists. “Now.”

The man hesitated. Then another scream rang out, closer this time, and he fumbled for a knife, cutting Rosa’s binds, then Mack’s, then the others.

“Cruz is on the bridge,” the man said, already backing away. “He’s got your package. He took it off the chart table.”

Mack’s blood turned to ice. “The package? He has the package?”

“He grabbed it when you were being taken below. Said it was paperwork, might be valuable.”

Mack was already moving. He pushed past the man into the corridor, Rosa and Abigail right behind him. The ship groaned around them, the familiar sounds of her hull and engines now punctuated by distant shouts and the slap of wet feet on metal.

They hit the ladder to the main deck and climbed. The moon was out, half hidden by shifting clouds. The deck was chaos. Two of Cruz’s men were running across the bow, weapons raised at nothing. A third was on his knees, praying. And there, standing at the top of the stern steps, was Liam.

Mack stopped dead.

Liam was still in his wetsuit, still pale, but his eyes were gone. Replaced by something dark, voids that drank the moonlight. Water dripped from him in a steady stream, pooling around his feet. He tilted his head when he saw Mack, and his mouth curved into something that was almost a smile.

“You brought them to us, Captain,” Liam said, but the voice wasn’t his. It was older, rougher, a pirate’s snarl that echoed off the deck. “A whole ship of souls for the watch.”

Mack forced himself to move. “Leave them alone. They don’t know anything.”

“They came for the gold.” Liam’s head cocked further, at an angle that broke Mack’s heart. “The gold is ours. All who touch it join us.”

Another scream, closer. One of Cruz’s men burst from the forward cabin, clothes soaked, his mouth open in a shriek. Behind him, a second shape emerged—a man in tattered oilskins, his skin grey and clinging to bone. One of the drowned.

Mack grabbed Rosa’s arm and pulled her toward the bridge ladder. “Cruz. He’s got the package.”

Rosa resisted his pull. “We leave them?”

“They’re Cruz’s men. They came to kill us.” Mack’s voice was flat. “And the ghosts aren’t interested in them. They want us. The ones who touched the gold.”

Abigail was already climbing to the bridge. The door was half-open, light spilling out. Inside, Cruz was hunched over the chart table, the sealed package clutched in one hand, a pistol in the other. He looked up as they entered, and his face twisted.

“Don’t come any closer,” he said. “I’ll shoot.”

“Cruz, listen to me,” Mack said, hands raised. “That package is the only thing that’s going to break the curse. Don’t take it. Leave it here.”

Cruz laughed. “Curse. You’re insane. You found treasure out there, gold coins, and you dragged me all the way out here to scare me with ghost stories?” He shook the package. “This is the only lead you had left, Donovan. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know what letters to an admiral are worth?”

“Alvarado,” Rosa said, stepping forward. “Where’s Alvarado?”

Cruz’s eyes flickered. “Gone. He saw your boy on deck and decided your business was too cursed after all. Took a launch and left.”

Mack filed that away. If Alvarado survived, he’d have his own piece to sell.

“Cruz,” Mack tried again, taking a step forward. “If you leave with that package, the ghosts will follow you. They don’t let go. They’ll find you on your boat, in your bed, wherever you think you’re safe. And they’ll take you down.”

Cruz’s grip on the package tightened. “You’re lying.”

“He’s not,” Abigail said quietly. “I’ve read his journal. The package is part of the last voyage. You take it, you go in his place. You finish what Captain Jonas Blackwood started—and you meet his fate.”

Cruz stared at her for a long moment. Then he smiled, a quick, wet smile. “Then I’ll drop it overboard the second I’m clear of you.”

He moved. Fast. He shoved past Mack, elbowing him in the ribs, and bolted for the door. Mack spun, lunging to grab him, but Cruz was already out on the deck, using the chaos as cover. One of his crew was running toward the launch, and Cruz vaulted the rail, landing heavily on the inflatable’s pontoons. He cut the line before Mack could reach the rail.

“Sorry, Donovan!” Cruz shouted over the roar of the launch’s outboard. He held the package up like a trophy. “You’ll have to find another ghost to haunt you!”

The launch pulled away, cutting a white wake through the black water. On deck, the ghosts were gone. The crew of Cruz’s boat were standing frozen, gaping at one another. The sea was quiet again, save for the idling of the Sea Serpent’s engines.

Mack stood at the rail, breathing hard, watching the launch shrink into the dark.

Rosa came up beside him. “He took the package.”

“I noticed.”

“Without it, we can’t complete the voyage. We can’t break the curse.” Her voice was careful, measured. “We’ll be chasing him across the Atlantic.”

Mack turned to look at the deck. At his crew, huddled together. At the empty spot where Liam had stood. At Santos, helping the kid Piper to his feet. At Abigail, who was already spreading the journal across the chart table, tracing the course with her finger.

“Then we chase him,” Mack said. He looked at the horizon, where the launch’s running lights were already flickering out of sight. “We find that island, and we get that package back.”

“And then what?” Rosa asked.

Mack didn’t answer right away. He watched the water, the dark roll of the Atlantic, thinking of Jake’s helmet in a pawn shop window. Of the wreck below them, full of gold he couldn’t keep. Of the thirteen souls he’d already fed.

“Then we finish the voyage,” he said quietly. “And we bury the dead.”

The engines hummed beneath them. Abigail called out from the bridge, giving coordinates, plotting a course north. Mack followed her voice, leaving Rosa at the rail with the moon on her face and the ghosts in the water below.