Catalina knew the layout of the ship and thought that would give her an advantage over the attackers so she might stay a step ahead of them, and -- hopefully -- stay alive. But her eyes were useless in the heavy black smoke that seeped from below decks like blood through a bandage. Her ship was dying surely enough, and it seemed destined to take her down with it. Her shoes: good, sensible shoes befitting an educated young lady such as herself, were ill-suited for a death race aboard a listing ship, and twice her feet slid out from under her and she crashed into debris strewn about the ship. Finally Catalina grit her teeth and pulled the shoes from her sore and bleeding feet and got to running once more.
But running to where? What would she do when she reached the rear of the ship? Or the bow? Or below decks? There was really nowhere to hide, but to her terrified mind there was only one solitary thought of which she was consciously aware: RUN!
And run she did -- right into the chest of a half-naked, creosote-covered black-heart that knocked her again to her backside with a jarring THUMP! Her teeth snapped closed, narrowly missing her tongue, and her eyes wandered as her dizzy head spun like a top inside her skull. Catalina was just clearing the cobwebs when the brute closed one massive paw along her jawline and picked her up to peer into her face.
He exposed all three remaining teeth when he sneered, "Hey! What's dis then? HA! A woman!"
Catalina still clutched both of her shoes in her hands, and the soles of them, she knew, were as deadly as any weapon ever wielded by any man. She spread her arms wide, and this unexpected maneuver made the damned pirate pause to look at her actions with two dimwitted eyes, right before she swung her arms together as if she were crashing a cymbal instead of a man's skull.
He cried out and threw Catalina down, whereupon she landed hard against a large piece of railing. It did not puncture her back and embed itself into her kidneys like the pain indicated it had, but it was certainly enough to forcibly drive the air from her lungs in a sickly wheeze. There appeared to be two of him as she looked up, and neither was any better looking than the other.
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