18. Dane Gallagher
Dane Gallagher
The weather turns in the early afternoon the way it always does out here—fast and without warning. One moment it’s holding, the next something shifts and the island just… changes.
I’m at the northern point when I see it. The water isn’t just rough anymore—it’s off. The swells cut at the wrong angles, out of sync with the wind. The surface has a tension to it I don’t trust. Even the horizon looks wrong—flat, dimmed, like the light’s been pulled out of it.
I head back to Charlotte.
She’s crouched near the fire, adjusting the wood to keep it burning evenly. I watch her for a second before she notices me.
The changes in her are subtle, but I know her too well not to see them. The way she shifts her weight. The slight favoring of one side when she stands. The tiny pauses that happen mid-task now, like her body checks itself before continuing.
She’s further along than we thought. I stopped trying to pin down how far. The number doesn’t change anything that matters.
She looks up when she hears me, and I catch the quick shift in her expression before she smooths it away.
“We need to move to the yacht.”
She glances past me toward the sky. “It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?”
“Don’t know yet. But I don’t like the way it’s building.”
Her attention stays on the horizon another second. “You think it’ll be worse than the storm in our second year?”
“Maybe.”
Probably.
She nods once, already adjusting to the plan. “Do you think a few days’ worth of food will be enough?”
Charlotte’s eating for two now. Whatever this storm turns into, running low isn’t an option anymore.
“Four days,” I say. “Just in case.”
We move quickly without rushing. She gathers what’ll keep longest—fruit, dried fish, anything that won’t spoil fast—while I fill water containers and secure what we’re leaving behind as best I can.
We’ve done this enough times that it barely requires thought anymore.
By the time we leave, the wind’s changed completely. Not just stronger now. Sharper. More aggressive. The storm’s building fast.
We cross the beach without speaking. The tide’s already pushing harder along the shoreline than it should be this early, water dragging roughly against the sand around our feet.
When the sand shifts beneath Charlotte, I steady her automatically with one hand at her back.
I don’t let go again until we reach the yacht.
“The shelter won’t hold if this gets much worse,” she says as I help her aboard.
“I know.”
I climb up after her and pause for a second, looking back toward shore.
The shelter looks smaller from here somehow. Less permanent. Everything we spent years building and reinforcing suddenly reduced to something fragile against the trees and darkening sky.
I hate leaving it behind.
But staying would be worse.
“This is the right call,” Charlotte says beside me. “You always make the right call.”
“It’s easy when there isn’t another option.”
The yacht’s already shifting harder beneath us than I want it to, and this isn’t even the worst of the storm yet.
I’ve already checked everything that could break free and turn dangerous once the weather really hits.
Charlotte’s in the main cabin, wedged between two fixed structures with mattresses on either side of her to soften the impact if the yacht starts throwing us around. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best protection I can give her.
I stay near the porthole, watching the water and running the same calculations through my head again and again. Wind direction. Tide movement. Wave height. How much worse this still has room to get.
“You’re second-guessing yourself.”
“I’m assessing.”
“Same thing.”
I keep my eyes on the water. “The shelter was too exposed. If this turns, the tree line won’t hold.”
“I know.” Her voice stays calm. “I’m not arguing with you. I’m just saying you can be uncertain and still be right.”
That makes me look back at her.
She’s watching me the way she always does when she’s noticed something I didn’t intend to show.
She shifts, and there’s a flicker in her expression she tries to hide. I catch it anyway.
“How long is this going to last?”
“Probably all night.”
I cross the cabin and crouch in front of her, close enough to read what she won’t say out loud.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“Charlotte—”
She exhales and finally meets my eyes. “There’s pressure down low. That’s the only way I know how to describe it.”
I hold her gaze for a second. “Tell me if anything changes.”
A small, tired smile pulls briefly at her mouth. “You’ll be the first to know.”
Not that there’s anything I can actually do if it does.
I go back to the porthole.
The wind hits harder now—there’s weight behind it. The yacht shifts against the sand and water, sharper than before, caught between grounded and afloat in a way it was never meant to handle.
I feel it through the floor.
The storm isn’t building anymore.
It’s here.
Within the hour, it turns into something else entirely. The wind doesn’t come in bursts—it holds, constant and heavy, pressing into the hull like it’s trying to tear it apart. The boat answers with a long groan that runs end to end.
