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Alek sits on his haunches waiting for me to continue to make my bargain.
“You have my word,” I vow. “I will make sure your people are taken care of if you help me.”
Alek stands and starts to walk away again.
I have no more to say. I’ve made my pleas. All I can do is hope he’ll trust me to keep my promise if he helps me.
I return to my original spot and lay back down. With the last of my energy spent, I close my eyes and instantly fall asleep.
When I wake up, I discover Jack built a small campfire a few feet away from me. On the other side of it, I find him sleeping on his side facing me.
As a child, I grew up wondering who my parents were and why they abandoned me. Now I know I am the love child of Jack and Simon’s mother. What will Simon do when he learns that I’m his half-sister? He’ll have to realize there’s no way we can ever marry, but will that knowledge make him even more desperate to secure the cure for only the people of Dawn? Desperation can make people do strange things. Maybe I should keep the knowledge that we share the same mother to myself for the time being. It’s more important for them to pass the trials they’ll face during our journey here.
A rustling in the foliage around us causes me to sit up straight and face the direction of the sound.
Alek, now in his human form, emerges, followed by his crew.
“Did you mean what you said last night?” he asks me, confirming that the wolf I talked to was indeed him.
“Every word.” I stand. “Are you here to help us?”
“Aye,” he says. “We’ve come to help, but I expect you to keep your promise, Ivy.”
“I will.”
Alek nods, accepting my vow to him.
“Come on, lads, let’s see if we can clear away some of these rocks.” Alek leads the way to the blocked cave entrance.
Tears of relief spill from my eyes, but I quickly wipe them away. The last thing I want to do is appear weak in front of Alek and his men.
“What exactly did I miss last night?” Jack asks, coming to stand by my side.
I give him a brief rundown of my conversation with Alek.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Jack whispers. “You know there is no cure.”
“Only the one we know about. Emily said she was working on another way to help. Your mother wouldn’t lie about that, would she?”
“Of course not,” he says as if the mere thought of his mother lying to us is out of the question.
“Then don’t worry about it. For now, we have the help we need and that’s all that matters. Come on. Let’s get back to work.”
Without waiting for his reply, I make my way to the pile of rocks and help the pirates clear them to find my family and friends.
By midday, we’ve made quite a dent in clearing away the rubble, but the fallen rocks seem infinite, making me wonder if we’ll ever find the cave entrance.
“We need to take a break,” Alek proclaims, sweat glistening off his head and chest. Not long after we started moving rocks, he and most of his men stripped off their shirts in a vain attempt to cool off.
“I agree,” I say reluctantly, knowing every second is precious, but even I can see the tiredness in the pirates’ eyes. They’re not strangers to hard work, but the human body can only take so much strain.
“Is there a water source nearby?” Alek asks, jumping off his perch on one of the large boulders.
“Yeah,” I say, pointing to the cave entrance. “There’s plenty of water in there. We just have to get to it.”
Alek sighs in defeat. “Not exactly helpful, but certainly a motivation to get inside as quickly as possible.” He wipes the sweat from his brow as he glances at the sky.
Even though it’s daylight, the crack overhead still looks like a glowing white line in the sky.
