Chapter 4 – Emma
CHAPTER 4
EMMA
D espite what my therapist says, I don’t have a phobia of flying. I’m well aware that more people die in cars than on planes and that ninety-something percent of passengers survive crashes as long as nothing catches fire.
None of that means shit when you’re barreling toward the ocean’s surface at a hundred and twenty miles an hour.
My hair and limbs were suddenly weightless as my ass lifted out of the seat, my stomach lurching into my throat. I’ve never been a religious person, but dammit if I didn’t see the appeal when we hit the water. The nose dipped beneath the surf and my life flashed before my eyes.
I had a string of boyfriends that I never made time for, a puppy that I had to give away because I was never home, two one-night stands, and a couple dozen visits with my brother, half of which were cut short because he would get called away on a mission. The most important people in my life have been my clients.
This can’t be it, can it? I'm gonna die and my thoughts go to...my work?! The seat harness slammed the air out of my lungs as my head snapped forward. Foaming water crashed over the windshield I felt a stab of regret for every single night that I chose to stay in my dorm and study instead of going out to party with my friends.
It’s not that I wasn’t curious or that I didn’t feel tempted to experience life to its fullest. But with my brother doing everything he could to make sure I had every opportunity that he didn’t, I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to make something of myself. I wanted to make him proud.
I hoped he was… The blinding terror finally forced me into the darkest, most dreamless sleep I’ve ever experienced.
I guess that wasn’t so bad… All in all, there are worse ways to die.
“Emma?” Nathan’s voice cut through the murk and I blinked, letting my eyes focus on his backlit silhouette and the blue-gray sky behind him. “Emma, wake up. We can’t stay here.”
“What?” I rolled my head from side to side, realizing I was lying on sand instead of sitting in a cockpit seat.
Am I dead? Sitting up, slowly, I massaged the deep ache in the back of my neck. Nope, definitely not dead.
“Haaay, buuuuddy.” Nathan smiled, rubbing my back in slow circles like someone comforting a little kid. “You okay, champ?”
“I think so.” I looked around for the plane but didn’t see it anywhere.
“I’ll give you a few minutes, but we need to start walking before they come looking for us.
“Where are we?” I slowly stood up and dusted myself off. “I thought we were going to crash.”
“Like I said… It was a totally–controlled water landing .” He nodded, putting his hands on his hips with a relaxed self-assurance that irritated the crap out of me. “I mean, your brother probably told you some stories about the amazing pilot on his team, right?”
“My brother doesn’t talk about his work much.” I shrugged. “He isn’t big on sharing about himself. At least not with me… or, not anymore. Where’s the plane?”
“I managed to use our momentum to pull her right into this little alcove over here.” He gestured to a rock formation that jutted out over the shallow water that receded into tide pools.
“How did I– um…” I gestured to the spot where I was lying down. “How long was I out?”
“Fifteen minutes maybe? You didn’t have any obvious signs of broken bones or internal bleeding, so I hefted you over here to go assess the damage to the plane. Thanks for keeping in shape, by the way. Made my job easy.”
He did all that in fifteen minutes? I blushed, imagining him inspecting me for injuries.
“The good news is that the only damage I’m seeing seems to be to the fuel tank.” He wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Is that easy to fix?”
“Some rubber tubing and electrical tape to patch the lines, maybe some insta-weld, and I think I can get her back up in the air.”
I looked around at the deserted beach. It was completely quiet and serene except for the waves rolling onto the golden sand.
“So, uh… where do we get that stuff?”
“I guess we’ll have to hike back to civilization and find it.” He cracked his neck.
“Hike?” I laughed. “You realize we have no idea where we are.”
“The entire island is only twenty-seven miles long.” He held his arms out. “I know we’re on the Northwestern shore, so if we start hiking that way…” He pointed into the thick jungle terrain. “We should be back in town within five hours.”
“Or we could call someone…” I reached into my bra for my phone… which wasn’t there.
