Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The irony of what I’m about to do isn’t lost on me as I swing my legs over the rail.
I plant my feet on the other side, prepared to jump off the side of the ship, exactly as Weston told me not to.
Sig is below deck, doing one last check to make sure we won’t be caught before she pops through the opening and nods.
We can’t use the gangway. The noise might wake Weston, and I know he would do everything he could to stop me, nothing short of throwing me back into the brig. There’s only one other way off the ship.
“We’re clear. We need to move now,” she whispers and throws her legs over the side as well.
I stare down at the dark water below, watching the waves churn next to the ship as I prepare to throw myself into them. Sig instructed me on the proper form to make as little sound and splash as possible, just another element to keep us from being discovered.
“Are you ready?” she asks, her voice strong and confident.
She grew up in the water. I’m sure jumping off the side of a ship doesn’t phase her, but to me, it isn’t easy.
Jumping off the cliff was a sheer act of survival, and the blood pounding through my veins and stifling all my fears as I ran to get away from Mara didn’t give me a chance to think about what I was doing.
I don’t have that now.
“I’m good.” I nod, keeping my eyes fixed on the surface.
“Let’s go,” she says before she steps off the side of the ship and falls, slicing through the surface with barely any noise.
I suck in a deep breath and squeeze my eyes shut before stepping off behind her.
Wind whips my hair and I wrap my arms around myself, pointing my toes, trying to remember all the instructions Sig gave me before I crash through the surface.
The temperature of the cool water shocks my eyes open, and I immediately begin kicking, keeping my gaze up to the surface until my head breaks through with a gasp.
We paddle to the side of the ship, bobbing there for just a moment to listen for any sign we were heard, but the night is still.
The first step, getting off the ship, is complete, and I can’t believe we actually made it with no obstacles.
Sig takes off toward the beach, her strokes fluid and graceful.
I follow behind, much less graceful and a lot slower, but I keep my focus on my breaths and the form Weston taught me, not letting the land out of my sight.
It feels like no time has passed before the waves are crashing over me as I crawl up onto the beach, my clothes and the sand sticking to me. Sig is already on her feet and watching the ship to make sure we still haven’t been detected.
“Hurry,” she hisses, and I scramble to my feet, stumbling through the sand toward the portal. We both barge through it, and as soon as we are under the cover of the magic, I let out a breath.
“Holy shit. We made it,” I pant.
“Don’t get too excited, we aren’t done yet,” she says. “Take your clothes off.”
She disappears around a bend in the tunnel as I rip my shirt over my head and lean down to unlace my boots.
When she reappears, she has my dry set of clothes from camp, the ones we stashed away during our last shift.
I didn’t want to risk anyone noticing the differences in my Castaway clothing, and trying to figure out where on the island we could be because of it.
After pulling the final lace, I kick off the boots and shimmy out of my soaking pants. She holds the dry clothes out to me and I quickly pull them on. They’re filthy and torn, just as we had discussed, to keep up the act we agreed upon.
“Recite the plan,” she says as I slide one leg into my pants.
“Take the tunnels to the far side of the island, in case anyone is out and spots me. Go back to camp and find Dane. Tell him I was taken when I was searching and held captive for a long time until I convinced them I was on their side. I fought Weston’s coercion, but made everyone believe I fell for it.
That’s why Mara thought I was protecting you, to keep up my cover until I could try to escape.
When I tried, they caught me and held me captive again. I broke out and came straight home.”
“Good. What if he asks you where we’re hidden?” Sig says. She stands watching me transform back into the old Lennox, at least on the outside. Her body is as tense as I feel, and I know she agrees everything is riding on this plan.
“I say you forced me to drink a potion from the island that won’t let me give it up, no matter how hard I try.”
“Right. And how do you handle Mara?”
“Lie like my life depends on it, and try to convince her my story is true.”
She nods. “What if she attacks you?”
“Defend myself, but don’t draw attention. Make sure Dane believes she’s wrong.”
“Good. Then what?”
“Stay for two days. Try to find out if Dane has learned anything about how to replenish the dust. On the second night, get him to the Voyager safe house on the beach, around the bend from the cove. I’ll wait until he’s asleep and then take the dust off him.
You’ll be waiting in the rocks there, and we’ll go back to the ship. ”
“Yes. I will be there if anything goes wrong.” She tosses my shirt at me, and I pull it over my head.
“You can’t let Weston ruin this, Sig. He can’t risk being discovered. He can’t come into camp, he can’t follow me around if I leave. Tell him he needs to trust me.”
She nods, her face drawn. “I will do my best.”
“Jorn will help you. Taril and Stass and Auralie too, especially if you tell them what I’m doing. They want it just as bad as we do.”
“I’ll tell them if I need to, but I hope he just accepts it and lets you do what needs to be done.”
I let out a sharp breath. “Alright.” I squeeze out my hair, hoping that the waves will be dry by the time I’m back at camp, erasing yet another clue that we’re hidden near the water.
“Lennox?”
I meet her gaze, only to find concern there. Worry. “What’s wrong?”
“You remember you have to get close to Dane, right?”
