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“Getting bossy, aren’t you?”
I glanced over to her with narrowed eyes, but she was smiling at me. Maybe she was joking, but I wasn’t very sure, and I definitely wasn’t in the mood for it. At the rate we were going, we would be out of water too soon. There were no signs indicating land was near, and we had to be way too far south to be in the normal shipping lanes at this point. In other words, we were almost completely screwed.
I needed to think and come up with a plan. I needed to get us the hell off this raft and onto some land where finding water was more likely. I needed to be able to think with a clear head, and I just couldn’t.
Whenever I tried to focus on something I was doing, I felt her body pressed up against mine.
Whenever I lost focus on what I was doing, I could feel her torso moving slightly up and down as she breathed in her sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel her hand running over my face.
This was completely and totally fucked up, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I tried watching for any signs of ships, or land, or a fucking sea turtle I could strap a note to, but there was nothing. I was starting to get agitated and was actually considering going for a swim just to get some of the energy out. As it was, I drummed my fingers against the binoculars or on the side of the raft. Sometimes I pulled at the unraveling hem at the end of my shorts, or I went through the survival packs for the umpteenth time.
I was so wound up, I couldn’t even hold myself still.
“You are driving me crazy,” Raine voiced.
“Why don’t you kiss my ass?” I snarled. I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down. “I’m fucking bored.”
I couldn’t take it anymore and pushed myself up to the raft opening. After securing myself to the lead, I stripped down to my boxers and dived into the water. I swam against the current, knowing full well I was using up energy I should be conserving, but I wasn’t going to do myself or Raine any good if I was a complete nutcase.
The water was cool, and I thought I should probably soak my shirt and let Raine wear it to keep from getting too hot. Doing that too often was a mistake since the salt water could cause sores on skin, but at some point there was a tradeoff between the sores and heat exposure. At least the nights had been cooler.
I swam a little and then floated on my back, staring up at the sky and trying not to think about anything. Telling Raine all that shit about me brought too much of it to the forefront of my mind, and I didn’t like it. Visions of fights traipsed around in my head, but those didn’t bother me too much. When my thoughts went to a darkened, smoke- filled room and sixteen people standing against a wall…that’s when I had to flip over and start swimming again.
I wanted a fucking drink so I wouldn’t be thinking about any of this shit.
I opened my eyes and blinked against the sting of the salt. A flash of yellow skimmed near my shoulder. Then another one went by. And another.
I broke through the surface and yelled over to Raine.
“Pull the canopy back and flatten it out like I had it last night!”
Raine nodded through her confused expression and did as I told her. I dived back under, twisting my body around to get a better view of the huge school of Yellowtail Snappers – hundreds and hundreds of them. There were so many, I couldn’t miss. As they swam around me, I flexed my fingers a couple of times, resurfaced for one last gulp of air, and went to work.
Catching fish bare-handed
isn’t as tough as it seems when you know what you are doing. I came at them from the bottom and grabbed them by the gills before flinging them up into the air and onto the raft. Within about ten minutes, there were a dozen of them flopping around on the top of the canopy.
I climbed back aboard and tried to shake most of the water off of myself before getting off the edge of the ladder and back into the raft proper. Fish were flopping everywhere, so I wasted no time grabbing my knife and getting to work.
“We’re not eating any of it,” I reminded Raine. “This is just for the water, which is more important.”
She nodded, took a deep breath, and let me tip the torn open spine of the first fish into her mouth. I took the second one, and then gave her the third. They weren’t as big as the Black Jack, but there were plenty of them. We went back and forth like that until they were all gone. It took a little coercion, but I got her to suck the fluid out of the eyes as well.
“I think that saved us a good day’s worth of water,” I said as I tossed the last of the fish bits off the raft.
“How much water is left?” she asked.
“It was just enough for today,” I admitted. “Now we can lengthen that out another day.”
“You are incredible,” Raine said. She fixed her shining eyes at me, and I couldn’t help but feel it. I gave her a crooked smile back and tilted my head to the side.
“It’s true,” I told her. “I am. You should try me out sometime.”
She tilted her head up, and her eyes focused on my mouth. It seemed like I could hear her heartbeat in her chest as she raised herself up just enough to touch my lips with hers.
