Chapter 16
ADRIAN, BEING THE ABSOLUTE true warrior he is, wakes up a few hours after the whole ordeal.
We have loaded him up on painkillers, but how long those will bring relief, we don’t know.
As his eyes open, he looks around at all of us, hovering, waiting for his reaction to the horrific events that unfolded earlier.
Through a bloodshot gaze, he scans us all. “Tell me you kept the leg.”
His voice is hoarse, and scratchy, so we’re all no doubt certain we heard him wrong.
Ace tips his head to the side. “Brother, tell me what you remember?”
“I know my leg is gone,” he croaks, shifting. “I want to see it. Tell me you still have it.”
We’re confused.
“There was no saving it,” Kellen begins, but stops when Adrian pushes up with a groan, so he is leaning on his elbows.
“No, I want to keep it.”
Narrowing my eyes, I look to Aggie and Tatiana, who are both staring in shock and confusion.
“You want to... keep it?” Zeke mutters. “Your leg?”
Adrian nods. “It’s my leg, I want to keep it. I need it, like a trophy for everything we have been through.”
Maybe the pain medication is sending him even further into crazy town than he is on a good day.
“Adrian, buddy,” Ace begins, carefully. “You know it’s flesh, right? It will rot.”
He snorts. “We’re surrounded by salt water, I’ll preserve it.”
Rachel looks green, like she’s going to vomit at the thought.
“You... you can’t keep your leg,” she gasps, horrified.
Adrian looks to her. “Why not?”
“Because... it’s a fucking leg.”
I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. Full body hysteria that catches on fast, until we’re all laughing, unable to stop it. It’s a mix of trauma, exhaustion and just accepting how crazy Adrian actually is.
“You cannot be serious,” Kellen wheezes, through laughter. “Buddy, we’re not digging up your leg.”
Adrian shoots him a look. “If you don’t, I will. That belongs to me. My mother grew it. I’m keeping it.”
Oh lord.
“You do you, boo,” I giggle. “I’m sure Ace would love to show you where he buried it.”
Ace stops laughing and his face twists. “Fuck me. I’m not digging up a damn leg.”
“Well, I’ll need you to carry me to the location, so I can,” Adrian tells him.
Ace looks truly bewildered. “How about you rest, because that is goin’ to hurt like fuck when the painkillers wear off, and we will... deal with the leg.”
Adrian studies him. “Well, you can’t leave it in there too long, I am going to need to start the preserving process.”
Rachel throws her hands up and turns away. “I can’t. We’ve all lost it.”
Aggie is still laughing, her eyes wide, like she’s in some sort of dream she can’t wake up from.
“I’m with you,” Tatiana says, disappearing. “Ew.”
“I’m goin’ to get to work makin’ a contraption that Adrian can get around in,” Zeke says, shaking his head, still looking utterly confused.
This day feels almost unbelievable.
“Are you in pain?” I ask Adrian, kneeling down next to him and putting a hand on his head. No fever or clamminess.
“No,” he shrugs. “It’s like it is still attached.”
Oh boy.
Bless you, Adrian.
“Well, we’re goin’ to give him the antibiotics from the new kit now,” Kellen tells me. “We don’t want a repeat of Iris.”
Nobody argues.
Not this time.
We will do everything we can to keep everything clean.
“I’m goin’ to get some water,” Ace says.
“I’ll come, we’ll do a big run,” Kellen claps his hands together.
“We’ll get Adrian comfortable and fed,” I tell them.
They disappear and Aggie helps me adjust Adrian so he is sitting upright.
He doesn’t want to lay down. We also elevate his leg, or what’s left of it.
Then, we give him a protein bar. He needs that more than any of us right now.
He insists he doesn’t want strong painkillers, so we stick to just Tylenol which he seems to have no problem with.
This man is something else.
“Are you sure you’re not in pain?” I say, adjusting a blanket behind his back and the rock wall so he is comfortable.
“No pain,” he says, casually, as if his leg wasn’t bitten off by a fucking shark a few hours ago.
Maybe he’s in shock still, that’s possible.
“Adrian, I’m asking in the kindest way possible,” I begin. “You do know that you were attacked by a shark earlier and went through an incredibly traumatic situation?”
He looks at me. “Yes, I am aware. I am alive though, aren’t I?”
“Yes, but...”
“That’s good enough for me.”
Okay, maybe it is shock.
I don’t argue.
“Okay, well I am going to get a couple of coconuts so you can get some electrolytes.”
He nods, already picking up a stick and using his knife to sharpen it.
When I die and come back to life, I want to come back as Adrian.
I set off into the jungle, heading towards the watering hole to get some coconuts.
