by James, Ella
I blow my breath out slowly, inhale through my nose.
Never been a fan of being stuck places. Not since…I shake my head.
Once, when I was fourteen, the mast broke off of a sailboat Nate and I had taken out on Lake Constance. The motors blew a fuse, so we drifted around for half a day before another boater came up on us. I’m not sure if this is worse than that. Too soon to say.
I look over my shoulder at the lump of Finley’s body in her sleeping bag. I’m pretty sure she’s bullshitting about the “tracker.” First, what is a tracker? She’d have to mean something with GPS, and that shit doesn’t work out here.
I splash some water on my face and turn around to face her. Before she went to sleep, she disappeared behind the rock pile with her dry clothes, and I came here to sit beside the stream, hoping it might make her feel more comfortable. When she came back around the pile, she stood and stared at me a minute before sliding back into the bag.
I walked over to her, wanting to reassure her somehow, but woman seemed to read my mind. She said, “Just don’t.”
I think of her somber face as I scrub my own, rubbing my temples before heading back to the bags. I don’t think she’s awake. Hasn’t moved in a while. She’s curled on her side so tightly she looks almost kid-sized. I can’t see her face, just a bunch of penny-red hair spread over a blow-up pillow.
What’s this do to her, I wonder. How does she feel about being trapped? I don’t know all that much about what happened while my dad and I were here last time; I was just six, and right after we left Tristan, he took me to Carogue, the boarding school where I grew up—so we didn’t really ever talk about it. But I know when we arrived, she was lost at sea in a small boat she’d been in with her parents. When they found her, near the end of our visit, she was alone.
I shake my head, wondering why we didn’t stay here longer that time. Normally, most visits last a few months because the ship that brought you doesn’t come back by until then. I think Dad and I left on a different ship than the one we came in on. I don’t know.
I knead my aching shoulder and slide into my bag. I don’t sleep with my back to anyone, not even pint-sized redheaded sirens, so I’m on my side, facing her. I’m looking at her hair, watching her shoulders rise and fall under the sleeping bag as she breathes. I can’t be sure, but I think maybe I can smell her. Something floral…roses, maybe.
Her hair looks soft. I lie there staring at it, thinking about touching it for what feels like eternity. I close my eyes and inhale the rose scent and let my mind drift, taking care to steer away from last time I was trapped somewhere. At what turns out to be 5:11, I break down and check my phone. After that, I set it down beside me, and Finley’s hips shift in her bag. I lay my hand out on the ground between us, and finally, I fall asleep.
* * *
Finley
I don’t want to laugh. In fact, I refuse to. But the Carnegie doesn’t make it easy.
I awoke sweaty and breathless, my fists clenched—because in the dream, I couldn’t reach the boat’s sides from under the bench, where I was huddled, and I needed something to hold onto. For the first few moments, that sensation—up and down, of being tossed by the waves—was so potent, I didn’t notice where I was. Then I sat up, and I saw him.
The Carnegie has pulled off his shirt, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s it tied about his head. And underneath it, smooshed against his dark hair, boots. He’s set his boots atop his head and tied his shirt around them. He looks like some sort of clothes bin monster, though not really; with his physique, he can look like nothing except what he is—a sort of living, breathing David. Edit that: an arse whose flawless body is a temple, for baseball, I suppose. Deep grooves line his bare back. Shadows flit about his muscles. As he moves, poking something long and stick-like into the top of the rock pile, muscles in his shoulders ripple.
I divert my eyes, and that’s when I notice my pack is open near the foot of the sleeping bags, and most of my belongings are strewn out.
“What the devil?”
He turns to me, and I straighten my spine. My gaze locks onto his hand. “I suppose you robbed my tent of one of its joints?”
He wipes at his forehead. “Poking through the rocks to see if I can get an idea of—”
“You didn’t think to ask me?”
He blinks. “You were sleeping.”
“You could have woken me.”
“You’re right. I could have.”
“And?”
“I didn’t.”
I draw a deep breath. Press my lips together. Grit my molars. Doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Very soon we will be out of here, and nothing about him will be relevant to me ever again. In a few weeks, he’ll sail away, and that will be the end of him.
“Well, then. What have you found?”
“Just poking around.”
“And?”
He lifts a shoulder in a sort of shrug. “I just want to mess around a little, see if I can get this joint through to a spot where it’s not touching anything.”
The tent’s joint is near half a meter long. If he can’t manage to poke it through…I inhale deeply.
He reaches into his pocket, tossing something my way. “Catch.”
I scramble to snatch something small and flat before it hits the ground.
“My phone,” he says. “You can turn it on with the button on the right side. It’ll want a password. Put in one, one, one, nine, one, seven. Swipe your thumb across the screen until you see an app—a square that’ll say ‘Kindle.’ There are books there. Find something to read and don’t be worried. I won’t move the rocks around unless I’m sure there’s not much else on top of them.” He taps his head, flashing me a grin. “And I’ve got a helmet.”
