“Murder. They said murder, Justice. Something about a man in Connecticut. A teacher. They’re taking her to Connecticut.”
My mind started working before she finished talking, pulling at threads I didn’t have enough of yet but knowing that whatever this was, it had Vivica’s name somewhere underneath it. Our mother had been dead for weeks and she was still detonating bombs she’d planted while she was alive.
“I’m on my way,” I said. “Don’t call anybody else. Let me handle this. I’m going to get her a lawyer and I’m going to fix this.”
“Is Auntie Serenity okay?” Dream asked in a small voice.
“She’s fine, baby. We’re just going to check on Grandma Rita first, okay?”
What the fuck did Vivica and Serenity do?
3
Mehar
A gentle breeze lured me back to reality. And when I opened my eyes I realized I was sleeping on sand with a huge stacked pile of leaves propping up my head.
What. In. The. Fuck?!
So, it wasn’t all a dream. It was my reality. Our plane crashed in the ocean.
Quest was sitting next to me, staring out at the ocean like he was waiting for it to apologize. The sky was barely lit, that soft grey-blue of early morning before the sun decides to commit. I didn’t know how long I’d been out. The last thing I remembered was the raft, his shoulder under my head, the sky going dark, and then nothing. He’d gotten us to shore while I was unconscious. Pulled the raft onto the beach, moved me under these trees, and from the look of him, sat there all night watching the water while I slept.
My head was pounding. My mouth tasted like salt and blood. My sundress was still damp, clinging to my belly. My body felt like it had been picked up and thrown against something hard. Which, technically, it had.
It all rushed back at once and I broke.
I mean Ibroke. I turned into Quest’s chest and sobbed so hard my whole body shook. He pulled me into him and held me tight. I could feel how exhausted he was from the way his arms trembled against my back. This man had paddled a raft across open ocean for hours, dragged us to shore, sat up all night watching the water. His body was running on nothing but anger.
He put both hands on my face. His palms were raw. I could feel the torn skin against my cheeks. The salt from the blisters stung and I cried harder because his hands were destroyed but he was using them to hold my face like I was the one who needed tending to.
“Mehar. Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I was too far gone. The sobs were coming from somewhere below my ribs, from the same place the baby lived, from the deepest part of me where I stored every terrible thing that had ever happened and told myself I’d deal with it later. Later was here. Later was a beach I didn’t know on an island I couldn’t name with no phone and no help and no way to tell anybody we were alive.
“We’re gonna die here,” I said. “Quest, we’re going to die on this island and nobody is going to find us and our baby is going to?—”
“Stop.” His voice was firm but gentle and his thumbs wiped the tears off my face and he looked at me with those dark eyes that had never once lied to me. “We are not dying here. Do you hear me? I didn’t pull you out of a sinking plane and paddle across the ocean with my bare hands to die on a beach. That’s not how this goes. I promised you a life and I meant that shit. On that balcony in Sedona, I told you I would take care of you and this baby, and I don’t break my promises. Not to you. Not ever.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to take his words and wrap them around me like a blanket and let them be enough. But the way shit was looking, I didn’t think it was going to get better.How were we gonna eat? I didn’t know anything about Survivor shit.
Hell, I’d never even watched the show Survivor. We were going to starve to death.
“I need you to calm down for the baby,” Quest said, softer now. He pulled me into his chest and held me and I could hear his heartbeat, fast but steady, and I pressed my ear against it and let the rhythm replace the panic. “Breathe with me. In and out. That’s it. Slow.”
I breathed. In and out. In and out. My hands were on my belly and the baby kicked and I cried again but softer this time because she was moving and she was alive and as long as she was alive I had a reason to keep going.
Quest pulled back and scanned the tree line behind us. I could see his mind working, that CEO brain switching from comfort mode to survival mode, cataloging everything he saw and filing it into categories: useful, not useful, dangerous, edible. He was already building a plan. That’s who Quest was. While the rest of the world panicked, Quest made a plan and then worked the plan until reality matched whatever he’d decided it should be.
“There are fruit trees up there,” he said, standing up. “Stay here. I’m gonna grab some for you.”
He jogged toward a cluster of trees about thirty yards from the shore and came back two minutes later with his arms full. Mangoes. Some kind of small green fruit I didn’t recognize. And coconuts that he stripped by slamming them against a sharp rock until the husk split, peeling it away in chunks until he got to the shell underneath. He used the tip of his knife to punch through the soft spot at the top and handed me one to drink from. His hands were bleeding worse than before but he didn't say a word about it.
Eat.”
I nodded and scraped away the mango peel with my nails, revealing the succulent flesh. I bit into it and the juice ran down my chin and mixed with the salt on my skin. It tasted like the sweetest thing I’d ever eaten in my life. I was hungrier than I realized. I finished the mango and the coconut water. He handed me three more mangos and the other green fruit.
This could sustain us for a little bit, but the baby needed fats and other nutrients. Now, if it were just me, this lil fruitarian diet would get my waist snatched! But now wasn’t the time for that.
