CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX #2
‘Sometimes we have to hide the things we love.’
She starts singing, Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
‘Tanner.’
‘Daddy’s sorry babygirl.’
‘Tanner.’
‘Sorry I can’t come… home.’
‘Fuck the towel. Throw him in.’
‘Bee will… t-take care of—’
A shock of cold hits him like concrete, wakes his nervous system violently.
It’s salt water.
He’s on the beach, minutes before dawn.
He can still see the moon or maybe he’s hallucinating that too.
They threw him in the sea this time, no bucket or towel.
The temptation to drink seawater is strong, but it would only quicken his end. When Lachlan looks around, teeth chattering from the drastic shift in temperature, his little girl is gone.
Some faceless grunt has been assigned to Lachlan plus a spare, no Fenwick. ‘Today’s the day,’ the man informs him coldly. ‘Talk or die. End of the line.’
‘What d-do you wanna know?’
‘Whatever will get us off this fucking island! Our objective was complete days ago, but we can’t leave until Fenwick gets what he wants.’
Small fish swim curiously around Lachlan, who feels all his cuts as if they’re brand new, now exposed to the salty water.
He sees a starfish, must tell Mimi all about it.
His little girl has never been in the ocean.
Neither had Jules.
This portion of beach is still messy with debris from the storm, but even so, he can tell it’s not the picturesque place where the adults celebrated and swam. Lachlan backs out into the water.
‘Hey! Don’t get cute, fucker!’ the guy warns, raising his gun.
‘Fenwick is gonna get you all killed,’ Lachlan says, letting the tide pull him out. ‘Every single one of you.’
‘Bring him in!’
The spare stumbles through the water, trying to grab Lachlan, who kicks his shin and knocks him flat. His landing kicks up a weighty smack-splash and Lachlan grins, carried out further.
The nameless man fires a shot in the water.
The two men are wading through the dim waters of a pink and milky dawn.
Lachlan stares up at the sky, thinks of home.
Home. He never had one until he let himself love.
When they grab him, he puts up a fight. Water makes all attempts to leave it sluggish. He uses the warped gravity to his advantage, uses his own deadweight to drag them down.
All three men are pulled out, out, out.
Lachlan’s feet are no longer touching the sandy bottom.
The sway of the water surrounds him.
He grapples the spare, arm around his neck as tight as he can manage and chokes him out before letting him passively drown.
The other man, however, puts up much more of a fight.
Lachlan is weak.
He does what he can, uses the water where possible, but he can’t hold out for long.
The man beats him into submission, then arranges Lachlan’s body atop his own in the recovery position to aggressively backstroke them both to shore.
They’re clearly not done with him yet if such effort is being made to keep Lachlan alive.
The whole way back, the man is cursing violently, spitting frustrated fury and anger in Lachlan’s ear, who stares up at the sky again, only this time he’s seeing stars, little and big, silver and gold.
Rainbows.
She loves rainbows.
Lachlan smiles.
There are worse ways to die than in the water.
The man beneath him makes a board of his body to keep Lachlan alive and afloat. They’re close enough that Lachlan sees palm trees coming into view again when something sharply yanks them both down.
Lachlan is plunged into the water as if his navel is tied to an anchor.
The water makes instant darkness but not silence. He hears guttural, bubbly screams, the pair thrown side to side like ragdolls by some incredibly powerful force, thrashing until the screaming stops.
The man’s arms around Lachlan’s middle relax, releasing him.
Lachlan kicks up to the surface, gasping for breath.
A final microdose of adrenaline has triggered wakefulness.
He looks around.
The waters are red.
Entirely red.
He sees a massive fin.
The body of the man… oh, God.
The bottom half is bobbing like a cork.
The top half is gone.
Lachlan swims, fast and nimble.
He’s never felt so afraid in his entire life.
It’s barely ten yards until his feet are on sand, and he drags himself out of the water, almost irrationally terrified to look back, but he must, he must.
When he looks at the water, the other half is gone too.
The waves wash in and out, faintly pink, or maybe that’s the sunrise bloodily birthing a new day above.
The urge to vomit comes and goes. The opportunity he’s been desperate for has presented itself in the final moments, at the worst possible time.
He’s kitten-weak, disoriented, dehydrated.
‘Just stay awake,’ he tells himself, voice kind, if shaky. ‘Stay awake.’
Lachlan is twenty-six years old.
He doesn’t feel it.
For once, he feels young.
Childlike.
Stripped.
He lets himself feel it, lets it all in.
The desperate, childish wanting for Danya, for Blaire, for anyone who might take care of him for just a minute. He wraps his arms around himself, pretending it’s someone else.
Tears cut tracks of warmth through the salty cold.
