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"Mutiny" He srimly and led her fro in concert as they started gathering the supplies Jack had secreted away, packing them in small crates It took only seconds, but Jack heard a cla from the steps up to the deck and left the rest behind

"Coalley and back through theharder than ever in the growing storm

"Where did this weather co before"

Sabine said nothing, only clutched at the wooden crate in her ar series of thuds way door, and watch in horror as a shaggy, blood-and-rain-sodden body bounced froolden it was nearly white, and Jack thought perhaps it was one of the twins The monster twitched once and lay still, chest torn open to expose a gruesome cavity where its heart had been

Silver, it seemed, was not the only way to kill a olf

"Hurry," Sabine said

Theythe her not to slip in the blood that had dripped down and pooled on the planks underfoot With theon the deck above theht and ee on the other end of the ship, where Jack’s plan could be enacted At the end of the gangway, Jack paused at the steps up to the forecastle, sending his senses outward in an attempt to feel the presence of any wolves

"Don’t stop, Jack Truly" Sabine was al I don’t," he said,his small crate up the steps

Sabine passed hi up the steps from the forecastle to the deck He spoke her name, too softly even for the olves to hear over the howling of the stor on Death"

"Dah"

And then she was out onto the deck Jack followed her, the crate suddenly lighter in his arms, and heard the olves still at it A handful ofhad not abated Roars turned to shrieks of primal pain Wood cracked Part of thedoard, billowing in the stor into one another, claws rising and falling, tearing flesh, blood flying

Freedoht From the moment he had come on board, those had been the only possible outcomes for him And it had all come down to thisto the closest portside boat, whose securing bolts Jack had loosened, and he followed They settled their crates into the skiff Most of the supplies would be fine if the boat did not capsize when it hit the water, but he worried about the water jugs He had packed them in cloth, but if they cracked, he and Sabine would be without freshwater But it could not be helped They were quickly running out of tiot to work on the final bolt holding the craft in place He nodded to Sabine, who cranked the winch, hoisting the boat off its wooden e coh the air toward the into the railing only ten feet away The olf, chest heaving, jaws dripping with furious lather, rose on its hind legs, turning to growl at thereat swath of hide had been ripped from its chest, and its left ear and a portion of its scalp were

"Don’t s, and Jack saw the glint of gold

"Louis"

The Louis-wolf reached them in one bound but did not attack It shoved the skiff, and the s out over the water on its booain and took a step back, staring at Jack

"Thank you," Jack said

Louis bounded away, claws scrabbling on the deck, tearing up wood as the monster hurled itself back into the battle with Ghost

Sabine waited by the railing, but Jack saw no fear in her now She gazed at hi her face as the Larsen surged across the sea The rain soaked her clothes and they clung to her, y, risen from the sea to tempt him

Jack threw the lever that released the winch The ropes rattled through the pulleys on the boom overhead, and the boat dropped into the water They had only seconds now if they hoped to keep the skiff froh waters

"You realize we’re in big trouble if this stor her one last chance to change her mind But they both kneas a false choice If they stayed, they would die At least in the boat they had a chance, however sli up to be heard over the wind

She stepped close, kissed hiether they turned toward the railing Jack drew in a deep breath--

--and the sky thundered with the booed wraithlike froh the water toward thean, and the Charon’s bow sle The i Deck boards splintered and flew, un boomed once ing and sails down as it fell toward the stern

Jack and Sabine were knocked frorabbed his hand and hauled him to the port rail "Come on!" she said, and their boat--their salvation--bobbed on the sea below The schooner was shoved sideways against the waves by the larger vessel’spounded against the Larsen’s hull by the surging water

"I’ll keep you safe," Jack vowed "I swear it"

She smiled and nodded, but he felt sure there was another component to that smile, and the secrets she had not yet shared with him were deeper than he could know, and perhaps darker

Jack glanced back one last time, and he knew that the end was close The Charon’s boas embedded in the Larsen’s stern, and a dozen men, hardened and scarred, partially transforan to leap frohed as a strange elation flushed through him, and he remembered a truth he had learned in the Yukon: that he was h to whisper in his ear

Jack and Sabine juether, hands still clasped as they plu sea For a htless and ti was possible Then the cold water enveloped them, the violent sea tore them apart, and he kicked to the surface Tossed on the waves, he reached for the skiff but was bashed against the Larsen’s hull He gasped in pain as his cracked rib was battered, took in a ainst the srab the gunwale, and the first thing he did was look up

The Larsen’s railing was above the, looked down