Padding silently up the steps to the pilothouse, Lily heard her father’s voice and realized he was on the phone. Not wanting to interrupt him, she held back, trying to evaluate how long he might spend on the call.
“Ha! I wish it had been a dolphin. I’d even take a shark. No, this time she rescued a human. What’s that? Yes, you heard right. A person. A soldier, actually. He was injured in all those explosions. Now he’s passed out on deck with some sort of concussion.”
Lily listened intently, hoping to discern how upset her father really was about her new project.
“If he has a name, I haven’t heard what it is. His uniform said Lydia. Yes, right above his medals, like it was his last name.”
Heart thudding hard, Lily wondered if her father might learn something that would help identify the man she’d rescued. She and her parents had sailed to Lydia to visit her uncle David, who was a general in charge of the Lydian Army. If that was who her father was speaking to, he might well know their mystery soldier’s identity.
Her father sucked in a breath. “But, Dave, we’re already twenty miles out to sea, and he’s unconscious. If I throw him overboard, he’ll drown.”
Lily clutched the doorframe and ducked back, suddenly aware that her innocent intentions had turned into serious eavesdropping. Her uncle David wanted the soldier tossed overboard? Surely her father would talk him out of it.
“I understand. Yes, yes, I see your point. I don’t know much about those kinds of injuries myself, but we don’t want him lingering for days just to die on our boat. No, she didn’t have any luck with the horses, and she’s still torn up about that. I suppose it’s better this way.”
What? Was her father actually planning to push the man overboard? He’d die for sure! Lily tried to think. Her father was upset with her for rescuing the soldier in the first place. She’d overreached his favor already, so there would be little use begging him to change his mind. Besides, she’d learned over the course of their visit to Lydia that her father’s older brother had tremendous influence over her dad—far more than she had.
As Michael Bardici went on about the soldier’s injuries, and his fears that the soldier might awaken in a terrible rage and murder them all in their sleep, Lily tiptoed back to the injured man’s side. He’d roused earlier, when he’d taken the pain relievers she’d given him. If those had gone to work, maybe she could wake him up all the way. He’d have to defend himself against her father. She didn’t see any other way out of the situation.
Crouching by his side, she patted his uninjured cheek. “Excuse me, sir? You’ve got to wake up!” He emitted a low moan, but didn’t move. She shook his shoulders. If she could just rouse him, surely the strong soldier would be able to ward off her father, even in his injured state.
“Please—you’ve got to wake up.” She bent close to his ear. “My father wants to toss you overboard. We’re way out into the Mediterranean. There’s nowhere to go if you go overboard. You’ve got to wake up!” She shook him hard, her alarm increasing as she heard footsteps crossing the deck behind her.
“Lillian.” Michael Bardici’s voice was stern. “What are you doing?”
She turned to confront him, not caring if desperation showed on her face. “This man is under my protection.” She wished her voice wouldn’t tremble.
“He’s injured. He probably won’t live more than a couple of days. Your uncle explained to me about these blast injuries. They explode a person from the inside—”
“His ears were fine. That means the impact of the blast wasn’t strong enough to cause internal injuries.”
“Then why won’t he wake up?”
Lily groaned. The man behind her on the bench was rousing. She’d watched his eyelids flutter. Given another minute, he might be able to pull himself from his pain-filled sleep. If she could buy him another minute.
Backing against the bench, she spread her arms wide as though to physically block Michael Bardici from reaching the prone soldier. “He’s recovering. He just needs time.”
“And then what? He’ll awaken in a fit of terror and kill us all.”
“No, he won’t.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know him. Your uncle David recognized the name from his uniform. He was part of the insurgent uprising that caused all that commotion in Sardis. Don’t you see, Lillian? We can’t trust him. He’s dangerous.”
“He’s a human being. If you toss him overboard, he’ll die. That’s called murder, and it’s illegal.” She didn’t bother to mention that it went against the Bible’s teachings. Her father didn’t share her faith, and she’d learned not to try to foist it on him.
“It’s not illegal if it’s done in self-defense.”
“He’s not threatening you.”
“Not now, but if he wakes up and tries something, he could overpower all three of us. Besides, if I don’t do it, David said he’d drop everything and take care of the man himself. You saw the explosions in town. Your uncle has his hands full. He shouldn’t have to come out here and clean up the mess I never should have let you make in the first place.” The words sounded more like something her uncle David would say, and Lily realized her father was likely quoting his older brother. “One little push, Lily. That’s all it will take.” He advanced slowly until he was less than an arm’s length away.
Lily could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks, and the rising helplessness that had overcome her when her father’s horses had begun to die. She would have done anything to save the horses, but there had been nothing she could do.
She wasn’t going to let it happen again, especially not to a human being. “You can’t. You just can’t. We’ll put in at the next port and I’ll leave him off there. I don’t care where it is. Find me a beach somewhere, and I promise I’ll leave him, but you can’t just push him over in the middle of the sea.”
Even as she spoke, begging for her father’s mercy, his expression hardened. He reached past her, getting his hands under the soldier’s shoulders.
“No! You can’t!” She tried to pry his arm away. The soldier groaned and blinked. He was waking up!
But he was too late.
Her father shoved his shoulder between her and the half-conscious soldier, scooping his arm under him, tilting him toward the rail.
“No!” Lily held the soldier’s shoulders, fighting to keep him on the boat.
“Let go.” Michael pulled her hands free and got an arm under the man’s torso, leveraging him up even as the awakening man grasped the air in front of him.
“Don’t do it!” Lily pounced atop the bench, throwing all her weight into the tug-of-war.
Her mother gasped from the direction of the below-deck stairs. “Lily! What are you doing?”
Startled, Lily looked up just as her father caught her by her shoulders, plucking her up and tossing her back toward her mother. She scrambled back, shocked by her father’s