The motion is wrong. Not a clean roll—jerking, uneven, lifting just enough to throw balance before slamming back down at an angle I can’t predict.
I get to Charlotte fast and pull her against me with one arm, holding her tight against my chest while I brace the other against the mattress beside her, absorbing the force of the yacht’s movement before it can throw her sideways.
“You don’t have to—” she starts.
“I do.”
“You’ll wear yourself out.”
“I’m fine.”
She gives me a look—recognizing her own words coming back at her, not impressed.
I don’t move.
“Dane.” Her voice shifts. “If this goes on for hours, you can’t—”
The hull lifts and drops wrong.
Not a roll. Not anything I can anticipate. The whole structure jolts sideways, hard enough to take my balance with it. My footing goes. I catch the frame—barely—but not in time.
Charlotte slips out from where I had her braced and slams into the bulkhead.
The sound she makes cuts through everything.
I’m moving before I think. Across the space, down in front of her, hands on her, checking. “Where,” I say. “Tell me where.”
“I’m—” She stops, both hands going to her abdomen. “I’m all right.”
“You’re not all right.” I watch her face, not her words. “Where does it hurt?”
“It’s probably nothing,” she says, breathing through it. “I’m okay, Dane.”
“Look at me.”
She’s too pale. Not from the storm. Not from the impact. Something else. And whatever she sees in my face makes her stop trying to hold it together.
For a second, we just look at each other.
“We’ll be all right,” I say.
I do my best to make it sound like the truth, and she nods once.
I reposition around her, tighter this time, adjusting for the way the yacht is moving—uneven, unpredictable, never settling into anything I can work with. I brace again and hold.
The pain starts about an hour later.
I see it before she says anything—the shift in her breathing, the way her jaw tightens and releases. It doesn’t match the storm anymore. There’s a rhythm to it.
I start counting.
“Charlotte.” I wait until she looks at me. “How long has this been happening?”
She rides one out before answering. “A little while.”
“How long is a little while?”
“An hour. Maybe two.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I thought it was from the fall and would go away,” she says, sucking in a tight breath before letting it out slowly through pursed lips.
“Is it?”
She hesitates. “I don’t know.” The control in her voice slips another little piece. “I really don’t know.”
“What do you need? How can I help?”
She shakes her head, and another wave of pain hits her before either of us can say anything else.
I feel her tense against me.
“Your pains are getting closer.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
“Charlotte—”
Her eyes close briefly. “I know what this might mean. I just… I don’t know what to do. And I don’t want this to be happening. It’s too soon.”
“I’ll do anything. Tell me what you need,” I say.
She looks at me then, and there’s something heartbreaking in her eyes. Fear. Pain. Helplessness.
“I wish I knew.”
I grip her hand. “I’d take this from you if I could.”
Outside, the storm finally starts to lose strength. The wind breaks apart into uneven bursts instead of one continuous force, and the yacht’s movement becomes less violent beneath us. There’s space between the impacts now. Breathing room.
Charlotte’s pain doesn’t ease with it.
“I’ve been worried for a while that something was wrong,” she says quietly after a moment. She takes a slower breath this time, trying to stay ahead of whatever’s happening inside her. “I didn’t tell you because you were already so scared for us.”
Us.
The word hits me harder than it should.
Another wave of pain folds through her before I can answer. Stronger this time. Longer. The sound she makes is low and involuntary, dragged out of somewhere beyond control.
I tighten my grip on her hand and keep talking to her through it—quiet, steady words without thinking too hard about what they are. Just something solid for her to hold onto while it passes.
When it finally eases, there are tears running down her face. She doesn’t even seem aware of them.
“I need to lie down.”
I don’t hesitate. I lift her into my arms and carry her toward the stateroom.
It’s dim inside the stateroom, the storm light coming weakly through the porthole in uneven flashes. I ease her down onto the bed as carefully as I can while the yacht still shifts beneath us. Then I stay close, one hand on her.
She stares up at the ceiling, breathing through another wave of pain.
“Dane.”
“I’m here. What do you need?”
She swallows hard and shifts slightly. “I need you to take my shorts off. It feels like—” Her breath catches sharply. “Like something’s coming out.”
“Okay.”
I help her carefully, forcing my hands to stay steady even while the floor moves beneath us.
The second the fabric’s out of the way, I see it.
Blood. Fluid. Too much of both.