We’re all thinking the same thing: when will she die?
As the sun begins to set, we focus on preparing a fresh fish for dinner.
That’s when I hear it, yelling on the opposite side of the makeshift lean-to.
Rachel is yelling, raw and shrill and ugly.
I rush over to see Rachel standing, fists balled, screaming at Aggie and Tatiana, who are both screaming right back. Aggie has tears streaking salt down her cheeks, and Tatiana is in Rachel’s face, her back straight, ready to throw down.
“Stop it, all of you—just fucking stop!” I bark, voice raw.
My chest heaves so hard it threatens to split me down the middle.
Rachel spins on me, eyes blazing, “Maybe if you hadn’t fucked with the course, we’d be home, and Iris would be fine.”
I take a step back, hot shame curling into my stomach. “If I hadn’t, we’d all be dead or worse. Or did you want to see what my father had planned?”
“You don’t know what would have happened,” she spits, voice savage and trembling. “You don’t know what any of them wanted. Who said you get to decide? Who made you the goddamn boss of everyone’s fate?”
Fucking ouch.
I can’t speak, my hands hang at my sides as my body feels like it is slowly going numb from my toes up. “If Iris dies, it’s your fault, all of you. You’re the reason we’re stranded. You’re the reason she’s going to die here instead of a hospital, and you’re the reason we’re all going to die on this shithole of an island!”
Tatiana kneels, burying her face in her hands, muttering a string of curses that collapse into sobs. Aggie stands rigid, arms crossed and mouth tight, like she’s holding herself together by a damn thread.
“What would you have me do, Rachel,” I whisper. “Would you rather she die a different way? Locked in a basement? Beingassaulted daily? Sold into a world you couldn’t even begin to imagine, where I promise you, I fucking promise you, she would wish she was dead. I made a choice, and I stick by it.” My voice goes shrill and ugly by the end, but I can’t help it, can’t stop it.
Rachel stares at me, and for a second I think she might attack, but she only shakes her head, slow, like she’s seeing me for the first time. “You don’t get it,” she whispers. “At least if we got sold, there was a chance someone could come and save us. Now, there is nothing. Nothing for her. Nothing for any of us.”
“You don’t know that,” Aggie is the one to speak, “And if you think we would have been saved, you’re wrong. Nobody gets saved from that world, Rachel. Nobody.”
A hand curls around my shoulder, making me flinch, but I breathe a little easier when Ace’s voice fills my ear. “Come on, Gracie. Walk it off with me.”
The softness of his voice undoes me, and I let him pull me away, into the green teeth of the jungle. My legs shake so bad I almost stumble twice, but he keeps his hand on me, steady and silent. We walk, stepping over roots, dead leaves, the hush of the trees wrapping around us until the only thing that matters is the brush of our limbs and the low murmur of the wind overhead. I want to rage, to scream, but I’m empty.
Ace stops eventually, turns me, and looks me dead in the eye. “This isn’t on you,” he says, voice like gravel. “You did what you had to do, and so did I, and so did everyone else.”
I want to believe him. I do. “If she dies—”
He cuts me off, thumbs pressing hard at my jaw, “If she dies that’s not on you. Or me. Or anyone. We run out of miracles sometimes, Gracie. That’s just how it is.”
I exhale, leaning forward and press my forehead to his chest, breathing in smoke and salt and Ace, as if I could let him fill all my empty spaces. I don’t know what it is about him, but he makes me feel safe, like I have known him a lifetime. I wonderif I could survive this if he wasn’t here. This man, this stranger, this person who is becoming my lifeline.
For a long time we just stand that way, tethered to each other, until the sound of something moving behind us makes Ace shift. I turn, and Kellen is standing on the path, arms folded, face drawn and grim.
“You need to come back to camp,” he says, and there is an emptiness in his voice that is final. “I think it’s time.”
The way he says it, I know.
I just know.
Everything is about to change.
