“According to who? You three? We have no fucking proof.”
“Enough,” Ace roars, his voice so loud even Kellen flinches. “We are not going to fucking argue about a situation we can’t change.”
“Let’s just... take a breath, okay?” I say, forcing the words out. “We need to stay calm or we’ll end up dead out here.”
“Whatever,” Rachel murmurs, turning her back to us.
The afternoon passes in silence.
By evening, we’re all battered and desperate.
We have no choice but to sleep.
I find a spot on the ground, pulling my jacket over me and drifting off.
The night is long and miserable. All the heat from earlier is gone, replaced by shuddering cold. The lifeboats are damp and every part of me aches. I dream of the dance studio, and twirling around. I see my father’s face, smirking.
When I wake, I wonder if he is even looking for me at all.
A tiny part of me hopes he is, because a tiny part of me wants to believe I mean something.
Anything.
5
“THAT IS FUCKING BAD!” Zeke bellows, standing, feet wide, staring into the distance. His hands are up on his head, and the look on his face makes my stomach turn.
“No shit,” Ace growls. “What the fuck are we supposed to do about it?”
“That shit,” Zeke jerks a finger at the sky, “will kill us.”
“Oh God,” Rachel wails. “Oh no.”
“Rachel, shut the fuck up,” Aggie snaps. “Your wailing is fucking old.”
“If it wasn’t for you two, we wouldn’t be here. Now we’re going to fucking die when that storm hits.”
She jerks a finger in the direction of the dark, looming clouds in the distance that seem to be edging closer and closer. Everyone starts talking at once, the noise as rough and broken as the sky above us. The words “storm,” “dead,” and “fuck” keep popping out of the panic, muttered or screamed depending on who is saying it. Even Ace looks scared, which is how I know things are different now, because nothing so far has made him look like that.
Tatiana is the only one not looking up—she’s staring at her hands, which are shaking so hard she has to sit on them. I shove down my own fear, try to push it away so we can figure out what the hell to do right now. “We... we just need to get as far from that as possible,” I say, and I have no idea what “that” is, only that we are nothing in comparison to it, stuck in some tiny lifeboat.
“Move where?” Aggie asks, her voice high.
“She’s right. We need to paddle,” Ace says. “Everyone gets an oar. We will take turns. We need to get as far away from that storm as we possibly can.”
