Chapter 36
Rising Water
The cave groaned.
It wasn’t a subtle sound—it was deep, guttural, the kind of noise that vibrated through stone and bone alike.
Emma’s head snapped up from where she crouched beside Zach, her hands pressed against the makeshift bandage torn from her shirt.
Water surged past her knees now, no longer the gentle seepage from earlier but a determined flood driven by the storm surge pushing against the cliffs.
Another groan. Louder this time.
Small rocks tumbled from the ceiling and splashed into the rising water. The cave that had been their shelter was transforming into something else—a trap, closing around them with the inexorable patience of the ocean itself.
“Zach, wake up!” Emma shook his shoulders, careful of his injury.
“We have to move.” Emma’s voice cut through the howl of wind screaming through the mouth of the cave. Her heart hammered in her chest as she assessed Zach’s condition. His skin held a concerning pallor beneath the tan, and his breathing came shallow and uneven.
His eyes opened to slits, the gray-blue depths clouded with pain and something else—the fog of whatever was shutting down his body. “Emma…”
“I know.” She shifted her weight, bracing herself. “Can you stand?”
He tried. God, he tried. Zach was the most controlled person she’d ever met, a man who treated his body like a weapon, honing it to perfection. But his muscles betrayed him; his legs buckled before he got his weight beneath him.
Emma caught him, jamming her shoulder into his ribs as she wrapped her arm around his waist. All six foot four, two hundred twenty-five pounds, of him tilted against her like a falling tree.
This isn’t going to work.
The thought crashed through her mind with crystalline clarity.
She was strong—yoga and Zumba and running had given her an athletic build she was proud of—but in no universe was she strong enough to drag his dead weight through rising water, over slick stone, and up a steep cliff path. In a hurricane.
The Windstone vibrated against her hip, warm through the soaked fabric of her pocket, as if it wanted her attention.
Emma’s breath caught. The stone has responded to her before—to danger, to intention, to her desperate need for help in the suffocating dark. Now it thrummed with an energy she could almost taste, electric and ancient and alive.
She didn’t understand it. Didn’t have time to understand it. But when she shifted her stance and pulled Zach’s arm more securely over her shoulders, the weight that should crush her felt… manageable. He was still heavy, but invisible hands helped share the burden.
“Come on.” Her voice steadied, drawing on whatever reserves she had. “Left foot. That’s it.”
They moved together in a grotesque parody of a three-legged race, Emma taking small, calculated steps while Zach struggled to coordinate his legs.
Water splashed around their calves. The wind found every crack and crevice in the cave now, shrieking through gaps in the rock like something alive and furious.
Another shower of rocks rained down behind them.
Emma’s pulse spiked, but she kept moving. One step. Another. The cave mouth loomed ahead, a gray rectangle of stormwracked sky that promised freedom and fresh danger in equal measure.
Zach’s head dropped against her shoulder. His breath ghosted warm across her collarbone, unsteady and too fast. The scent of him cut through the salt and stone—mahogany and teakwood with that strange thread of lavender.
“Almost there,” she muttered, not sure who she was trying to convince. “Just a little further.”
His weight shifted, and for a horrible moment she thought he passed out, but then his hand tightened on her shoulder—weak, trembling, but there. Fight still burned in him, even half-conscious.
I can’t lose him.
The thought struck with the force of a physical blow, stealing the breath from her lungs more effectively than the wind battering against them.
When had this happened? When had Zach Steele—stoic, controlled, impossible Zach who viewed the world through the lens of threat assessments and tactical advantages—become someone she couldn’t live without?
She knew the answer. Had known it for a while but had been too practical, too focused on the job, too aware of the impossibility of it all to acknowledge the truth.
Now was not the time. Not like this.
They stumbled out of the cave into the fury of the storm.
The rain didn’t fall so much as attack, driven horizontal by wind that tried to tear Emma off her feet.
She gasped, squinting against the assault, her free hand coming up to shield her face.
The ocean roared somewhere below, invisible behind sheets of rain but present in the way the ground trembled beneath her.
“There.” She spotted a cluster of rocks twenty feet away—not quite shelter, but better than nothing. The pile formed a rough alcove that would help block the worst of the wind.
Hauling Zach to the rocks took everything she had.
The Windstone pulsed rhythmically, its warmth bleeding through her wet clothes, and she sent a silent prayer of gratitude for whatever magic or technology or pure impossibility kept her upright.
Her legs burned. Her shoulders screamed.
She kept moving until they reached the rocks, until she lowered him down with his back against stone. She collapsed beside him.
His eyes were closed now.
“Zach.” Emma’s hands found his face, cupping his jaw. Rain sluiced over them both, but beneath the water his skin felt wrong—too warm in some places, too cold in others. “Zach, look at me.”
His lashes flickered. Those gray-blue eyes appeared, unfocused but aware. “Emma…”
“Shh. Just rest now. We’re safe for the moment.” Emma lied through her teeth. They weren’t safe. They were outside in a category four hurricane. But he was barely conscious, unable to do anything. He was dying in her arms, and there was nothing she could do.
