Trust or betrayal

After swimming along the coast for a while, Maris and Rafferty reach the port.
As they get out of the water, their clothes are completely red now.
Maris looks annoyed at Rafferty, but he only smiles.

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices if you want to get away with things.

Yeah, but in this case, you were the one who dragged me into this.

Maris starts to go back to her ship.
Rafferty follows her.

Is this your ship?!?

He points at her ship.

Shhh!!!

She suddenly stops walking and silently nods, answering his question.

What is it?

This group over there, they pretended to be my crew.
But they just wanted to rob me and get my ship.
Could you help me somehow?

Rafferty quickly assesses the situation.
He knows he has to act fast if he wants to help Maris.

With a quick nod, he whispers back.

Of course, Maris. I caused you trouble, so I'll help you!

He takes a deep breath while thinking about ways to outsmart her crew.

As they get closer to the group, Rafferty spots a barrel near the edge of the dock.

Hey, Maris! I got an idea.

What is it?

You see that barrel over there? I'll create a distraction by rolling it to them.
While they're distracted, we can make our way to your ship.
Simple but effective, right?

Maris really thinks this could work.
With a nod, Maris agrees to his plan.

He pushes the barrel, causing it to roll toward the unsuspecting crew before hiding behind a building.
When they turn their attention toward the barrel, Rafferty and Maris quickly sprint toward her ship.

But suddenly Rafferty runs toward the crew.

Maris turns to face him, but still keeps running to her ship.
This time she really trusts him to have a good plan.
At least she wants to trust him.

But even if she can't trust him, or rather especially if she can't trust him, it would still be best if she got into her ship and leave.
She can't care for him now.
If he somehow manages to follow her, that's fine.
Else she'll just leave without him.

While Maris is on the way to the ship, Rafferty is getting closer to the crew.
He realized that the barrel wasn't enough to distract them, so he has to prevent them from noticing Maris.

Hey guys, are you up to something?

Is this your barrel?

Yeah, I... lost it. I want it back.

You just rolled it over to us.

Why are you... red? Is this... blood?

Her face turns as pale as a corpse.

It's nothing serious.

Anne falls down. She must have lost her consciousness.

The rest of the crew gets mad at Rafferty.

Oh, sorry, I didn't know. Let me help you!

Maris entered her ship by now and got to the control desk.
She starts the motors, and is ready to start now.
As she looks outside, Rafferty is still messing around with these pirates.
He seems to be talking to them.

Maris isn't sure if he is still just distracting them or if he might plan something with them.
She already feels bad in case he is really trying to help her, but she also doesn't know if she can trust him enough and doesn't want to risk anything.
After all she already made a bad experience because of trusting somebody too quickly.

So she decides to leave this place on her own, leaving Rafferty alone.
As the ship moves away from the shore of this island she starts to feel really bad for him.
Was it really the right thing to just leave him there?
Maybe he really wanted to help her.

Besides that, her whole trip to this island was worthless now.
She doesn't have a single crew member yet...