Once the sun was down, the compass would be useless.
Adam was also worried about the weather. This boat wasn’t exactly robust, and if a storm came up, it would only take one big wave to capsize them. At best, they would become completely disoriented, turned around in the weather. They might well end up rowing back to the island they were trying to leave—or out to sea altogether.
Ella sat in the front of the boat now, huddled in the wind, staring out at the horizon. Adam suspected she was doing the same thing he was—drinking in the sight of the world around them. Before long it would be gone, and they would be facing hours of darkness.
It was terrifying.
He went over and sat down next to her. “How are you holding up?”
“How far do you think we’ve come?” she asked. “Since the island, I mean.”
“Honestly? I have no idea. It’s got to have been at least a few miles, right?”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t have any way of measuring.”
“I thought you might at least have a sense of how to navigate at sea,” she said. “Since you lived on a yacht for all that time, I mean.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I did.”
She slumped a little. “It was probably a ridiculous expectation.”
“Do you know how far it is from the island to the mainland?” he asked her.
“It’s supposed to be twenty-five miles,” she said. “But that’s, you know, a direct trip following the shortest possible path. It doesn’t account for any veering around we might do.”
“Right.”
“God, I would give anything for power right now,” Ella whispered. “Running lights, navigation…”
“Anything?” he asked. “If we had power, that would mean the nanobots would still be a threat.”
“We’re not infected.”
“Right, but if we’re heading back to the mainland…”
“Oh,” she said softly, realizing.
“It wouldn’t even be an option to go there if we were still worrying about nanobots,” he went on. “We’d have to try to find another island out here and…and hope we could just live wild or something. And that nobody else would show up.”
Ella was quiet for a moment. “I never thought they would do that,” she said. “The Birkins, I mean. I never thought they could be so hostile. So violent.”
“You didn’t?” he asked, surprised to hear that. “You were always warning me to be wary of them. And didn’t you say you’d seen them turn violent with each other before?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I was afraid of them. I’m not saying I wasn’t. I just…it was still shocking to see it.”
“I’m more surprised by the McTerrells,” Adam admitted. “I sort of thought they were all right. I was even protecting Chase. When I found out he was an addict, I didn’t tell anybody. I was going to help him get clean, because I’ve been there myself and I know what it’s like. And then he completely threw me under the bus. Blamed me for stealing from Kathryn when he was the one who took her pills.”
“That was really awful of him,” Ella agreed. “I wouldn’t have believed that if I hadn’t seen it myself. And the way all of them were so ready to believe each other, to back each other up! It was as if, for as much as their families hated each other, they were ready to let it go in an instant if the alternative was believing one of us was telling the truth.”
“It’s like they thought we mattered less than they did,” Adam agreed. “Because we aren’t rich, or because we were never members of the country club?”
“I thought you were rich,” Ella said. “You were a child star.”
Adam laughed humorlessly. “That didn’t make me rich. It just gave me enough money to live on. Made it so I don’t really need to work now. Or…didn’t need to work, I guess. Nobody’s working anymore, are they?” It was a strange thought.
“Are we drifting?” Ella asked. “It feels like the boat is moving sideways.”
“Can you see the water?”
“No. It’s too dark.”
“Hang on.” Adam lowered his hand slowly into the water and tried to feel the direction of its pressure against his skin. “I think so. It feels like we’re moving to the right.”
“Should we try to correct?” Ella asked. “Maybe row the other way?”
Adam hesitated. “Honestly, I’d be afraid to try it,” he said. “If we overdo it, we could end up going way too far in the other direction.”
“What if we go too far in this direction?”
“We can try to navigate by the stars…” he looked up. “I don’t know much about astronomy. Do you?”
“No.”
“That sort of looks like an arrow, doesn’t it?”
A long silence. “I don’t see an arrow,” Ella said. “I see something that looks like a guitar.”
