Chapter 8
I SPIN, ARMS OUT, LEGS flying, trying to get my balance. I spin and spin until my head forces me to stop. Angrily, I shout, and then do it again, over and over until sweat pours down my forehead.
“You know you’re not makin’ any competitions soon.”
I jerk and turn to see Ace watching me, head slightly tipped to the side. I’m on the flat rocks above the cliff, practicing my dance. Not because I think I need to, but because it is the only thing that clears my head and I need to focus on something other than Iris down there dying.
The antibiotics aren’t working.
She’s going to die.
We all know it, but no one is saying it.
Zeke and Kellen were right, she was too far gone.
“It clears my mind,” I say, wiping the sweat off my brow.
“You’re good at it.”
“I hope so,” I say, sarcastically.
He grins. God, he’s beautiful.
“I got a few moves to help you get your frustrations out.”
I raise my brows. “Oh?”
He steps closer, and I can feel the heat coming off him, see the suggestion of a smile behind his beard. “Let’s fight.”
I snort. “You want me to fight you?”
He cocks a brow and beckons me forward, still keeping that fraction of distance between us, as if inviting me to close it.
“Come at me,” Ace says. “You might just like it.”
I scoff. “No.”
“You want to punch somethin’, might as well be me. You could use the practice. Bet you’ve never thrown a real punch in your life.”
I press my lips together.
He grins. “Come on, don’t be scared.”
I don’t hesitate any longer, I throw a punch, stiff and self-conscious, but he leans out of the way, catching my wrist in his hand. Fast. Too fast for someone that big. “Try again.”
He lets me go, resets. I jab, he sidesteps. Every time, he’s ahead of me.
“Quit thinkin’ about it,” he says, soft now, “Hit me like you mean it.”
I try to empty myself of everything but that—the burning, guilty, helpless anger that’s been gnawing me up from the inside out.
I swing, and this time when he grabs my wrist, he twists, not rough, but hard enough to unbalance me.
I lurch forward, and his arm slides around my waist, bracing me against him.
For a second, neither of us move. I’m pressed to his chest, thigh caught between his. He smells like fire, like the thick sweetness of burnt wood, a wild edge beneath it.
“Don’t flinch,” he murmurs. “You lose every fight before it starts, if you’re scared of the hit.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mutter, “this is your job, your career. Mine is to move, not throw punches.”
He steps back. “Let’s try again. Don’t worry about what I’m doing, focus on your move, your thoughts, and don’t hesitate.”
I land a punch this time, right into his shoulder.
It stings my knuckles, but my heart flares.
He nods, like that’s confirmation of something only he can see.
He grabs my hands, holds them up between us.
“Want to know why you can be good at this? Because you have more control and precision than most people, you’re balanced and focused. You just need to stop holding back.”
I breathe in, shallow. He hasn’t let go. His thumbs brush over the backs of my hands, slow.
“How’d you learn to fight?”
His gaze goes somewhere far off, like I’ve asked him a question he’s already had to answer too many times. “My uncle. He was a fuckin’ asshole, but he was the only family who didn’t bail when I started getting into trouble. Told me if I was gonna hit, I better learn to take one first.”
I picture him, smaller, beat up, learning the hard way. I hate it, and I hate that this makes it worse.
“Did you like it?” I ask, barely audible.
He shrugs, lets go of my hands, but not of me. “Didn’t matter if I liked it. I was good at it, and it kept them around. Sometimes that’s all people want from you.”
This—this is what I understand. At the edge of every performance, was always the risk they’d notice I wasn’t exceptional anymore. Not the favorite, not even wanted, just another body filling a role.
“It’s kind of like dance,” I say, “except you bleed more.”
He nods. “Do you love dancing?”
I press my lips together, contemplating my answer. “I used to. Now it’s more muscle memory. One foot in front of the other, until the song ends. The joy just doesn’t feel like it is there sometimes.”
“You ever think about quitting?”
The word scares me so much I nearly laugh. “Sometimes. But I’d never be allowed to. Not with my father in the picture, though obviously he had other plans for me anyway so who knows.”
He doesn’t say anything to that.
We just fall silent, his eyes on mine.
“Show me another move,” I demand, to break the silence.
