Chapter Twenty-Six
Cillian
Mathieu sits on the same log as Jules, one hand span away from draping over him. Mathieu notices my gaze and grins. His dimples don’t show.
The mood around the camp is heavy despite the warm breakfast. Mathieu gave everyone the news last night, so at least any initial reactions of surprise are hidden. The first thing Willow and Mary did was hug Jules, and Willow sat next to Mary, their fight apparently behind them.
“Are we going to build a jail?” Charles asks.
“It would be easier to ferry him across to the other island,” Jules says.
I wince at the croak in his voice. “I can do—”
“I’m not being serious,” Jules says. “He’s shit at swimming. If something went wrong, he’d drown and pull you down with him.” He doesn’t look at me, and he turns his face the other way entirely. I stare.
“We can build a bamboo jail,” Charles continues. “The stalks look like prison bars. It’ll be jungle-chic.”
Jules mindlessly mixes his porridge. The fruit has long since disintegrated into the oats. “Whatever,” he says. “He’s not stupid enough to pick a fight with Cillian, so I’ll just stick with him. I thought we could swim out and grab the fishing rods?”
“Your shoulder isn’t too sore?” Mathieu asks. I’m glad he does because I have a feeling if I raise the question, I’ll get even more of a cold shoulder.
Jules checks his range of motion. His throat is a dark bruise, worse than it was last night.
Darren must have applied extreme force. Jules’s shoulder somehow improved in the few hours of sleep we got, or at least he claims as much.
“Not too bad. One trip? And we’ll get the rest of the food over too, so we know what we’re working with.
Any objections from anyone?” He looks directly at me.
No is the answer I want to give, but I’m certain I’m not actually getting a choice here.
Jules turned unnaturally talkative last night once he snapped out of his daze.
I expected that to either worsen when he woke or switch up again.
It’s switched up. There’s an intense brittleness surrounding Jules.
I’m afraid to let him collide with anything, just in case he cracks.
“One trip,” I say.
We get through the trip, though Jules is hurting by the end of it.
Once back, I weather Jules’s glare long enough to approach him.
“I’m putting this on you.” I strap my knife to his waist, guiding his shirt over it.
“You’re in charge of it.” I don’t need to ask him not to lose it—Jules will be careful—nor do I feel a sense of loss to part with the knife so soon after getting it back.
I don’t even know if he’d use it in a pinch, but I feel better knowing he’d have the option.
That night I find out that Mathieu isn’t fully out of the bad books either. Jules curls up on his side and doesn’t reach for him.
The next day Jules insists on another trip.
Five days go by like that, the last night bringing with it high winds.
The wind dies down come morning, but the water remains choppy. Next to me, Jules eyes up the yacht and the waves. I wait. Jules reaches for the strap of the knife, unbuckles it, and sets off down the beach to give it to Mary. She’s been his chosen custodian throughout the week.
I get the raft pulled out from the treeline, and Seán and Mathieu help me bring it to the shore.
“You’re not tired?” Seán asks.
I am, and I know that Mathieu and Jules are too from the way they’ve been sleeping like the dead.
Just dragging the raft down the beach is tiring, never mind swimming out over and over.
I meet Mathieu’s eyes. He reads my expression.
Maybe seeing that I won’t object, but if he does, I’ll back him up.
“I think the distraction is good for Jules,” Mathieu says. “I think he needs this. He’s not talking. Not really.”
“That doesn’t outweigh your need for rest,” Seán replies, frowning. He looks up the beach to where Jules is coming towards us.
“I can manage another trip,” Mathieu adds. “But if you need a rest…”
He communicates the same thing that I tried to convey earlier.
He won’t object, but if I do, he’ll back me up.
I feel inept not being able to get Jules away from Darren, so having a way to give him a little distraction is the least I can do.
If I didn’t think Mathieu was genuine in his willingness to try to make Jules feel better, I would have already put my foot down about it.
“One trip,” I agree. “And none tomorrow.”
Jules joins us at the raft. “Ready?”
It’s not an easy swim out, and as we near the yacht, something about it catches my attention. There are waves rocking into the stern, making a sloshing motion. I stop swimming, putting a halt to our progress. The passing swells give the illusion that the yacht is rocking.
Jules and Mathieu both pull up, looking to see why we’re not moving.
“What is it?” Jules asks.
“I don’t know.” I let my attention be caught.
Let it find the part of the image that’s wrong.
It isn’t the stern, where the waves give that disorienting rocking effect, or the half-submerged deck where there’s wet sloshing.