“I have no idea if that’s the same thing or not,” Adam said. “But if we each keep an eye on the landmarks we’ve spotted, if we try to stay aligned with them in the same position we’re in now…we should at least keep moving in the same direction, even if we drift to one side a bit. Right?”
“I have no idea,” she said, a bit shakily. “I’d like to think you’re right…”
He reached out for her hand in the darkness, fumbling a bit before finding it.
“It’ll be okay,” he said quietly. “If we were trying to hit the island, I’d be more worried. But we’re aiming for the California coast. That’s massive. Even if we drift off a long way, we’re bound to run up against it eventually.”
“What if we get turned around?” she said. “What if we start drifting out to sea?”
“I don’t think we will,” he said. “As long as we follow the stars—”
“But what if we do?” she insisted. “I’m starting to think this might have been a bad idea, Adam.”
“What do you mean? What was a bad idea?”
“Taking the boat. Leaving the island.”
Adam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Ella. They were killing each other back there. They were going to kill us. We’re only still alive because we took advantage of the window when they stopped focusing on us and started focusing on each other. But that wouldn’t have lasted. They would have turned their attention back to us, and what do you think would have happened then?”
“I know we were right to run away from them,” she said. “I’m just not sure about all of this. The boat. Actually leaving the island.”
“Where else could we have gone?” he asked.
“We could have hidden,” she said. “We could have stayed on the island and waited out the fight. Run off into the woods, until…” She trailed off.
“Until what?” he asked.
“Until they were finished killing each other, I guess,” she said softly. “God. I know that’s horrible. I sound like a monster.”
“You don’t sound like a monster.”
“It’s just that we could have stayed at the country club,” she said. “The way that fight was going…even if they don’t all die, I bet most of them will. I could see Richard and Kathryn and Marsden and Olivia making it out alive, maybe, and they’re not the worst of the bunch. Well, Richard is, but there would only be one of him. And we were safe there, Adam.” She sounded like she was pleading with him to understand, to agree. “There was food, and there were candles, and the doors locked at night… If Rhett and Chase and Langley were gone, it would have been livable. Survivable.”
“You don’t want to live there,” Adam said. “You don’t want to stay there with those people. Not after everything that’s happened, after everything that they’ve done to us.”
“No,” Ella admitted. “I don’t, you’re right. God, that’s a fatalistic thought, isn’t it? Are things really that bad?”
“No,” Adam said. “Things aren’t that bad.”
“I don’t want to stay with them, but I don’t want to drown at sea either.”
“We won’t.”
“Or die of thirst or starve or—”
“We’re not going to do any of that,” he said, cutting her off. “Your plan was a good one, Ella. We got away when we could, and that was the best thing we could possibly have done for ourselves. And now we’re going to get back to the mainland and we’re going to figure out a way to live there.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to do it?” she asked. “Do you think there’s any life for us at all on the mainland? Or are we just walking into even more violence and horror?”
That was a question Adam didn’t feel prepared to answer. He didn’t think she would like what he had to say.
“Let’s have some dinner,” he said instead. “There’s nothing we can do for the boat in this darkness anyway, and we need to eat. We need to make sure we’re in good condition when we hit land.”
She made a sound of assent. “We should sleep at some point, too.”
“Agreed. But we should sleep in shifts,” he said. He didn’t know what he would do if they came upon another boat in the water—without running lights, they wouldn’t even be able to see each other. But he did know that he would want to have one of them awake if something happened.
He moved to the front of the boat, still holding Ella’s hand, and pulled her down to sit beside him. “So. What’s for dinner?”
Escape the Dark Book 3: Into the Ruins is available on Amazon now
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ALSO BY K. M. FAWKES
ESCAPE THE DARK
Dark Tides
Fearful World
Into the Ruins
Caught in the Crossfire
Do or Die
ENTER DARKNESS
The Longest Night
Dead of Winter
The Survivors
Thin Ice
First Light
AT ANY COST
Survive The Dark
Fight For Everything
Bleak Horizons
Escape The Dark (Book 2): Fearful World Page 17