A retort slams through my head—“Do you think I care?” But it’s too much, even for me in my present agitated state. Instead I say, “You’re absurd.”
“If absurd means genius.”
“Most certainly not.”
He laughs, holding the joint up. “I’m not looking like a genius over here? You sure?”
“I am absolutely certain.”
He chuckles. “Go on, turn the phone on.”
He feels he needs to distract me? Between glaring daggers at him, I feel around the side of the small, flat thing and press a button. Its screen lights up, revealing a picture that’s so pristine, I can’t help gaping at it. It’s a sailboat in a harbor, and it’s stunning.
“There’s a circle at the bottom of the phone’s front. Press the circle button.” I do, and at the bottom of the screen appears a message: “Slide to unlock.”
“Slide your thumb across the lock screen.”
I try, but nothing happens.
“Ever used a touch screen?” He steps slightly toward me.
What’s a touch screen?
“If you haven’t, you want to drag the tip of your thumb over the screen. Not too hard, but hard enough.”
I try again, and the phone reads: “Enter Passcode.”
“Passcode is one, one, one, nine, one, seven.”
I punch in the numbers, and I see another picture: this one of a group of grinning kids in Red Sox T-shirts.
“You got it?”
“Of course.”
“If you don’t see the Kindle square, swipe your thumb again and it’ll be on the next page of the menu options.”
I tilt the phone toward my face and peer down at it. The children pictured look so real. As if they’re right here next to me. How very odd. What makes the photos so lifelike? I cast my gaze back up to the Carnegie, who’s turned away from me with one hand outstretched toward the rubble pile.
“Warn me before you move things,” I murmur.
“Will do.”
I swallow and look back at the screen. One of the squares says “Photos.” I want to press that and see what happens, but he didn’t tell me to. I drag my thumb across the screen again, and all the boxes change. Now there’s one that says “Kindle.” I pr
ess it and look up again, in time to see him step to his left, pull the tent joint out, and poke around the rocks with it again.
“What are you finding?”
“What are you reading?” His voice is slightly strained. I watch the lantern light play on his back, making shadows as his muscles flex. I press my lips together.
Be careful.
“Why don’t I help?” I murmur, chewing at my lip.
“Stay there. If something did fall, I’d need you to doctor me, yeah?”
I rub my lips together again, noticing they sting. I take some gloss from my pack and spread it over them, and then, when I look up to find him standing in the same place, I return to the phone. It asks for the passcode in again, but that’s okay; I have a memory for numbers.
He moves around a bit, but I pay him no mind. I wonder why this little square is called “Kindle.” Does it feature forbidden books, the sort of books one might burn?
I press a small, square cover that says The Art of Power, and then glance up because I think he murmured something.
“Everything all right then?” I call.
“Fine.” He’s got his arms raised to the ceiling right beside the rubble pile. As I look at him, I realize he’s straining.
I jump up.
“Stay back!”
His arms are clearly braced against the ceiling right beside the rubble pile. “What happened?” I dash closer.
“Get back!”
As I step closer still, the ceiling caves in. It’s a blur, a shout from him, and then he’s lunging at me, dark rocks bouncing off his shoulders. I glimpse his face—wide-eyed and open-mouthed—before he sweeps me off my feet. I’m spirited away, my body pressed against his hard one as he tucks me to his chest and doesn’t let me go until we’re near the stream. When I look up, his head is down. Low panting fills my ears. He looks up, blinking through a streak of blood that’s streaming from his forehead.
“You okay?” His eyes are intent on my face.
“You touched me.” It’s half laughed—hysteric-laughed—and in the darkness, I can see the strange look on his face. It’s not a smile and not a frown, but something in between. I realize I can’t tell for sure…because it’s pitch black dark.
Chapter Ten
Declan
Her mouth lolls open and her eyes bug out like a deer in headlights. Except of course, there’s no light here. I don’t know her well enough to know her tells, but I’m pretty sure she’s close to crying. Something she does with her mouth after she closes it…
“Hey…” My hand’s on her shoulder before I remember she said don’t touch her. I move it off her and step back a little. “The lantern must have gotten hit. We’re still okay.”
She shakes her head once, covering her face with both hands.
“I stuck that joint into a spot it didn’t fit, and that made things shift.” I pop my jaw as I look down on her bowed head. “Listen, I’m still gonna dig us out. You want to sit down, get the lantern up and running again, and you can watch me?”
“I lied!”
“What?”
She lifts her head, her face a twisted mess. “I lied about the tracker. No one knows where we are!”
I let out a slow breath. “I knew that.”
“You did?”
“There’s no GPS out here, Siren.”
She covers her face again, shaking her head. Then she looks up at me, her brows drawn together. “I was scared. Of being stuck in here with you.” Her voice cracks on the word, and I feel something tighten at the base of my throat.
“Fuck.” I blow a breath out. “I’m an ass, all right? Look—I know I was. I’m an ass sometimes—I try to be a nice guy—but that night, I was an ass. Nothing to do with you, just bullshit you walked in on. That shit’s over now, though. Asshole’s not my normal MO, like I said, and even if it was, you and me—this isn’t normal stuff. We’re stuck together in a fucking cave. What’s good for you is good for me. We need each other.”