It’s further back. In the empty stretch of water where the bow of the boat is entirely sunk. “There’s something in the waves.”
“Shark?” Mathieu asks. Both he and Jules stop swimming, simply holding on to the raft. The raft starts drifting sideways past the yacht. I get a better view.
Jules follows my gaze and curses. He releases the raft and breaks into a swift, determined forward stroke.
“Jules.” I abandon the raft and follow.
“Guys?” Mathieu calls out, a hint of panic in his voice.
Jules has a head start. He’s going to reach the yacht first.
“Guys?”
“Bubbles!” I call to Mathieu. “It’s going to sink.” And I’m not delusional; those waves aren’t giving the impression the yacht is rocking—it is. “Jules, don’t you dare.”
He reaches the yacht and hauls himself up and over the railing.
“I’m just grabbing something!” Jules cries over his shoulder. “Two seconds. One second!”
I must have been stung by some sort of hallucination-causing jellyfish because I see Jules purposefully throw his entire weight into the nearest cabin window. It pops out of its damaged casing and falls into the cabin. My hand catches the rail as Jules darts inside after it.
“Get out of there.”
The yacht tips, the angle of the deck becoming steep and dangerous.
Jules yelps inside the cabin. I don’t feel my body.
Tiredness or otherwise. I lift myself over the rail, catch the edge of the empty window frame, and glimpse Jules scrambling up the deck that’s quickly becoming vertical. In his hands is the popped-out window.
Fear seizes my heart. “Give me your hand.”
Jules pushes the window out over my head, and I roughly shove it away.
“No,” Jules cries. “I want—”
I grab him and haul him through the empty window frame, and throw us over the railing, just as the yacht slips off the shelf. We hit the water together. Air bubbles churn the water into a frothy mess. Our life jackets pull us up.
The water settles. Jules is panting in my arms, and an anger I can scarcely control fills me. Jules’s mouth is open, but whatever he was going to say doesn’t come out. He reads my face, and his lips press together in a hard, flat line.
“Guys, some help?” Mathieu calls.
I whip towards the cry.
Mathieu is struggling with the raft, getting pulled out to sea.
Jules and I rush to his aid, pulling the raft back in over the shelf.
Once we’re out of the pull of the current, we float in place where the yacht used to be.
We all catch our breath. My anger rises once more in a spike.
Jules meets my eyes only briefly but looks away without comment.
Mathieu, however, keeps his attention. Unlike me, who’s angry, his bottom lip is wobbling like he’s going to cry.
Jules slips around the raft and kisses him. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Mathieu presses their foreheads together. “Don’t do anything like that again.”
“Promise.”
Jules goes back towards his spot and comes up short with a painful ow. He cups his nose like something whacked it.
“Oh!”
I watch in disbelief as he lifts something clear from the water.
His pilfered plastic window.
◆◆◆
It’s been a week since Darren assaulted Jules when I step out to top up the signal fire on the beach.
Jules comes out too and proceeds to wander around my general vicinity. We haven’t spoken since I gave him a not-so-calm lecture about recklessness. The only thing that made Jules stop stubbornly arguing with me was pointing out that he made Mathieu, a ray of delight, cry.
Jules goes to where Willow and Yasop have a giant H-E-L-P dominating the beach in rocks and branches and straightens the edge of the H. He circles me. He adjusts the P. He circles me again.
“I want to go somewhere else,” he says.
“Onto a sinking yacht?”
Jules sits down on the log next to me, close enough that I can’t ignore him. “That way.” He gestures down the beach. “I want to build a little hut. Something we can stand up and stretch in when it’s pouring down.”
I don’t want to give him any attention. He’s not earned back any good graces.
Jules scoots right into my side, hand brushing the back of mine. When he has me looking, he gestures again. “Over there.”
I’m not giving in.
Jules digs his knee into my thigh. His mouth does this complicated thing, like he’s about to start frowning. Is his bottom lip wobbling?
Damn it.
“Like what Willow and Yasop have made?” I ask.
Jules nods.
I study him, thinking about his string of recklessness. “I’ll only help if you swear never to do anything like that ever again.”
Stubbornness fills his eyes.
Just when I think he’s about to get up and storm off, he nods. “I already promised Mathieu. You heard me.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll help.”
“I’ll get Mathieu.”
I let Seán know what we’re up to and we head out. We find a good spot past Charles and Mary’s place. There’s a nice crop of bamboo poles nearby, so we won’t have to drag materials from too far away.