I’m just appearing out of the track we have slowly paved through the jungle, when I hear Ace and Kellen talking.
Usually, I wouldn’t stop, I would just bust right in, but one sentence stops me in my tracks.
It’s like someone has a remote and presses pause, because suddenly, I can’t move.
It’s like the whole world stops.
“You two are gettin’ serious,” Kellen is saying.
“You need to tell her. We got fuckin’ paid to deliver them, Ace.
We knew what was waiting for those girls at the end of that boat trip and we were very willing to hand them over.
If she finds out from anyone but you, that’s it. Everything you two have—gone.”
A long silence.
“I know, but if I tell her, I lose her. I can’t fuckin’ lose her, man.”
I just stand there, numb, the words rearranging themselves in my head, looking for a different explanation for what I’m hearing. But I keep spiraling back to one.
One horrible truth.
I know I need to move, to run, to do something.
I have to make it back to camp, right now, because my heart is a wild, terrified thing and if I don’t keep moving, I’ll collapse on this path and turn to mulch in the dirt.
But my legs walk me forward, not toward the fire or the circle where everyone waits, but toward the sound of those voices—the men I trusted, the men I was starting to think of as family.
The man I am so hopelessly in love with.
They’re still talking, and I half-walk, half-stumble out of the jungle, leaves scratch my shins, and I almost trip on a gnarled root, but I need to know, I need them to see me like this, because I am hollowed out and shaken all the way to my core, and even then, I am praying I’m wrong.
I need to be wrong. Kellen sees me first, he goes rigid, like a statue, and Ace turns, his entire body going tense.
I can see it in his eyes, even before his mouth opens.
Everything I heard is true.
“Gracie—” he starts, voice low, caught.
“Don’t,” I croak. My voice comes out a ragged gasp, but I don’t care. “Don’t fucking say my name. Is it true?” I’m shaking so violently a numbness climbs up my fingers to my shoulders. “Tell me right now, is it fucking true?”
He tries to close the distance, but I stagger backward, nearly falling. “Don’t you fucking come near me,” I scream, so high-pitched even Kellen flinches.”
Kellen steps away, gives us a wide berth, but doesn’t run.
He stays around, why I don’t know. Maybe moral support.
Maybe he knows that this is the only way it could ever go.
Ace looks at me, and there is something in his eyes I have never seen before—maybe he’s always had it and I was just too blind, too desperate, to see.
It’s shame. It’s regret. It’s knowing that everything you touch gets stained.
He opens his mouth, closes it, but he doesn’t look away. Eventually, he speaks.
“Your dad hired us.” Each word is grit, pain, and truth. I flinch with every one. “Your dad paid us, a lot, to get you girls to the location where you would be sold. We were supposed to keep you safe and alive, deliver you all and then walk away.”
Keep you alive. Deliver you. Like fucking livestock.
I feel it then, the nausea, bitter and thick, rising up so fast I have to bend over and pant through it so that I don’t vomit all over the ground.
Ace keeps talking, but the world is a tunnel, the sound rushing in and out, the blood roaring in my ears.
“I didn’t know you, Grace. It was just a job.
Once I got to know you, I never would have... ”
“It wouldn’t have gotten to that,” I scream, my head whipping up. “We only had days left on that boat, and there is no way you ever would have known who I was in that short time.”
“That’s not true,” he rasps, voice low.
“And you?” I hiss, turning on Kellen.
Kellen looks defeated, like he has reached the end of his rope. “None of us liked it, kid. But we didn’t have a fuckin’ choice. We had our reasons for doin’ it, we didn’t know the kind of people you all were.”
“What a fucking cop out,” I cry, the tears flowing freely down my cheeks now. “We’re fucking young girls, human beings, that alone should have been enough.”
“Grace,” Ace tries again.
I look up at him, and he flinches at the pain written all over my face.
“I told you about my father. I told you everything, and you—” My throat closes, and I have to force the next words out.
“You made me feel like I finally wasn’t alone.
Like we could be... something in this shit world.
And all that time, you knew that you were there to fucking sell us.
You let me take on the guilt of that shipwreck, the guilt of us being stuck here, when all along, it was your fucking fault. ”
Ace moves forward, maybe to touch me, but I flinch again, and he stops. “That’s not what it is. Things changed after we met you. We were already reconsidering when the yacht went down.”
“Oh, well in that case, everything is fine,” I croak, sarcastically. “You’re fucking delusional if you think that makes it any better.”
He shakes his head. “Grace, please, just fuckin’ listen to me.”
“No!” My voice rings through the trees. “Don’t you fucking speak to me. You let me fall...” I clutch my chest. “You let me fall in love with you, you self-centred pig.”