CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR #5
Roman’s knee presses against him. With his hands behind his back, he can’t touch Lachlan, but he bends in half to press his forehead to Lachlan’s shoulder. ‘Yes,’ he tells him, voice cracking slightly. ‘I was afraid they killed you.’
Lachlan keeps his eyes closed. ‘What’d they ask you?’
‘How to get into the panic room, if I knew what Julian was.’
Lachlan blinks, trying to focus. ‘Do you?’
Roman whispers, ‘I don’t know much about Brightlings.’
‘But you know… he is one?’
‘I know what made the storm that night,’ he utters.
Lachlan tries to sit but to get vertical, he has to roll over and the pain of that might actually make him pass out. He does it anyway, clinging to necessity, to the need to see Roman, get eyes on him.
Roman helps, lending his shoulders wherever he can.
Wheezing to draw even shallow breaths, Lachlan finally gets upright and looks Roman all over in the light of a nearby fire. ‘How bad?’
‘I am all right,’ he tells Lachlan. ‘They’re not professionals.’
‘I know, but if they take you to the sea tomorrow…’
‘I won’t break,’ Roman says, trying to smile. ‘Dicks can be brave.’
Lachlan forces himself not to look at the kid, instead takes in what he can of the area. Whitlock’s body is gone. The twins are asleep in the corner. The fire from outside bathes the place in faint orange.
The people around it share food and water, speaking quietly.
‘I set up a contingency trigger with Danya,’ Lachlan whispers. ‘Twenty-four hours. He’ll come for us, but he has to find it first.’
Roman grimaces. ‘That won’t be easy. It’s very off-grid.’
‘I know, but Danny’s smart.’ Lachlan stares. ‘Do you know…?’
Roman is nonplussed, a line between his eyes. ‘Do I know what?’
He doesn’t know, then.
This definitely isn’t the time to inform him.
‘Sorry, my focus is fucked,’ Lachlan says, casting around. ‘Whatever the initial objective was, they’ve gone off-book in a big way. The guy in charge is Mason Fenwick’s brother.’
‘The man you shot?’
‘Yes. He wants to know what really happened to Mason.’
‘What did really happen?’
‘I partially eviscerated him and then Alistair shot him in the face.’
Roman grimaces. ‘Ah.’
‘We basically just need to hold out for Danya.’
‘You’re sure he is coming?’
‘One hundred percent.’
‘Then how do we last?’
‘We can give them small bits of intelligence on the understanding that nothing gets off this island.’
‘What if they’re radioing their information back?’
‘They’ve gone rogue. I heard Wake say earlier they were supposed to be out by now. This was an extraction, or that’s how it started out.’
‘For…’ Roman glances around. ‘Lazorevy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lachlan answers honestly. ‘Most likely, but I can’t be sure. How are you feeling?’
‘Fine.’
‘Anything broken or fractured?’
‘No, just sore.’
‘They’ll give you water soon.’
Roman nudges Lachlan with his shoulder. ‘I’m OK.’ He sobers, staring at the fire. ‘It’s my fault we’re—’
‘No. I was coming back out for Mikhail anyway,’ Lachlan lies, clocking the dark shadows on the floor moving slowly, the snakes coming to investigate, among others. ‘Stay close to me now,’ he bids. ‘Get some sleep.’
‘We can sleep in shifts,’ the nineteen-year-old offers.
‘Yeah, sounds good. You sleep first.’ Lachlan offers his thigh as a makeshift pillow. ‘I’ll wake you in two hours.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘OK. Two hours.’
Roman Sorrenko lies on his side, his head in Lachlan’s lap. It must be awkward and painful, but he desperately needs rest.
‘Two hours,’ Lachlan says gently, another lie.
The dark shadows are moving in. Lachlan guards his body all night.
?
Madeline Delacroix’s screams wake the island.
Lachlan was only lightly dozing but the shrill outburst jolts him anyway. Roman is still there, safe and unharmed. Lachlan used his bare feet to gently nudge away any curious crabs that came close in the night, kept respectfully still when the pit vipers crawled by.
The same cannot be said for the Delacroix twins.
Roman wakes, looking wildly around, struggling to rise with his hands behind his back. ‘Chto ne tak?’ he gasps.
‘You’re OK, Mikhail is fine,’ Lachlan tells him, helping Roman to sit up while turning him away from the scene. ‘Ro, look at me.’
‘What is it? What—?’
‘Just look at me,’ Lachlan instructs calmly.
Madeline Delacroix won’t stop screaming, pulling hungry crabs off the blackened, poison-bloated corpse of her brother until she’s dragged away. Lachlan doesn’t need to look to see. He knows what happened in the night.
Prescott rolled onto a pit viper, never woke again.
The crabs and the rats were waiting. The men who study what was once Prescott Delacroix gag loudly. ‘Fuck me, what did that? Snakes?’
‘Little snakes don’t eat humans, thicko. This was crabs and… ugh. Fuck, that’s ripe. Let’s just chuck him in the sea.’
‘Keep looking at me,’ Lachlan intones. ‘You’re doing so well.’
Roman’s eyes fill with tears.
‘What was it?’ he whispers. ‘Tell me.’
‘Everything’s going to be fine, I promise.’
When they’re gone, Roman drops his head onto Lachlan’s shoulder.
Lachlan has no hands free with which to hug or hold, so he bows his head against Roman’s, keeps telling him everything is going to be OK.
Lachlan always was a good liar.