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Jack snored softly while Adela gently rolled away from him. He mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep before she slipped out of the hut they shared with Reed and Zane.
She let herself down from the bamboo platform and landed on her feet in the sand. She took in the hut Camilla and Dominic slept in forty feet away. The sound of the waves rolling onto their beach didn’t soothe her like they normally did.
Camilla swore to her last night that Dominic meant nothing by it when he’d made it seem like they were slacking off, having a blast while her friends were somewhere on this island, fighting for their lives.
She knew better, though.
Of course Dominic would say something about it. She didn’t know him well, but Dominic struck her as the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. He wouldn’t bullshit her or egg her on just for the sake of it.
Dominic only voiced what Adela already knew deep down inside: she’d failed her friends again.
Adela grabbed Raven’s string bag next to the suitcases and stuffed a bunch of bananas into the bag. She fetched a beer can with boiled lake water, stuck it in her back pocket before she traipsed away from their camp.
Instead of going through the jungle at five in the morning, she searched for her friends on the beach. They must have washed up somewhere else.
The moon reflected in the ocean and gave her just enough light to decently work her way through the sand without tripping. Adela purposely avoided the shore since she didn’t want to ruin Raven’s hiking boots she found in her suitcase.
Luckily, she shared the same size as Raven, so she didn’t have to search her friends on six-dollar-flip flops. Just another stupid thing she hadn’t thought of before hiking through the jungle with Camilla on their first day.
In her defense, she had just survived a shipwreck and hoped they would find a hotel or some kind of spa after a small trek through the bush.
Adela climbed over the big rock and passed the spot where she had her talk with Jack about her parents and his family. A pain seared through her heart and her feet stilled.
Jack will probably be furious with her the moment he wakes up and realizes that she’d snuck out. She placed one foot in front of the other, hoping that the physical distance between her and Jack would make it somehow easier to leave him behind.
Reed will probably be pissed at her as well. He couldn’t stop talking about going fishing together today. She would make it up to him after she brought her friends back to safety.
There was just no time left to sit around and twiddle her thumbs.
Day four on the island would be the day that she finally took matters into her own hands and find Raven, Liv and Hailey. She just had to believe that she would find them.
They had to be alive.
She swallowed back the bile in her throat.
“Come on. Think. Where could they be?” she whispered to herself as she peered out over the rocky beach.
She placed a hand over her eyes as the sun begun to rise. Rays of sunlight instantly warmed her bare arms and legs.
She’d finally changed into some new clothes last night, picking out a black bikini and dark blue linen shorts and top from Raven whose curves matched Adela’s.
Adela waved a fly away from her face as she climbed the first rock in a long row of rocks that kept her from the next sandy beach. She used her hands to work her way up since the next batch of rocks was wet from the waves crashing upon them. Without looking down, she climbed higher and higher on her way to the other side.
Her left foot suddenly slipped, and she slid closer to the edge of the rocks that hung over the waves and onto the rocky shore six feet below her. Her nails tore over the rocks as she held on for dear life.
She exhaled a shaky breath when she finally skidded to a halt.
“Okay, okay…. Nothing happened. You’re all right…” she whispered with her eyes still closed.
She peeked at her watch and noticed how she’d already been away for an hour. The tide would be at its lowest in an hour if the tides would mirror what she was used to in Hawaii. If that was the case, then there would be a high tide around half past two and she definitely needed to be long gone by then.
Climbing the slippery rocks proved hard after not having a lot to eat or drink in the past few days.
She willed the little voice in the back of her head to shut up. “No. I’m not going back. I’m halfway there. I just need to check out the beach on the other side of these rocks. Just one beach…”
Four bright yellow toes connected by a web landed on the rocks nearby her head. She glanced up and startled when the bird suddenly made a sound similar to a quack.
“Hey, little birdie…”
