The Black Lily- Chapter 7

SHIP FLIP

I wandered down to the jetty and huffed impatiently. I checked the time. Malhaar should have been down 15 minutes ago. I walked over to the door of her beautiful cottage. She stayed in this cottage whenever we worked on a case together. The door was set in a dent in the wall, with violets bordering its sturdy frame. My gaze drifted downwards only to notice a lively jasmine plant. Asmi’s favourite flower. It swayed in the wind. Kind. Gentle. Ever-forgiving. Everything Asmi was. The sight upset me so much, that I almost didn’t knock. I sighed and rapped sharply on the door. The door promptly opened. There she stood with one hand on her hip and the other clutching her bag.

“Finally!”, I said gruffly and stormed off before she could notice my moist eyes.

About fifteen-twenty minutes later when Hana had finally arrived down clutching her predictably pink bag, we set off.

We all piled ourselves into my boat. As we set sail, the worries, the burning feelings of revenge. All seemed to waft into the air and vanish along with the wind blowing strongly overhead.

When we finally reached havelock, I put down the oars and jumped up, scooping up my duffel bag. I frowned. Just like that, everything that burdened me had come flooding back.

We hurried into the bustling harbour and got onto a ferry with some very annoying crewmates who tried to entertain us with nursery rhymes. Malhaar, who was always prepared when it came to technology, slipped out a pair of noise cancelling headphones and started fiddling with her computer. Then hana excused herself for an hour long trip to the lavatory. I immersed myself in the world’s most boring book called the kill list which was about this top secret list which the government has and blah blah blah. I thought the main idea was extremely dull. I was only reading it cause it was the first book I saw.

Yay, I thought to myself, here I am reading the world’s most boring book, wishing that the crewmates would take the hint and stop trying to serenade us with baa baa black sheep.

A few minutes later, a smiling crewmate came up and offered us a meal. Malhaar took a sandwich, but I had been thinking about Asmi. There’s nothing like thinking about revenge to lose your appetite. So, I left it at a cappuccino. The lady’s smile flickered, but she moved to the next passenger. I turned around to look at her. I was just in time to see her dump the other two sandwiches left on the tray into the dustbin. I took out my phone and got up. Leaning casually on a nearby pole, I took a quick photo of the lady who served the sandwich and for good measure the rest of the crewmates. I looked them up and to no one’s surprise they were arjun’s men. I know that you would imagine that enemies don’t usually show up and get their hands dirty, but arjun doesn’t trust anyone especially with me. He feels that his men are too naïve to actually bring us to him without screwing it up. Well, they totally proved him wrong. Apparently, he doesn’t do much of a better job.

I turned around and signalled to Malhaar. She took the hint and unbuckled her seatbelt. I shot her a warning look and she dropped back into her chair. Later.

I went to the bathroom to find Hana already in her diving suit. Good, I thought to myself. No annoying whimpering about how she hates black. Five minutes later Malhaar walked in and said:

“can we do this?”, she asked.

I nodded and walked into a cubicle and changed. When we finished, Malhaar caught my hand and asked why we were not getting off at Santicruise. I explained everything to her and then started. I had noticed a dent in the ground. I dropped down and pressed down hard. It gave way downwards. I dropped my bag down onto the backward dent bit of the ship. I swung my feet over the

rim and turned around,

“If I fall of the rim of the boat, you’re in luck.”

I took a deep breath and jumped. When I hit the ground, I skid across the tilted floor and only just saved myself but catching hold of a rope. I pulled myself up and cast around for a ladder or something that would help Hana get down. There was no way that she could make that jump. I was doubtful about Malhaar as well. Malhaar had a lawyer’s degree, not a degree like mine which helped me make that jump. My gaze was drawn back to the rope I had used to save myself. I quickly untied it and threw it upwards. Malhaar caught it with surprising agility and tied it to the bottom of the sink. She let hana go first and then slid down the rope.

When the two of them had descended, I hit the red alarm button, causing the lifeboat to come down. We leaped into it and placed our bags on one end. Luckily, Malhaar had ripped two ornamental oars that were on the wall of the bathroom, off so, we could row.

We sped off into the ocean of trouble.