I frantically patted my back pockets, my front pockets, and then Nathan said, “Oh, about that…” He held up a black rectangle framed with a purple case. A spiderweb of cracks covered the screen. “This bounced around the cabin when we landed. Sorry… Nice iPhone 14 though! Fancy.”
I took it into my hand and hung my head with a resigned sigh.
“Should I just wait in the plane then?” I looked around, squinting at the sun. “I bet you’d be a lot faster without me.”
“What happens if I come back and you’re gone?” He crossed his arms. “If that big roided-out Ken doll comes back, I doubt you can fight him off with your psychology degree.”
I got to my feet, thought about the hike Nathan proposed, and noticed my legs felt shaky at best.
“Come on, we both know that Jax would kill me if I let you out of my sight, especially after everything that’s happened.” He strode toward an opening in the underbrush and I groaned. “Come on, Doc, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“Stop saying stuff like that! You're gonna jinx us all over again.”
“Touché,” he called over his shoulder.
I huffed and trudged along behind him.
Twenty feet into the bush, trees towered over us, providing a thick canopy that gave some shelter from the brutal sun. Unfortunately, it didn’t spare us from the humidity or the uneven terrain. I tried my best to keep up, stepping where he stepped to avoid the tangled undergrowth.
It wasn’t but ten seconds into our little adventure before sweat started trickling down my entire body. Every fiber of my clothing started getting soaked and sticking to me like a second skin. Nathan nearly lost me a couple of times before slowing his pace to something semi-manageable. But even then, I was definitely getting my cardio in.
I licked my cracked lips, wishing I’d thought to pack a water bottle. Unfortunately, after getting attacked by two assassins, death by dehydration wasn’t high on my list of worries.
“Can we stop and rest, please?” I panted, rubbing a cramp in my side. “I’m sort of dying here.”
“Yeah, of course.” Nathan was already a good thirty feet ahead of me, so he had to double back as I sat on a log, swatting at a cloud of gnats that thought my nose might be a fun place to check out. “You okay?”
“Could be better.” I looked down and pulled the neck of my shirt over to one side so I could look at the bruises from the shoulder harness. I felt like a horse kicked me in the chest. “I’m just not used to hiking through the jungle, I guess.”
“You’re a local.” He put his hands on his hips. “I figured you would have been out here every other weekend to unwind or something.”
I furrowed my brow.
“Not an outdoor girl?” He tilted his head. “You don't do...surfing and stuff?”
“Surfing, yes.” I wiped the sweat-soaked hair sticking to my forehead back, twisting it up into a messy bun. “Hiking, not so much. I like to be able to get out of the water any time I want and walk down to the bar when I’m done. Dear God, I wish I hadn’t skipped breakfast. What I wouldn’t give for some jerk chicken fries and a margarita.”
“That does sound pretty good.” He sat down on a rock across from me. “When did you learn to surf?”
“College in Long Beach.” I picked at a hangnail on my cuticle. “It’s probably the only adventurous thing I’ve ever done. I wish that would have flashed before my eyes when I thought we were about to die. It would have been a hell of a lot better than mentally recalling all my clients over the years.”
I recalled the last time I went surfing and imagined myself gliding through a luminous blue tube of water, skimming my fingers against the cool surface as my consciousness dissolved into oblivion.
“Sorry about that.” He slapped a bug on his neck and brushed it off. “I know that was pretty scary. I mean, I’ve been trained to calm people down in stressful situations, but I sort of dropped the ball up there.”
“No, it’s…” I chuckled. “It’s not you. Flying has never been my favorite thing. I wouldn’t call it a phobia exactly, but the thought of dying in a plane crash has always sort of freaked me out.”
“Did something happen?” He frowned. “Jax doesn’t really talk about your parents.”
“No, no…” She shook her head. “Our mom overdosed when I was ten and my dad just didn’t come around much. He reached out to me about four years ago to see if I wanted to co-sign on a loan for some kind of weight-loss shake business.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He looked away. “I knew you guys had it rough. I… I shouldn’t have asked–”
“No, it’s fine.” I smiled, waving off his apology. “Jax looked out for me. Made sure I had a decent childhood. He definitely didn’t have anyone looking out for him, so I can’t complain.”