A sob escaped her control. Somewhere along the line, she’d fallen in love with him. When had that happened?
“I’m here.” He rasped, eyelids drooping.
She moved her hands to his shoulders, then down to his wrist. His pulse was weak, barely detectable. The wound in his arm was inflamed. Blood mixed with water, diluted to pink in the downpour. She peered closer—a darker discoloration ringed the injury, spreading in thin tendrils beneath his skin.
The assassin’s words pushed to the forefront of her mind:
The island had a solution for us.
Lionfish venom’s a nasty thing.
Letting a blade cut you.
Now you’ll pay the price.
“Oh, God.” The pieces clicked together with horrible clarity. “The assassin—he mentioned lionfish venom. Could he have put it on his knife?”
“The groundskeeper.” Zach’s face whitened as realization dawned. “Blade looked wet. Cut my arm.”
“Venom.” Her voice came out steady despite the ice flooding her veins. She needed confirmation, to know she wasn’t making assumptions that might kill him. “Zach, tell me what you feel. Could it be lionfish venom?”
“Fits…” His head moved in what might be a nod. The single word seemed to cost him, his breath caught on the syllable. “Cut hurts… shouldn't. Dizzy. Muscles not working…”
That was all he managed, but it was enough.
Emma’s mind kicked into a higher gear, that calm resilience that lived at her core rising to meet the crisis.
She couldn’t panic. Panic would kill him as surely as the poison.
So instead she focused on every scrap of memory from her time with Ana-Luz: kneeling beside the wounded fisherman, the sharp herbal scent of the paste used.
Small dark berries. Leaves with serrated edges, crushed to release their oils.
What had Ana-Luz said? The green herb stopped the swelling. The black berries pulled the venom out. Island medicine. Folklore.
It was all she had.
“Stay with me.” Emma squeezed his shoulder and pushed to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”
She scanned around her, rain stinging her eyes. Ana-Luz found many of her herbs in the cliff area.
Her attention snagged on a bush clinging to life in a crack between stones, dark berries gleaming despite the storm. She stumbled to it and stripped the fruit with shaking hands, dropping them into her palm. When she’d taken every berry the bush had to offer, she searched for the leaves.
She scrambled further away, slipping on the trail. The berries fell from her hands and scattered in the wind. “No!” she slid after them, collecting all she found. She crawled back to Zach and put the berries in his shirt pocket for protection.
She peered around again. She hadn't seen any near the berries, so maybe in the opposite direction. She crept along the narrow path, studying the bushes she passed. A tiny shrub with serrated leaves grew low to the ground further up the path. She scrambled to it as fast as the wind allowed.
Please… let these be the right things!
Back at Zach’s side, Emma worked quickly.
She crushed the berries between her palms, their juice staining her skin purple-black.
The leaves came next, torn and ground between stones until they released their sharp, medicinal scent.
She mixed them together, ignoring how her hands trembled, how inadequate this felt against an invisible enemy invading his bloodstream.
“This will hurt,” she warned him, though she wasn’t sure if he was conscious enough to hear. She peeled back the makeshift bandage.
The wound beneath made her stomach clench. The discoloration had spread further, dark tendrils radiated out from the injury like poisoned tributaries. Something hid in the cut flesh—a shadow that didn’t belong, an unnatural taint.
She didn’t have the hot water Ana-Luz applied first, so Emma pressed her fingers around the edges of the cut, applying careful pressure to force out at least some of the venom.
Zach’s entire body went rigid, muscles locking tight, and a groan escaped his throat.
His body slumped. His head lulled to the side.
But poison seeped out, blacker than blood, viscous in a way that made her skin crawl.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she murmured, tears running down her face.
She continued applying pressure until no more of the tainted substance emerged.
She scooped up the berry-leaf mixture with a last prayer that they were the right things and packed it into and around the wound.
The result looked thin. Too thin for the size of the cut. It wasn't enough.
Zach’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist with surprising strength. His eyes opened, pain-bright but alert. For a moment they just looked at each other, rain streaming over them both.
“I trust you.” Trust, complete and absolute, shone from his eyes before they fluttered closed again.
“Almost done.” She bit back a sob and worked swiftly to bind the poultice in place with the last clean sections of her torn shirt. Her hands shook, but she didn’t stop until she tied off her makeshift bandage. “Stay with me, Zach.”
Her sports bra did little against the cool rain, but she didn’t care. All her focus narrowed to the man in front of her, to the slight rise and fall of his chest, to the pulse jumping in his throat.
When she finished, his hand was still on her wrist. His thumb moved, the barest brush over her skin.
“Emma…” Just her name, but the way he said it carried weight—gratitude and something else, something she didn’t have time to examine.
She sat beside him, slumped against the rock, and covered his hand with hers, squeezing once. Her fingers rested on his weak pulse for reassurance. “Rest. Save your strength.”
Zach's eyes drifted closed, his grip loosened.
His pulse jumped—then hammered under her fingers. Too fast. Too hard.
The skin visible around her makeshift bandage flushed red.
He gasped, back arching, before he collapsed back down, out cold.
Oh, God—what had she done?