He does, but this time, we end up tangled together in a mild wrestle, and somehow land on the cold rock below.
His hands catch me, stop the fall from being so harsh, and then his body is over mine.
His face is right there, his eyes locked on mine.
I can see every nick, every old scar, the wild blue of his eyes, the fleck of gold around his pupil.
His grip says he could crush me, but his touch is stupidly, terrifyingly careful.
“If I didn’t know better,” he says, voice gone rough, “I’d think you liked me being on top of you.”
I bite my lip. “Dream on.”
He grins, wicked and knowing, and then he leans down and presses his lips to mine.
I taste sweat and salt and something delicious and masculine.
Every cell in me lights up. The ground is hard and cold, his body is heat and certainty, and there’s nothing in the world but this.
For the first time since the ocean tried to break us, I want nothing more than to be here, helpless under him, exactly as I am.
He drags his lips from mine, just barely, breath close and ragged. “You’re not as fragile as you look, sweetheart.”
“I might be able to move like a feather, but I am tougher than a rock.”
He grins, a small chuckle leaving his lips. “Well, we’ll have to see about that.”
And with that, he kisses me again, and for another blissful second, I stop thinking about the end of the world.
“WE HAVE TO TRY SOMETHING,” Rachel wails, on her knees, fingers clenched. “We can’t just sit here and watch her die.”
“What do you want us to do?” Tatiana shrieks, her eyes wide as she stares down at Iris. “What the fuck do you actually want us to do?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel sobs. “I honestly don’t know, but we can’t just give up.”
My heart skips a beat as I look down at Iris, who is coming in and out of consciousness.
She’s getting worse, hour by hour. Her fever has spiked, she is in pain, and her skin is coated in a fine film of sweat constantly.
We are managing to keep water up to her, but only just. She swallows slowly, moaning when she does.
Her wound is infected, red streaks running down her leg.
“Maybe we could put her in the ocean, let her leg soak in the salt water?” Aggie suggests, her voice smaller than I’ve ever heard it.
“Could make things worse,” Zeke mutters, arms crossed, eyes looking anywhere but at the girl on the ground.
Aggie takes a shaky breath. “At this point, does it matter? It’s worth a shot, right?”
Ace crouches beside Iris, palm going out to test her temperature.
His voice is steady, but I see how he’s unsure and doubtful.
Still, he’s going to do the best he can, that much I know.
“Aggie is right, it can’t hurt. Give her the remaining antibiotics, some painkillers, and we will take her and wash this. ”
I nod, throat tight, then kneel next to Aggie.
We give Iris the remaining antibiotics, painkillers, and some coconut water, then we gather towels and the jacket, creating a makeshift stretcher.
The guys lift Iris, with Aggie on one corner, too.
Rachel and Tatiana shadow us as we make our way down to the water.
The tide is out, a hundred meters of sand and shallow pools reflecting a sky that doesn’t seem like it cares whether any of us live or die.
We find a shallow, clean spot and then remove her bandage and lower her leg into the water.
She screams—high and sharp, like a fire alarm going off inside your head.
Rachel cradles her head, tears leaking down her face as she whispers, “You’re okay, you’re okay,” even as we all know she’s anything but.
Iris’s teeth chatter so violently I’m terrified they’ll break apart in her mouth.
Ace and Zeke stand a few meters away, letting us comfort her.
Kellen is perched on a rock, his shadow thrown long by the scalding sun.
Adrian is paddling around the water, trying to teach himself to swim just in case. I can’t with him. I actually can’t.
Seawater laps Iris’s thigh, red and angry around the wound.
The skin is tight, shiny, and the line of infection is a road map of how her body is losing.
We stay for twenty minutes, thirty, I don’t even know.
She moans, shivers, but she doesn’t faint.
Aggie and I gently work some of the scab and pus away, almost sick at the smell.
I watch, desperate, as if the ocean itself might turn into medicine.
Rachel is sitting in the water now, so she can be as close to Iris as possible.
Her shoulders are shaking. She’s afraid, we all are, but we’re in a situation we can’t just get out of.
We have to try and figure this out on our own, because that’s literally all we have left.
When the tide creeps up our calves, we drag Iris out and wrap her in every towel and dry cloth we have.