“Don’t say that.” He braced his arms on his knees and leaned forward. “You don’t have to compare your experience to someone else’s for it to be valid.”
“Hey, no shrinking the shrink, remember?” I offered a wry grin.
“No, it’s… just something I’ve learned.” He laughed. “I’ve seen a guy lose three out of four limbs who thought he was the luckiest guy in the world, and I’ve known someone who fell apart and gave up on life because of three grand in credit card debt.”
“It puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?” I looked down at my feet and picked some prickly seed pod things off my socks. “Seeing what the human spirit is capable of under incredible pressure, and also seeing grown people act like complete babies over their senile parents forgetting their birthday.”
“All I’m saying is, it’s all relative.” He reached out and nudged my arm awkwardly.
I smiled. He seemed so smooth before I knew he was Jax’s friend. Now that he was trying to put on this bro-sona, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
“What is it?” He flashed a nervous smile.
“Nothing.” I shrugged and stood up. “I guess we’d better get moving if we want to grab food before we try to fly out again.”
“We’re not rolling into a restaurant when there are people on the island actively trying to kill us.” He trekked along behind me.
“They shot us down.” I ducked under a cluster of vines. “They probably think we’re already dead.”
“I doubt it,” he said under his breath. “If I had to guess, I’d say they wanted us to crash and burn or starve out here so it looked like an accident instead of being blown up by the military. I just can’t figure out why they'd go through all that trouble to do so.”
“Well, either way.” I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m already feeling light-headed, so if I don’t eat soon, you might be hauling my unconscious body through this jungle.”
He paused.
I stepped into a root as the terrain started to incline and the foliage grew more dense.
Minutes turned into hours, and soon, the trail was so steep that the trees grew at odd angles, bending themselves to orient their leaves toward the sun. My thighs burned, and the bones in my feet felt torn apart with every step. Sweat poured down the small of my back in rivulets.
Unsure of how far we’d come, I glanced over my shoulder.
“On second thought, maybe you should lead the way.” I sat down. “You’re the one that knows where we’re going.”
“You’re pointed in the right direction.” He looked around. “But yeah, I’ll go on ahead.”
“Wait.” I put my hands to my head, trying to soothe my throbbing temples. “I just need a minute. I think the heat is getting to me.”
“Here.” He crouched in front of me. “Look at me.” Lifting my chin, he pressed his fingers to the artery in my neck to take my pulse. “You feeling nauseous?”
“A little.” I took a slow breath and closed my eyes while he felt my head.
“You might be heading toward a heatstroke if we’re not careful.” He squinted up at the canopy, looking around to orient himself with the sun. “This is the hottest part of the day. You wait here, and I’ll look for food and fresh water.”
“Wait, what?” I grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. “You wouldn’t leave me at the beach, but you’ll walk off and leave me in the middle of this?”
“You'll be having margaritas with baby Jesus if I let you die of heatstroke.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “Look, I won’t be far. But this isn’t your air-conditioned bungalow, and you’re not used to the heat. You need food and water if we’re going to make it back to town.”
He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to acknowledge that he was right. I nodded and leaned forward, putting my head in my hands.
He looked around, spotted something, and stomped over to a bamboo tree. He carved off a three-foot chunk of it, dug a hole into the side of the bamboo, and handed it to me. “Here ya go. Freshest water on the island.” I looked at him with confusion on my face. He brought the bamboo chunk up above his head and water dripped out the hole into his mouth. "Tastes...bamboo-ey. Fresh even. Way better than the alternatives, trust me."
He handed the bamboo chunk to me and I did the same, holding it above my head and letting the water dribble into my mouth. A moment later I found myself sucking the thing dry like it was the last water on earth.
Nathan chuckled. "I'll get us a bit more."
I sighed and tried to get one more drop out of the stalk of bamboo as he headed off.