Finley frowns up at me.
I give her a panty-melting smile, and her lips quirk just slightly at the corners. “Don’t believe me, do you?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She sighs.
“You don’t think I can be a nice guy?” I smile again—c’mon, sweetheart—and she looks down at her feet.
“Nothing points to that fact, no.” Her shoulders rise and sharply fall. “At any rate, I don’t care that you’re nice, as long as you can dig.”
I laugh, despite the blood that’s stinging my eye. “That right?”
She puts a hand on her hip. “Yes, that is so.” She leans in closer. “In spite of that lovely helmet, something hit your head and now you’re bleeding. Let me patch it up before you start round two.”
I snicker as she walks past me and I lose sight of her in darkness. I hear her fuck with something and a couple seconds later, light floods our humble burrow. I can see the relief I feel mirrored on her face. I’m moving toward her when she turns toward the rubble pile and freezes.
Fuckkkk. In the lantern light, shit doesn’t look so good. The pile was maybe the size of your average port-a-potty box last time. It’s double that size now, maybe even triple, and interspersed among a bunch of smaller stones are several rocks I think would qualify as boulders.
“It fills half the cave!”
I drag my gaze around our quarters. “Nah—a fourth at most.”
She turns to face me, her mouth pressed into a thin line. I see tears in her eyes, even as she points to my sleeping bag. “Sit there.”
I humor her, sitting cross-legged while she digs through her pack, pulling out a small, red first-aid box. She looks up and then scoots slightly back, as if she finds me too close for comfort.
I wipe the blood out of my eye—the thing is twitching now—and Finley leans in, squinting. I wait for her soft voice, almost lyrical in its lilting English accent. But she just peers up at my forehead, her face so close to mine that I can tell she’s holding her breath. Finally, she leans back, her pretty face a mask.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I shake my head—it’s true, or at least I’m hurt nowhere new—and she presses her finger to my forehead, near the gash. Her frowning mouth is close enough that I could kiss it.
“This likely needs stitches. Since we have none, I’ll just tape it very tightly.”
As she moves again, reaching for something in her first-aid kit, I get another whiff of rose. I shut my eyes. With them closed, I notice I feel kind of dizzy. And kind of heavy in the forehead region. Shit.
“This will hurt,” she says. I feel her words against my cheek and then a sting that’s so intense my mouth and eyes water.
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
And then I feel her warm breath blow across my forehead. I feel her shift her weight and murmur something I can’t really hear before her finger’s dabbing something on the wound.
“Clearly,” she says, “you have quite a hard head.”
“Quite.” Despite myself, I struggle not to smirk.
I feel her hand brush my forehead before her fingers frame the gash, pushing on it so the edges pinch closer together. “Sorry.” It’s whispered so softly, I’m not sure I really heard it. She blows on it again, and then I feel her fingers bend so she can stretch something across the wound. It stings under the tape, but I don’t mind. I like the sharp sensation. It’s grounding, like pinching yourself.
When I open my eyes, I find I’m looking into hers. For a long moment, neither of us moves, and then she’s up, brushing at the seat of her cotton shorts before she turns away from me, ever the skittish doe.
She’s facing the new, larger rubble pile, one hand to her forehead as if she’s shading her eyes from sun.
“Do you have a plan for where to start, or shall I come up with one?”
I get up—my joints have started aching—and stand by her. My gaze travels from her wavy hair down to her bare legs before resting where it should be: on the rock
pile.
“If I push it from the bottom, I’m not sure what happens at the top. How much more might fall in when we make more space.” I touch the bandage tapped to my head. “Only one way to find out. I can kick the rocks there at the middle.” I gesture midway up the pile’s height. “Everything will fall against that wall up there if I kick that way. If there’s more up top, we’ll see how much more.”
“We keep doing that until it stops pouring in, and we see sunlight?” She looks worried.
“That’s the plan.”
Until we see sunlight or the withdrawal finally gets me. I’m not telling her that, though.
* * *
Finley
I watch the Carnegie as he examines our new, mammoth rock pile. I believe he hurt his shoulder when the stones fell on him last time. He’s not moving his right arm quite freely as he runs his hand along the pile. He moves slowly and carefully, his shadow falling at odd angles on the walls as the battery-powered lantern flickers, mimicking a flame.
I’m holding my breath when he turns to me.
“I’m going to give it a good shove. See what happens. You ready, partner?” He gives me a smile that’s likely meant to reassure, and I gnaw my lip.
“Surely it will work. There can’t be too much up there…”
One of his cheeks lifts in something that looks like a twitch, though I think it may be his attempt to smile again. “Step back for me, Siren. Far back as you can.”
For him.
I do as he asks, backing up to the sleeping bags. I grab the lantern; this time, if I have to rush back toward the stream, it’s coming with me. As he looks back at me, I call, “Do be careful!”
