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“Mika, Zoe’s tougher than she looks,” I said. “She only pretends to be a dainty little flower. I promise, she’ll be all right.”
Mika shrugged my hand off. “I need to check on her.” He hurried off, joining Zoe, who smiled gratefully at his appearance.
“I cannot believe that’s the same guy who came onto this island,” Wyatt said. “He never smiled and barely spoke. Now the grumpy fucker is a plush little wolf when it comes to Zoe, and she’s a smiley chatterbox. Like oil and water.”
“No, not like that,” I countered. “They’re just different. Opposites attract. Mika had a rough life—no one on his side, lotsof betrayal. Zoe is warm and kind andseverelyloyal. I think they suit each other.”
Crew walked out of the cave, four volunteers following him. The four headed off to begin their watch, and Crew broke off and joined us.
“Zoe gonna be okay?” he asked. “Someone said she was hurt.”
“I think she’ll be fine,” I said. “One of the healers is looking at her.”
He nodded, glancing at Zoe and Mika, then back at the cave. Most folks were huddled inside, but a few were milling about outside, being sure to stay far from the cliff’s edge.
Crew clenched his jaw as he looked at us again. “We need to hit Simon. Soon. I know we wanted a couple more days to prepare, but we’re sitting ducks out here. I know we have people on watches, but if he finds out we’re here and sends all his ferals or, gods forbid, those abominations of his? We won’t stand a chance.
“I only see two options,” he continued. “Either we run and try to find someplace safer than this, or we hit him with everything we have. If we manage to defeat Simon, we can take over the lab and use it as a new base of operations. Create anewHaven. Then we can be safe until these shipments come in. Whether they’re by air or sea, we can hijack them and get back home.”
Wyatt nodded and kicked at a clump of dirt on the ground. “I was thinking the same thing. We won’t last long out here. It’s…” He glanced up, checking the stars and the placement of the moon. “What, around two in the morning? Maybe later? When sunrise comes, it’ll get hot. Without a ready source of water, it’s gonna get bad real quick.” He looked at Crew. “When were you planning? Tomorrow night?”
“Dawn, or sooner,” Crew said without hesitation.
“Dawn? You mean, in a couple hours?” I asked, taken aback.
He nodded and pointed at the cave. “We have to move as soon as possible. Like Wyatt said, every minute we stay here, our people get weaker. Soon, they won’t be able to fight. So far, we’ve been lucky that few monsters have come by, but that won’t hold. ThisisBloodstone Island after all. We move out, and hit him hard. If we’re lucky, we can catch him off-guard again. Maybe he’ll assume we’re on the run and won’t be able or willing to attack. It’s the best plan I’ve got.”
His voice was strained and thick with worry. Crew tried to put on the brave face of a confident leader, but deep down, he was worried about his people. He hadn’t even had time to grieve the ones he’d lost, and now he was planning on leading the rest into battle, where even more of them were likely to die. It was a shit choice, but I didn’t see any other way around it. He and Wyatt were right—we couldn’t fortify this place and hole up for more than eight to ten hours.
“Don’t forget our secret weapon,” I said. “We have the Shadowkeeper on our side.”
Crew snorted derisively. “You know, I’m not betting on her. I have no confidence she’ll follow through. I met her a couple times and asked for help. I didn’t say anything earlier because I didn’t want to be a wet blanket.”
“She said no?” I asked.
“It was a few months after I created Haven,” Crew said. “There were only five or six people there at that point. I crossed paths with her while out scouting. I immediately asked her for assistance. All she did was turn her nose up at me and vanished. Didn’t say a word. Five or six months later, I tried again, this time purposefully seeking her out. I wanted her to help the survivors. Food, protection, whatever she could offer. All she told me was that she was and alwayswouldbe ‘neutral.’ She had no interest in helping us, and then vanished again, basically shaking her damn immortal tits at me as she did.” He looked atme and Wyatt. “So, no, I don’t put any faith in her assistance. From what I’ve seen, she prefers minding her own business and watching us struggle. She’s as bad as Simon peering in on his experiments as they writhe and suffer.” He took a step toward the cave. “Are we in agreement? Attack at dawn?”
“Sure,” Wyatt said. “Sounds good.”
“Same,” I said. “We’ll be ready.”
“Okay. I’m gonna go talk to everyone about it. If we’re doing this, we’ll need to be ready to move in the next hour or so.”
He turned and headed off to break the news to the survivors. His words about the Shadowkeeper haunted me. What if she was just playing silly games?
“I can tell what you’re thinking,” Wyatt said. “I can see it on your face.”
“Keep it in your pants, big guy. No privacy for that kind of thing out here.”
Wyatt snorted. “Not that. You know what I mean. Lucina.”
I huffed. “What if she doesn’t end up helping us? Do we even stand a chance?”
“Can’t think like that,” Wyatt said. “The die has been cast. There’s no turning back now. We have to push forward. Either she helps us, or she doesn’t, but either way, like Crew said, we’re backed into a corner and need to fight our way out.”
“You’re right,” I said. I needed to get my mind off this. I nodded back toward the cave. “I’m going to check on Leif. He woke up, but wasn’t feeling great. Eli was working on him when I left.”
“You do that. I’ll see how Mika’s doing. I think he’s more upset than Zoe is right now.”