We haul her back to camp, lay her in the shade, force more water down her throat.
She never— The painkillers must kick in, because she’s out.
We take the chance to find what we have and redress her wound, and pray it works.
We leave her to rest, and focus on finding more food and fetching more water, none of us speaking.
What is there to say?
We’re all thinking the same thing: when will she die?
As the sun begins to set, we focus on preparing a fresh fish for dinner.
That’s when I hear it, yelling on the opposite side of the makeshift lean-to.
Rachel is yelling, raw and shrill and ugly.
I rush over to see Rachel standing, fists balled, screaming at Aggie and Tatiana, who are both screaming right back. Aggie has tears streaking salt down her cheeks, and Tatiana is in Rachel’s face, her back straight, ready to throw down.
“Stop it, all of you—just fucking stop!” I bark, voice raw.
My chest heaves so hard it threatens to split me down the middle.
Rachel spins on me, eyes blazing, “Maybe if you hadn’t fucked with the course, we’d be home, and Iris would be fine.”
I take a step back, hot shame curling into my stomach. “If I hadn’t, we’d all be dead or worse. Or did you want to see what my father had planned?”
“You don’t know what would have happened,” she spits, voice savage and trembling. “You don’t know what any of them wanted. Who said you get to decide? Who made you the goddamn boss of everyone’s fate?”
Fucking ouch.
I can’t speak, my hands hang at my sides as my body feels like it is slowly going numb from my toes up.
“If Iris dies, it’s your fault, all of you.
You’re the reason we’re stranded. You’re the reason she’s going to die here instead of a hospital, and you’re the reason we’re all going to die on this shithole of an island! ”
Tatiana kneels, burying her face in her hands, muttering a string of curses that collapse into sobs. Aggie stands rigid, arms crossed and mouth tight, like she’s holding herself together by a damn thread.
“What would you have me do, Rachel,” I whisper.
“Would you rather she die a different way? Locked in a basement? Being assaulted daily? Sold into a world you couldn’t even begin to imagine, where I promise you, I fucking promise you, she would wish she was dead.
I made a choice, and I stick by it.” My voice goes shrill and ugly by the end, but I can’t help it, can’t stop it.
Rachel stares at me, and for a second I think she might attack, but she only shakes her head, slow, like she’s seeing me for the first time.
“You don’t get it,” she whispers. “At least if we got sold, there was a chance someone could come and save us. Now, there is nothing. Nothing for her. Nothing for any of us.”
“You don’t know that,” Aggie is the one to speak, “And if you think we would have been saved, you’re wrong. Nobody gets saved from that world, Rachel. Nobody.”
A hand curls around my shoulder, making me flinch, but I breathe a little easier when Ace’s voice fills my ear. “Come on, Gracie. Walk it off with me.”
The softness of his voice undoes me, and I let him pull me away, into the green teeth of the jungle.
My legs shake so bad I almost stumble twice, but he keeps his hand on me, steady and silent.
We walk, stepping over roots, dead leaves, the hush of the trees wrapping around us until the only thing that matters is the brush of our limbs and the low murmur of the wind overhead.
I want to rage, to scream, but I’m empty.
Ace stops eventually, turns me, and looks me dead in the eye. “This isn’t on you,” he says, voice like gravel. “You did what you had to do, and so did I, and so did everyone else.”
I want to believe him. I do. “If she dies—”
He cuts me off, thumbs pressing hard at my jaw, “If she dies that’s not on you. Or me. Or anyone. We run out of miracles sometimes, Gracie. That’s just how it is.”
I exhale, leaning forward and press my forehead to his chest, breathing in smoke and salt and Ace, as if I could let him fill all my empty spaces.
I don’t know what it is about him, but he makes me feel safe, like I have known him a lifetime.
I wonder if I could survive this if he wasn’t here.
This man, this stranger, this person who is becoming my lifeline.
For a long time we just stand that way, tethered to each other, until the sound of something moving behind us makes Ace shift. I turn, and Kellen is standing on the path, arms folded, face drawn and grim.
“You need to come back to camp,” he says, and there is an emptiness in his voice that is final. “I think it’s time.”
The way he says it, I know.
I just know.
Everything is about to change.