His insides contort to grieve. Trauma is a bruise, a break.
The horror rises up.
Lachlan claps a hand over his mouth and screams as loud as he can.
His own ears ring with it.
Then he unwraps, loosens to take a slow, deep breath and focuses on the only things that matter.
?
Lachlan surveys the place from the vantage points of the surrounding foliage which provides a full and unimpeded view. If he had a weapon, he could take out many from here, endless sightlines providing opportunity, but both guns were lost to the sea.
The sunlight overhead casts glare.
The trees are slanted to his advantage.
Everything that worried him before is now on his side.
He pulls back and silently raids the outer staff lodgings from behind. The commandos have been sleeping here. Quiet like a snake, Lachlan sticks to the edges but there’s no one inside.
He finds weapons.
He finds water.
And he finds cocaine.
Water first.
He forces himself to take small, controlled mouthfuls.
Swallow one, swish and spit, swallow one, swish and spit.
When he hasn’t thrown it up, he deems it safe to drain the whole bottle.
He then takes two weapons, all the ammo he can find for those guns, cuts himself a generous line of coke before snorting it in one go and stuffing additional supplies into a backpack.
He devours a granola bar, drinks more, snorts more because his tolerance is very high and then Lachlan heads out into the bushes.
They know he’s missing by now.
They’re searching for him and the other two.
Craig Fenwick has the rest of his people pouring gasoline he found from the backup generators in the bunker. They’re drizzling it strategically, intending to burn the island in the hopes of smoke flooding the safe room ventilation to force Jules out.
It is the end of the line.
Final days desperation.
Lachlan checks his weapon, can’t afford a jam, and heat sometimes makes the metal expand, but these are top-range.
He’s always liked MP7s.
Once he starts firing, he’ll have to move fast.
He chooses his starting point carefully, using the placement of the red pool to weaponise glare. He takes aim, sighting through a makeshift scope. They seem to be in teams of two. Smart, but not smart enough.
Slow exhale, trigger squeeze.
Pop. Pop, pop, pop.
He’s always had exceptional aim.
Four down. The others start yelling and running towards him. Lachlan pulls back behind the pool, obscured in the bushes as he moves to the right. Lachlan quickly takes out three more.
Someone lights the fire.
It’s spreading fast, catching.
Craig Fenwick comes into view, the bitemark Lachlan gave him covered with gauze, brown in the centre. He looks sickly.
Lachlan takes aim.
Not a headshot, not for him.
He wants to get him in the neck, right through the bitemark, but someone runs past and accidentally takes the bullet for him, brains splatter all over Fenwick, who falls back hard against the wall, and then scurries away.
‘Motherfucker,’ Lachlan mutters.
There is no time to be wasted now that the fire is spreading.
He unleashes automatic fire on the men who run towards him, stays hidden until they’re too close and has to move again. He passes the failed attempt to kill Fenwick, sees the knife he dropped.
Lachlan’s knife, the custom build. He takes it, kissing it just once, and then shoots several more. He heads into the ruined mansion, barefoot, his soles are getting cut to ribbons. The wreckage is insane. Bodies, blood, glittering debris.
He has to get to Roman first.
Then Jules and Savannah.
Lachlan knows where Roman was being kept.
He takes out the two guarding him with ease.
Roman is conscious, but only barely. He offers a weak smile as Lachlan unties him quickly. ‘Lock.’
‘Drink slow,’ Lachlan tells him when he gives him water, checking for serious injuries. He’s picked up some new ones since Lachlan last clapped eyes on him but no stab wounds, nothing lasting. ‘Can you walk?’
‘Y-yeah.’
Lachlan pulls boots off one of the men whose feet look similar in size to Roman’s, does the same for himself although there isn’t much point. ‘Here.’ He laces them up for him. ‘We’re going to get the others now. Can you aim?’
‘Yes.’ Roman looks around. ‘What is burning?’
‘The island. Your father is downstairs, I think.’ Lachlan hopes Mikhail isn’t dead but knows it’s a possibility. He helps Roman up. ‘Ready?’
The boy swallows. ‘I’m ready.’
They move together, Lachlan covering him.
Along the way they take out two more each.
Mikhail is alone in the desiccated remains of the kitchen. The men who were holding him abandoned their positions to meet Lachlan and Roman head on, which was a grave mistake.
Roman runs to his father when he sees him. ‘Papa!’
Mikhail is missing several fingers. His son makes a strangled noise when he sees it, but Mikhail hugs his son tight when his hands are free.
‘Please,’ Lachlan says, knows the tipping point has come. He needs help getting Jules out. The last of the commandos will be in the bunker, Fenwick likely with them. ‘Help me.’