Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
All my focus is trained on getting as many barriers between Weston and myself as possible, but the moment the door slams closed, I realize I’m now trapped inside the bedroom.
Shit.
I stomp over to the desk and throw myself down in the chair, trying to calm down from the standoff between us. A groan of frustration rumbles in my throat and I let my head fall back into the soft cushion.
My efforts haven’t been working. Weston still doesn’t trust me, and I have no one to blame for that except myself. My early escape attempts got me nowhere and ended up hindering any progress I needed to make with the Castaways.
How am I ever going to get out of here?
Glancing around the empty room, I realize that I’ve never been in here, alone, in the middle of the day before.
Sig has always come to collect me almost immediately after I wake up, and I’ve avoided the room otherwise for fear of running into Weston.
I also never wanted to tip him off that I was trying to find information if he were to come in and catch me in the act.
That would not bode well for building trust.
But now, an idea strikes, one I’ve been trying to find the right time for, and it’s sitting right in front of me.
His desk.
Chaotic and littered with every type of paper and writing utensil, I can barely see the wood surface underneath. Rolls stacked haphazardly, crumpled balls and flattened packets give me confidence that if I move anything, he won’t notice.
I stand, pushing the chair out from under me with the backs of my legs and crouch down to try the drawers first. My hopes rise as I try every drawer, only to have them catch at the last second, the lock clicking behind it.
I know exactly where the key is, because it is sitting in Weston’s pocket.
He never takes it out unless he’s using it.
After my last attempt to take something from him while he’s sleeping, I won’t be trying it again.
Moving on quickly, I focus instead on the piles stacked on the surface.
I scan everything quickly, trying to figure out where to start, when a familiar folded piece of parchment catches my eye.
Snatching it from the pile, I unfold it as fast as I can without ripping it and smooth it out on the surface.
My eyes scan the contents, only to confirm it is exactly what I thought.
My map.
Sig must have given it to him when she took it from me back in the brig, and it has been sitting on this desk right under my nose ever since.
Ice runs through my veins as what I feared is confirmed. Weston has known the exact location of our camp for days, weeks. My map has everything spelled out for him. Why was I so stupid to draw camp, including the portal? He could have attacked at any time, and for all I know, he already has.
There’s no way to know the fate of everyone back at camp, especially with the secrets Weston and the Castaways are keeping from me.
The only thing I can do now is hope that his focus has been elsewhere.
Maybe being a pain in the ass has kept him preoccupied, so he hasn’t executed an attack on the Voyagers.
That would be one good thing that came from this whole fucked up situation.
I set my map to the side and rifle through the parchment underneath. There’s a large flat piece that spans almost the entire length of the desk, and I start there. Shuffling everything off it, I gasp when the image underneath is revealed.
It is a map…of Dawnlin.
My eyes trail over the intricate details, beautifully inked on the page, much nicer than anything I could have drawn, and my breath catches in my throat as my gaze falls on the lower part of the island.
Camp. Weston’s map already has the location of camp. My eyes fly up to the next most important part of it, the location of the healing waters, which is also inked in.
The Castaways have known the exact locations this entire time.
It didn’t matter at all that he had my map. Dane’s reason for forbidding maps is moot. It didn’t matter if they fell into the wrong hands; the wrong hands already had them.
I feel a pinch of resentment, thinking back about how much damage that rule has done.
How many Voyagers could have found the waters sooner if only they had a map?
How many of them could have gotten home long before this issue with Weston started?
Has Dane done more harm with the rule than good?
I understand he made it because his job as the Guardian is to protect everything here, but it’s also his job to help people find the waters and bring them home. No one has been able to do that.
The rule was made out of fear of what the Castaways would do, but the fear was unwarranted. They already knew, but they did nothing about it.
My vision blurs slightly as I try to reason through what this means.
Weston knows where camp is, but hasn’t attacked us. He knows where the waters are, but hasn’t gotten them.
So what does he want?
