CHAPTER THIRTEEN UNTIL RESCUE
Maren found the emergency beacon in a locked cabinet at sunrise.
It could transmit only from line of sight to the eastern sky. The nearest suitable ground was a coastal cliff two miles away.
The beacon's battery showed thirty-two percent. Its casing had cracked, but the test light remained green.
Grant studied the contour map. “We get one good transmission. Maybe two.”
“Then no test call,” Cody said. “We move first.”
Maren wanted to wait for the missing crew members. Grant marked their likely route and left a waterproof note with the beacon frequency, destination, and four names. Cody added a line beneath it: WE ARE ALL ALIVE.
“Superstition?” Grant asked.
“Instruction.”
They touched the words together before sealing the note inside the shelter.
Jo could not walk. Maren could, but slowly. Grant's shoulder had swollen overnight. Cody looked at the four of them and began dismantling the camera rig.
“What are you doing?” Maren asked.
“Building the harness you should have stocked.”
Camera straps became chest loops. Rope formed load-bearing seats. The least damaged section of their original tarp became a stretcher sling.
Grant tested every knot with his good hand. “It will hold.”
“Of course it will,” Cody said. “I tied it.”
“I was reassuring them.”
“Your face is not reassuring.”
“My face has saved lives.”
“Your thighs saved more.”
Maren coughed into her fist. “Some of us are still traumatized by the live feed.”
“Then look away,” Cody said cheerfully.
The cliff trail had vanished in a landslide. Reaching the beach required a controlled descent down forty feet of wet basalt.
Below, the black beach curved toward the point like a road. Above, clouds broke into ragged patches of blue. It was the first color they had seen in days.
Cody built the anchor around a stone pillar and backed it with a buried camera rail. Grant inspected both systems, then asked Cody to inspect his inspection.
“You really are changing,” Cody said.
“Do not make it sentimental.”
“I was going to make it erotic.”
Grant glanced down at the straps crossing Cody's hips. “Later.”
The promise steadied them more effectively than a speech.
Cody anchored the rope and fastened the improvised harness around Grant's hips and thighs. He tightened each strap with the same intimate precision Grant had used on the tower.
“Shoulder protected?” Cody asked.
“Yes.”
“Ribs?”
“Yes.”
“Pride?”
“Terminal injury.”
Cody lowered him.
Grant surrendered his weight to the line. Rope pressed across his bare body while Cody controlled every inch from above. The exposure should have felt vulnerable. It felt like being held by an invisible extension of Cody's hands.
On the beach, Grant guided Cody down afterward. He steadied Cody's hips at the final ledge, both hands sliding over rain-wet skin as Cody descended into his arms.
“Professional?” Cody asked.
“Not remotely.”
They lowered Jo, then assisted Maren. The four of them crossed black sand to a broad point clear of palms.
The beacon pulsed.
Grant and Cody built a signal fire from driftwood, dry emergency fuel, and rubber sheathing from a ruined cable. Black smoke climbed into the clearing sky.
They heard the helicopter forty minutes later.
Cody's fingers closed around Grant's.
The sound began as a pulse inside the wind. Maren started crying before the aircraft appeared. Jo raised both arms from the stretcher.
Grant watched Cody instead.
Relief stripped him open. His mouth parted. His grip became painful. Grant remembered the sea cave and understood that rescue could frighten the body almost as much as danger because it allowed fear to end.
“Breathe,” Grant said.
Cody laughed through wet eyes. “You first.”
They inhaled together as the helicopter crossed the reef.
The aircraft circled once and landed beyond the surf. A medic ran toward them with two harness seats.
“We can take the injured first,” she shouted. “Weight limit requires a second trip for the other two.”
Grant helped secure Jo. Cody fastened Maren's belt.
“One of you can come now,” the medic said.
“No,” Grant and Cody answered together.
Maren looked between them. “You have both achieved advanced stupidity.”
“Document it,” Cody said.
The helicopter lifted with the two women. Its downdraft flattened the grass, then faded over the sea.
Silence returned.
Grant looked at the torn tarp lying beside the fire. Cody followed his gaze.
“Absolutely not,” Cody said.
“Rain coming.”
“That tarp has suffered enough.”
“It held the first night.”
“Barely.”
“So did we.”
Together, they crawled beneath it.
The shelter was as cramped as they remembered. Warm sand molded beneath their bodies. Thunder muttered far offshore, but the storm had spent its anger.
Before desire, there was inventory.
Cody checked Grant's shoulder and ribs. Grant unwrapped Cody's thigh and found the closure clean. They drank, ate the final ration, and placed the beacon where its light would remain visible.
“Responsible first,” Cody said.
“Always.”
“Then irresponsible?”
Grant drew him closer beneath the patched vinyl. “Thoroughly.”
Cody lay over Grant and traced the bruise at his ribs. “The first time, I wanted to win.”
“You did not.”
“Neither did you.”
“I had you pinned.”
“Temporarily.”
Grant smiled. “What do you want now?”
“To remember.”
So they moved slowly.
They remembered warm rain seeping under the edges, black sand beneath the tarp, salt on each other's mouths.
They remembered anger transformed by touch and the shock of finding familiarity after three lost years.
But there was no battle now. Control passed gently between them, less like a challenge than a language they had invented together.
Grant learned the exact shape of Cody's smile in shadow. Cody counted the scars under his hands and renamed each one survived. They made love with enough patience to memorize the island air, the retreating thunder, and the body that had refused to let either man vanish.
When the helicopter returned, they were laughing.
They emerged naked, sand-covered, and entirely uninterested in the startled medic's expression.
At the waterline, Grant lifted Cody.
“Put me down,” Cody shouted over the rotors.
“Your leg.”
“Your shoulder.”
“Compromise.”
Grant carried him three steps into the surf and kissed him beneath the spinning blades.
The rescue camera captured the image: Cody wrapped around Grant, white water at their thighs, both men laughing into the kiss.
Medics separated them onto adjoining stretchers.
“Observation only,” one promised.
Grant reached across the gap. Cody met him halfway and locked their fingers together.
They held on as the helicopter rose above the volcanic island.
Neither released the other during the flight.