"I am going home," the man in the cell said. "Or rather… I am coming home."
He shifted again in his cell, slower this time, as if every movement had to be measured against the pain it would cause him. And for a moment it seemed like he might simply not move at all and that he had said enough already and would rather settle back, but then he exhaled and let his head rest against the wall behind him.
"I haven't ended up here by chance. Washed up on this ship, hungry and mad, taking what I could."
His gaze drifted past Sonder and the sailors and the ship itself, somewhere beyond them, out over the sea.
"My kind has been there for a long time, before trade routes and ports, carving out a place on that island. We have remained there ever since.
One of the sailors shifted uncomfortably, glancing at the others, but no one spoke.
"I left, as some of us do. To see what lies beyond. To hunt and live differently, for a time."
His eyes lowered slightly now, as if recalling something he did not entirely regret.
But distance does not break the bonds, it only dulls them for a while.
His eyes lifted, settling on Sonder.
"And then they return. Like I am. Memory and blood, the pull of where you belong. During the voyage I took what I needed. Not out of cruelty, perhaps boredom, once. But I would not crawl back home diminished."
Then his voice changed.
Less distant but far colder.
"Make no mistake," he said, looking only at Sonder, "I will leave this cell. Whether it is opened willingly, or by me breaking it. I will leave. And when I do, I will not forget, nor will my kind. How I was treated, like I was a monster."
He smiled.
"When we reach that island, I will return to them. And then we will come for this ship and everyone on it."
No one spoke.
No one interrupted.
"The men who held me," he said, his eyes flicking briefly toward the guards, "every hand that thought to cage me, every voice that spoke of killing me as if I were nothing more than an animal. And the captain, most of all."
There was no anger in it. He didn't raise his voice. It was just a calm and certain statement.
"You, however…" he said, studying her more carefully now, "are not the same as them. You may stand with them, protecting them, but you are not the same as them. You are closer to me than to them."