Torn-missing 4 Read Online Free Page B

throwing back a sarcastic comment like,
You and what army? You’re barely five feet tall! And do you even weigh eighty-five pounds?
But really, she probably was strong enough to overpower the skeletal sailor.
    Cautiously, Jonah lay down on the deck, awkwardly trying to fit his body into the space occupied by the tracer. At the last minute he turned his head back, defiantly. Maybe he was stupid enough to let himself be hit in the head by a club, but he wasn’t going to do it blindly.
    Wham!
    The club slammed into Jonah’s forehead. Jonah reeled back.
    Okay, maybe the sailor wasn’t strong enough to swing that very hard himself,
Jonah thought.
But … gravity! Wasn’tanybody thinking about how gravity would pull the club down? That was a hard hit!
    Automatically Jonah lifted his hand to his head, to rub the sore spot.
    “Jonah, you had better pretend you conked out, just like the tracer, or else he’ll hit you again,” JB whispered, very, very softly.
    Jonah dropped his hand and let his body go limp.
    “Jonah!” Jonah heard Katherine wail, as she flung herself down to crouch over him.
    The sailor who’d hit Jonah had to have heard her too.
    “Witchcraft? Bedevilment?” he muttered in a frightened voice.
    Jonah opened one eye just a crack, just enough to see the sailor looking side to side, his eyes bulging in terror.
    “Katherine, shut up! Jonah’s fine! He’s just acting, the way he’s supposed to,” JB hissed, again so softly that Jonah was fairly sure the sound couldn’t travel up to the sailor’s ears.
    Jonah couldn’t see what Katherine was doing, but the sailor shrugged, as if deciding he had other things to worry about than devils and witches.
    “I found the pup,” the sailor called down into the hold. “I gave ’im what was coming for ’im, I did.”
    As far as Jonah could tell, nobody answered. But thesailor began tugging on Jonah’s legs, pulling him toward the side of the ship.
    If he lifts me up like he’s about to toss me overboard, I am not lying still for that,
Jonah thought.
I don’t care what JB wants me to do.
    It was hard enough lying still while being dragged. The sheen of ice on the rough deck probably made Jonah’s body slide more smoothly, but it stung the bare skin of his face.
    So much for the protective mask,
Jonah thought. He didn’t want to think the next thought, but it came anyway:
What if there isn’t a protective mask? What if it’s just ordinary makeup?
    The sailor stopped tugging on Jonah’s feet—now he was wrapping a rough rope around Jonah’s ankles, looping the rope around Jonah’s wrists, and tying all of them together. Then he shoved Jonah’s body into the dim area behind a row of barrels.
    “And that’s where you’ll stay,” the sailor muttered. “Cur!”
    A big watery blob hit Jonah’s cheek.
    One huge droplet from a melting icicle? Jonah wondered. Spray splashing in from the sea?
    “Jonah!” Katherine’s urgent whisper sounded right beside Jonah’s ear. “That man just spit on you!”
    “Eww, sick!” Jonah barely remembered that he had to whisper, barely remembered to open his eye halfway and make sure that the sailor had turned away before Jonah brought his hand up to his face and rubbed away the spittle. Because his wrists and ankles were tied together, he had to jerk his feet up at the same time.
    “Loosen the rope, will you?” he asked Katherine. “Just in case …”
    Katherine bent near him, picking at the knots.
    “Ow—broke a fingernail,” she muttered, with an exaggerated pout.
    “You’ll
live
,” Jonah muttered back.
    “Shh!” JB hissed at both of them. “Don’t change anything!”
    Katherine paused for a second, glared down at the spot in Jonah’s cloak where he’d tucked the Elucidator, and then went back to picking at the knots.
    “Nobody’s going to know,” she muttered. “And this way, we’ll be able to protect ourselves if we have to.”
    She pulled the end of the rope back. Jonah spread his wrists