“You can’t control everything.”
Dane’s spent years surviving by trying to stay ahead of every possible outcome, forcing order onto anything that could be managed. But some things don’t bend, no matter how hard he tries to hold them still.
Then he looks back toward the water. “I’ll protect you. I always have.”
He says it without drama. Without needing me to believe him. Like it’s simply a fact that’s already been proven over and over again.
I stand beside him and watch the boat come in.
There are three of them. They move up the beach cautiously, not quite sure what they’re walking into. And I see the moment it shifts—when they get close enough to really see us. A quick glance between them. A recalibration.
We’re not what they expected.
I can only imagine what we look like to them—underweight, sun-darkened, worn into this place. Barefoot. Clothes patched and remade so many times they barely resemble what they started as. Nothing about us says temporary.
“G’day,” the first one says. Older. Weathered. His voice carries a soft Polynesian lilt. His eyes move between us, taking us in. “You two been here long, yeah?”
Hearing someone new—someone outside of us—feels strange in a way I wasn’t ready for.
Beside me, Dane shifts subtly forward without seeming to think about it, placing himself slightly between the men and me on the beach like instinct alone moved him there.
“Years,” Dane says.
The man studies him. Then me. Then back again.
“Yeah?” one of the younger ones says, quicker, lighter. “How many years we talkin’?”
“Hard to say exactly. We think it’s been about fourteen years. We’ve kept count, but probably not perfectly.”
“Fourteenyears?” the younger man repeats.
They pause, and I watch the realization move through them in real time. Whatever they expected to find out here, it wasn’t this.
“This is my wife, Charlotte,” Dane says, gesturing toward me. “I’m Dane Gallagher.”
My wife.
I don’t react outwardly, but I feel the weight of it settle somewhere deep inside me. Hearing him say it out loud to other people after all these years feels strangely intimate, like something private crossing into the outside world for the first time.
The men react too. Just slightly. A flicker of confusion. A quick glance exchanged between the younger ones before they smooth it away.
“We’ll call this in,” the older man says. “Let the authorities know we found you. Someone’ll be lookin’.”
“Not likely,” Dane says. “Not after this long.”
The man nods once. “We’ll sort it. You’re safe now.” His eyes move between us. “Either of you hurt?”
“No,” Dane says immediately.
I think of Connor beneath the trees.
“No,” I say.
They wait while we go back through camp gathering what matters.
Dane moves through the shelter with the same calm efficiency he applies to everything, taking only what’s important. I follow him, collecting the things we already know we can’t leave behind.
The pearls.