I lean closer to the map, focusing again and finding markings I hadn’t drawn into mine. They look like structures scattered around the island, similar to the Voyager safe houses. But I’ve never seen any of these before, and I’ve been all over this island.
I must have walked right by some of them and had no idea they were there.
My fingertips trace over them in disbelief. Why is the island hiding them? Why is it helping harbor the people who want to bring harm to others?
“It’s not polite to look through someone’s things.”
I gasp and spin toward the door to find Weston leaning against the frame, his arms crossed over his chest.
How long has he been standing there?
I hadn’t heard the door open, too focused on my discovery and the slew of questions it unleashed.
“That doesn’t apply if everything is sitting out in the open, especially if the person is being forced to live in the room against her will.
” I lean back on the desk, gripping both sides and trying not to let my anger from before get out of hand again.
Starting another fight so soon will not help with trust.
A hint of a smirk lifts his lips before they fall back into his normal scowl.
He saunters over to the desk, rounding the corner to the opposite side, and stops, resuming the same stance, and I spin around so he doesn’t have my back. This may not be a physical fight, but the same guidelines apply. Don’t give your enemy your back.
His anger seems to have dissipated, at least on the surface, and maybe that is a good sign. I’m thankful for whatever calmed him down so quickly, especially if it worked in my favor. As much as I don’t mind fighting with him, my mind is too full of questions to hold my own in another one this soon.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Weston says, as he stares down at the desk between us.
Shock hits me like a blow to the chest.
Weston is apologizing?
My jaw falls open, but I stay silent, not wanting to interrupt him and knock him out of whatever stupor he’s in.
His jaw ticks, and he looks like he is trying to decide what to say next.
“You were just playing with Fin, and I see that now. I know you two have a friendship. You were concerned about him before…” His voice trails off, and I remember the day I searched for Fin, back when everything started spiraling out of control.
Finding his things broken and scattered in the sand, fighting Weston. Him offering a trade.
It wasn’t necessary, because now he has us both.
But why does he want me?
“You’re right,” he continues, bringing my attention back to him. “I need to be able to trust you, but trust goes both ways.”
My mouth dries a little and I have to focus really hard not to let my body shift in excitement. This is it. What I said to him worked.
He is opening the door, letting me in and giving me some trust. All I have to do now is make him think I am doing the same.
He finally meets my gaze, and I nod slightly, agreeing to his truce.
Leaning forward, he spreads his arms out across the map between us.
I try not to notice how the motion makes his shirt pull tight across his shoulders, how the top buttons of are undone, exposing more of his chest as he leans forward.
Where the hell is the damn leather vest he normally wears that keeps it hidden?
“You found my map,” he says, and I snap back into the conversation, clearing my throat quietly.
“If you didn’t want me to find it, you should have locked it away,” I say. “Besides, it’s not like it was really that hidden.”
“You’re right, it wasn’t. Yours is pretty good too.” He nods at the piece of parchment I had pushed off to the side.
He’s apologized and said I was right, all within a few minutes? This can’t be genuine. It has to be part of the plan. Are we both playing each other?
I narrow my eyes at him. “You looked at it.”
“I did.”
“Why? If you already had this one,” I gesture to the map underneath his palms, “then why would you need to look at mine?”
“How was I supposed to know it was a map until I looked at it?”
“I thought it wasn’t polite to go through someone else’s things?”
“That rule doesn’t apply to prisoners on my ship.”Challenge sparkles in his eyes and I scoff, ignoring it.
“Having the map helped me find the healing waters. Dane has a no map rule, but I knew I needed it, and the island gave me what I needed.”
I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to Weston. He doesn’t need to know why I had the map, or about Dane’s rule, but once the words are out of my mouth, I can’t take them back.
The corner of his lips turns up. “I guess the island didn’t agree with him.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I guess it didn’t.” Since it happened, I haven’t been able to make sense of that fact. Dane is the Guardian, the protector of the island and the healing waters, and has a rule for that purpose, yet the island went against it. Why?
I still don’t have an answer. I can’t seem to make sense of anything Dawnlin does, but all I can do is trust it will one day be revealed.