34
The joke was that the medical tents—the dingy, crowded, sweltering medical tents erected on the remnants of the airstrip—were still better accommodations than Building C.
Once they had the strength, Dan and Mara pushed their cots together to form one mega-cot, and for days—there were real days again—neither left each other’s side except to visit the porta-potty. Mara’s right foot was shattered in two places. Dan had swallowed so much debris that they temporarily placed him on oxygen.
They were the lucky ones.
Beyond the airstrip, Tizoc was unrecognizable. Piles of rubble stretched above Dan’s head, four stories high in some areas. House-sized craters had been burrowed into the ground to reach the tunnels where most survivors were located. There were no birds, no insects, even the breeze had found another island to haunt.
Within days, the number of FBI agents coming and going from the tent rivaled the number of Red Cross workers.
Lilyanna Collins chartered a private flight home at the first opportunity.
Dan and Mara caught her late one night on a small section of cleared tarmac. There was a flurry of ass-kissing surrounding her jet—photographers and stylists, influencers and bag handlers—and in the middle of it all was the woman herself, holding court and smiling real big, the bruising on her face hidden beneath a layer of bronzer. She was wrapped in a brace for a broken clavicle, but it was hot pink and had BEACHBODY BY LILYANNA emblazoned on it.
Dan pushed through the horde of underlings to reach her, his frail body knocked off balance more than once. Mara limped atop crutches just behind.
“Danny,” she called out. Then, more forcefully: “Danny.” Mara seized Dan’s shirt. “Leave her.”
“She’s running away,” Dan said, flabbergasted. A camera flashed. “After everything—she’s still running away.”
Mara coaxed him backward, away from the crowd.
Dan’s fists were clenched, but he was too weak to hold them long. Rage exploded from him in a violent coughing fit. Mara patted his back, a signal for him to not get worked up, but he pulled away. “There are people here in critical condition, Mara. The hospital ships won’t arrive for days. She said she wanted to help people, and she’s—”
“Not worth it, Danny. Hey.” Mara held Dan’s face. She was mad too, Dan could see it in her eyes, but she wasn’t disappointed like he was. “Just let her go. The FBI knows what she did.”
Dan nearly buckled from exhaustion. He fell into his wife. Before hobbling back to the tent, Dan took one last glance at the crowd, and by some miracle, he caught Lilyanna’s eye. She looked scared of him at first, like a drifter had stumbled into her dinner party, but she quickly ascertained that his fight was gone. She tilted her head and winked. She didn’t say it, but Dan heard it: Bless your heart .
She turned away.
Dan thought he might puke up more island. Lilyanna Collins would be recording new workout videos in a month. Remarried in a year. What happened on Tizoc wouldn’t stick to Lilyanna like it was going to stick to Dan. At a certain tax bracket, trauma is deductible.
The squealing crowd reentered its orbit around Lilyanna, swallowing her whole.
She was one of the last to board. Dan thought she’d pause at the top step maybe, that maybe what Mara had said to her underground had made some sort of dent, planted some sort of seed, and Lilyanna would remember—even for a second—how many people had actually lost the center of their universe on that island.
But she didn’t.