My breath hitches and my mind instantly pictures how we were before I left. His hands cupping my face, my thigh, his lips pressing into mine. Thoughts that before would have made me feel excited and warm, now only make a chill run down my spine and a pit form in my stomach.
I’ve been preparing myself to be back with Dane ever since Sig and I made this plan, but I know with every touch I’m going to be picturing someone else’s hands and lips.
Pretending it is him.
“I know.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Sig says.
“I’ll do what I need to do.”
The feelings I had when Dane touched me aren’t even close to what happens to my mind and my body when Weston is near, but I have to fake it. I can’t let him suspect anything is different between us, or he might realize there is more going on.
She nods as I lean over to tie up my laces and grab my dagger off the ground.
I can’t keep it where I normally do, because Dane can’t know I have it.
If he’s going to believe I escaped from captivity, he would question why they let me have it if he found it.
There’s no way I’m walking back into camp without it, and Weston would be furious with me if he found out I wasn’t armed, so I slide it into my boot instead.
Sig pulls her own blade off her belt and holds it at me, poised to strike.
“Practice. In case Mara comes at you,” she says.
I wrench her wrist and disarm her easily, flipping the blade in my hands just as Weston does. We practice a few more times before she is satisfied and shoves it back in the sheath.
“Time to make this look convincing,” I say as I search my clothes for the tears Sig ripped into them.
I rub each patch of skin beneath the tears against the jagged rock on the wall of the tunnel, wincing as I scrape my skin open and let the blood soak into the fabric.
The stings will be short-lived, because I know Dane will make sure every single one is covered with salve as soon as possible.
I step away from the wall and assess myself, satisfied with our work.
“Hey, Lennox,” Sig says.
“Yes?” I say, looking up at her, but my face is met with her fist, crashing into it and sending me staggering backwards.
“What the FUCK, Sig?” I scream, clutching my face as I glare at her.
She shakes out her hand with a grimace. “Fuck, he’s going to kill me when he hears about that. Trust me, it would have hurt more if you were expecting it.” She takes a step and waves me over to her. “Come here, let me see.”
My eyes are tearing as I stop in front of her, and she turns me around, so the torchlight falls across my face. She moves my chin around in different directions, nodding at her accomplishment.
“It’s bruising already. That will definitely look convincing.”
“If I didn’t have somewhere to be right now, I’d punch you back,” I grumble.
“Save it. You can hit me later,” she says with a grin.
“I’m not going to ask where a princess learned to throw a punch like that.”
“Probably the same place you did,” she laughs. “Come on, we need to move. We’ve already been here too long.”
We jog through the tunnels, passing under the river to the far side of the island until we reach a gentle slope that will open up right near the plateau where we arrived in Dawnlin.
“You should go back. I can make it from here,” I say.
I can feel my emotions rising as tears threaten to fall, and I don’t want to look at Sig. Even though I chose this, I planned this, it still feels terrible going back to camp and back to someone who lied to me like Dane did.
“Lennox, wait,” she says and grabs my elbow, turning me to face her. She sees the tears in my eyes and her face softens. She places a hand on each of my shoulders and lowers down to my level until her face is all I can focus on.
“You can do this. You are strong and fearless. You are a great leader, and you are going to get back to your kingdom.” My chin wobbles as her words sink in, her sincerity wrapping me in a hug that I didn’t know I needed.
“Don’t let him change you. You know who you are. You know who we are. Come back to us.”
I can’t stop the sob that escapes and the tears that fall as I throw my arms around her, squeezing tight and nodding into her shoulder.
“I will. I promise,” I choke out.
I pull away and take a step backward, sucking in a deep breath before I turn my back on her.
“Oh, and remember, Lennox, whatever happens, don’t kill Dane.”
I let her words fuel me, and push me through the portal at the top of the slope, reminding me of the entire reason we are doing this.
Dane controls the island, and he has lied and manipulated each one of us to get the healing waters.
He cheated the magic, then took it over, holding the island and everyone on it hostage, all to get what he wanted.
I can hate him, but I can’t kill him, and I have to pretend that I’m still in love with him.
The night is dark and still, the moon barely a sliver in the sky.
I glance around, making sure there is no one within sight before I drop to my knees.
Digging my hands into the moist soil, I scrub the dirt onto my skin, dirtying myself and my clothes even more, shoving it under my nails so it looks like I went through hell to get back.
I let myself feel all the emotions from a moment ago and will the tears to keep falling. I need them, if not for the reason the Voyagers think.
Then I take off, tearing down the path and through the trees, running as fast as my legs will carry me, straight to camp. I need to be breathless and panicked. I need to be hysterical.
I need to be convincing.
I reach the trees, letting the branches and leaves whip at my face and push through the vines. The magic of the portal surrounds me as I push into the darkness, breaking through the other side to the same familiar clearing I considered home not that long ago.
My knees hit the grass, followed by my palms, and I grip onto the earth, mustering all the emotion that I can until my shoulders are heaving with sobs.
Sucking in the deepest breath, I will all of my fears and fury and hope into my throat, as a scream erupts that even I barely recognize, but I hope they do.
I hope he does, because it all starts now.
“Dane!”