CHAPTER TWELVE CARRY ME THROUGH THE WILD
They found the first survivor by following a whistle.
Three short blasts came from beneath a collapsed observation platform. Grant and Cody crossed the wreckage and saw a hand moving between broken boards.
“Maren?” Cody called.
“Under here.” The producer's voice was thin but alert. “Jo is with me. She is cold. Leg trapped.”
The platform had folded over a drainage channel. Maren lay pinned at the waist by a beam. Jo Alvarez, a camera operator, was curled beside her in wet clothing, shivering too hard to speak.
Grant assessed the structure. “We lift the east corner and crib it. Cody, find straight timber. Maren, can you feel both feet?”
“Yes.”
“Jo?”
The camera operator raised one thumb.
Cody crawled close enough to see through the gap. “Jo, look at me. What is your full name?”
“Joanna Alvarez.”
“Where are we?”
“Your nightmare honeymoon.”
Cody laughed with visible relief. “Orientation intact.”
Maren explained that the crew had evacuated toward the inland station before the second eye wall. The platform collapsed while she and Jo returned for the medical cache. Two others had made it clear and continued uphill with the radio.
“They know we're here,” Maren said.
“They knew where you were,” Grant corrected. “We make our own signal.”
He mapped the debris loads before touching anything. One wrong lift could transfer the platform's weight onto both women. Cody repeated Grant's plan back to him until they agreed on every step.
Their coordination had become faster than discussion.
Cody returned with two branches and the emergency covering from their cache. It was the only dry thing they owned.
He passed it through the gap. “Wrap Jo.”
Maren stared at his naked, mud-streaked body. “You need this too.”
“I have a mobile furnace attached by rope.” Cody nodded toward Grant. “Use it.”
Grant looked at him and felt love arrive as a physical ache.
They built a lever. On Grant's count, Cody pushed while Grant lifted the beam. Pain tore through Grant's left shoulder. The structure rose three inches.
“Again,” he said.
“Your arm,” Cody warned.
“Again.”
They raised it enough for Maren to pull Jo free. When the weight shifted, Grant's shoulder gave with a sickening jolt.
He dropped to one knee.
Cody secured the cribbing, then came to him. “Dislocation?”
“Strain. Maybe partial.”
“Sit.”
“Maren is still pinned.”
“And I am running this now.”
The command was absolute. Grant sat.
Cody improvised a sling, then redesigned the lever so Grant could assist with his legs and right arm. They freed Maren, splinted Jo's lower leg, and built a stretcher from camera rails and torn platform fabric.
The emergency shelter lay two miles inland. The route crossed waterlogged jungle and a slope of loose ash.
“We carry Jo together,” Grant said.
“You carry the front with your good arm. I take the weight on the descent.”
“Your thigh.”
“Trust the bandage.”
Grant met his gaze. “I trust you.”
Cody's face softened, but he did not surrender authority. “Then move when I tell you.”
Maren insisted on walking. Grant gave her a branch as a crutch and tied a short safety line from her belt to the stretcher. If she fell, she would not disappear down a slope alone.
Jo remained conscious by insulting the show.
“Episode title,” she muttered as Cody lifted the rear handles. “Producer crushed by own platform.”
“Too tasteful,” Cody said.
“Four Naked Idiots Versus Weather?”
“Closer.”
Grant took the front handles in his right hand and braced the frame across his hips. “Save your breath.”
Jo looked at him through rain. “He really does say that.”
Cody grinned. “Constantly.”
Humor kept fear from controlling the pace. They moved in coordinated counts, stopping every ten minutes to check circulation and shelter beneath root walls when gusts increased.
They tied their harness rope shorter so their hips remained aligned. Maren followed with one arm over Cody's shoulder during the easier sections. On the descent, Cody bore the stretcher's greater weight, legs trembling but steady.
Grant leaned against him whenever the ground shifted. Each collision of shoulder and hip reminded Grant that dependence could be a form of partnership rather than weakness.
At the final creek, floodwater reached their waists.
“Three steps left,” Cody directed. “Rock under my foot. Use me.”
Grant did.
They reached the emergency shelter before dusk. Its radio was dead, but the stove worked. They dried Jo, reset the splint, treated Maren's bruising, and boiled water.
Only after the survivors were stable did Cody take Grant into the warm rain outside.
“Let me see the shoulder.”
Grant stood beneath the runoff while Cody examined him. The injury was painful but aligned. Cody washed mud from Grant's chest and back, fingers careful around every bruise.
Grant returned the ritual. He cleaned Cody's rope-burned palms, unwrapped the thigh, checked the closure, and rinsed dried blood away. Rain traveled over Cody's body in shining paths.
The moment carried desire, but it was quieter than hunger. Grant kissed each palm before rebandaging it. Cody pressed his mouth to Grant's shoulder where pain lived closest to the skin.
“Whole enough?” Cody asked.
“With you.”
Grant's answer shifted something in Cody's face.
“You used to say fine,” Cody said.
“I was usually not.”
“I know.”
“I am trying a more accurate system.”
Cody's hands settled at Grant's waist. “Diagnosis?”
“In love. Prognosis permanent.”
“Treatment?”
Grant kissed him softly. “Ongoing.”
The rain washed the last blood from their hands. For one quiet minute, they stood forehead to forehead while survivors breathed safely inside. Grant had spent his career measuring success by extraction. Cody had taught him another measure: remaining present after the danger passed.
They shared one blanket beside the stove. Cody sat between Grant's legs, bare back against Grant's chest. Grant warmed him with slow hands while Maren and Jo slept across the shelter.
Something clicked in the corner.
A damaged fixed camera, still attached to a backup battery, lit red.
Maren opened her eyes. “That may be transmitting.”
Cody reached for the blanket.
Grant stopped his hand.
For once, the lens did not feel like theft. The world believed them missing. A clear image might bring rescue.
Grant looked directly at the camera, pulled Cody closer, and kissed him without hiding either of them.
Cody understood. He turned in Grant's arms and kissed back.
The red light held steady.
Far beyond the island, millions of viewers saw four survivors beside a fire—and at the center, two naked men alive, unashamed, and unmistakably in love.