by Kelli Walker
I nodded my head again before my head fell forward. I gave into the pain. Into the stinging. Into the crystal clear water that irrigated my wounds. Ocean water wasn’t the best, but it was all we had to use. So long as we could keep our wounds clean, hydrated, and covered from the sun, we should be able to make it to the city where actual doctors could help us out.
Fuck.
I did not come prepared for this.
“How’s this?” Silas asked.
The cold ocean water poured down my back as he lifted up my shirt. The waves washed against our bodies, rocking us into one another as his eyes danced along my scars. I knew when he was looking at them. Unabashedly staring at them. And for the longest time, I had been ashamed of them. Ashamed of where they came from. Of who gave them to me. Of the circumstances surrounding their origination. But I finally came to terms with the fact that I survived. I was a survivor, and my scars weren’t something to be ashamed of. They were trophies. Monuments built as a testament to my strength. To my knowledge. To my ability to overcome the greatest obstacle my life had ever seen.
My scars no longer held me back.
But my memories sometimes did.
“It’s… it’s good, Silas. Really good,” I said.
“Some of these are pretty deep.”
I hissed as he poured water over my shoulder again.
“It’s fine. I’ll be okay. We’ll… we’ll be okay,” I said.
I felt his forehead fall to the nape of my neck as he drew in a shuddering breath.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
I leaned back into him as his face worked its way into the crook of my neck.
“When the hell are we going to get off this island?” he asked.
I tilted my head up to the sky as his face pressed into my skin. His breath was hot on my neck as my eyes cased the sky. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to tell him. Even the most advanced survivalists didn’t always get out of situation like the one we were in. The sky was darkening with the ash and soot pouring from the volcano, and I allowed my uncertainty to overcome me.
Silas wrapped his arms around me and rocked me side to side as the waves washed against our bodies. It was the only thing he knew to do. The only thing he could do.
“Soon. We’re getting off this island soon.”
But even I heard the uncertainty in my own voice.
Silas
Val was losing confidence. And that wasn’t good. I heard it in her voice. In the way she attempted to reassure me that we would be off this fucking island soon enough. After sitting in the waves and listening to the volcano finally die down, I decided enough was enough. We needed water. We needed shelter. It was painfully obvious we were going to spend another night on this damn island. So the least I could do was cut down on the work Val had to do in order to set us up.
I had watched her do this routine two nights in a row. I knew what had to be done. I didn’t know what kind of people she taught on a regular basis, but I was nothing like them. I stood from the sandy ocean floor and scooped her into my arms, then proceeded to march us down the beach. She didn’t even protest. Not once did she fight me.
Which was nothing like her.
I felt her breaths even out as I clung to her and the backpack she’d brought along her journey. I walked in the shade of the forest that hung over the shoreline until my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Once I could no longer see straight from being so damn thirsty, I redirected my efforts and headed back into the woods. I kept one ear trained on running water and one ear trained on that fucking volcano, and with every step I took it put one more foot between us that the molted rock that pulsed in the gut of that thing.
The island was alive, and it was trying to devour us.
“Silas?”
Val groaned as her eyes fluttered open.
“Got us back to fresh water. We need to get you bandaged up.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The brook. I put another two and a half miles or so between us and the volcano.”
“You what? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
I dropped her bag into the dirt before I kicked off my shoes. Without answering her question, I walked us into the water. I sat us down in the cool running water, listening as she hissed. It ran over her wounds that had finally stopped bleeding. The clean, filtered water hydrated her wounds and brought her tissue pulsating back to life. I cupped my hands and trickled it onto her shoulder while it ran around our thighs. I held her in my legs, listening to her sounds to make sure I didn’t hurt her too badly with my movements.
“In my bag, there’s--”
“I know how a first aid kit works, Val. Save your strength,” I said.
I slid her shirt off her body, reveling in her sigh as I cast it off to the side. I massaged her shoulders. Slid my hands down her back. Every part of her was locked up. Tense. She was no longer relaxed in the wilderness like she once was. I was the stronger of the two of us, and that was probably what made her uncomfortable.
I couldn’t blame her, either. If I had been strippeed of my strength in a boardroom, I’d be very tense as well.
I wrapped my arm around her and kept her steady as I reached for her bag. I unzipped it and rifled around in it, not wanting to pull it into the water and mess it up. I scooted us a little closer to the edge, feeling Val tense against me again.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying not to move you,” I said.
“You’re fine. You’re fine. It’s fine.”
But by the way she was panting, it wasn’t fine. She was in a great deal of pain and I had to find a way to relieve her of it.
As I dug through her bag, I found a random assortment of things. A firestarter. A random pot. Another, smaller knife. A couple more protein bars. An empty water jug. The leaves that had our excess stingray meat wrapped up in it. Then finally, my hand fell onto the first aid kit. I slid the plastic box out and opened it up on the shoreline, my eyes filtering through its contents to see what I could use to help Val.
I was shocked at the array of products she had stowed away in the small container.
“You know, if you have a cell phone in your bag, there’s a chance we could turn it into some kind of deconstructed homing beacon.”
“What are you, a technological whiz now?” Val asked.
“My friend Grant’s taught me a few things, yes.”
“Ah, Mr. Robbins. How do the two of you know one another anyway?”
“College. He’s my right-hand man at my financial company. The only person I trust.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have a cell phone.”
“In the bag? That’s fine. Just a thought.”
“No. At all.”
I furrowed my brow as I pulled out the soothing salve and the gauze.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t have a cell phone, Silas.”
“Everyone has a cell phone.”
“Everyone who has someone to talk to has a cell phone.”
“And you have no one to talk to? You really mean to convince me of that?”
“I do.”
“Don’t you have a line for your business?” I asked
“How do you know I have a business?” she asked.
“A loner like you has to make money somehow. I made an assumption that you taught classes. Means you have a business.”
“Uh huh. Well, I have a landline for my business.”
“No one has a landline for anything.”
“Do you have a landline in your office?” she asked.
“That’s different.”
“How is that different?”
“Shut up and sit still.”
She giggled as I opened up the tube of salve and put some onto my fingertips. I brushed it against all of the wounds that donned her. Wounds I had caused while she tried to bite back her hisses of pain. Track marks that ran up her arms, over her shoulders, and down into the small of her back. There were
five distinct areas where I had clawed her, and with each one I covered I felt worse and worse for what I had done to her.
I felt myself becoming invested in this woman’s well-being, and I didn’t know why. Whether it was the fact that she had just saved my life or whether it was the fact that we were simply trying to survive and get off the island, I felt protective of her. I wanted her to be okay. I wanted her to be safe.
I wanted her to thrive.
“You’ve got some pretty large bandaids in this first aid kit. Are they waterproof?” I asked.
“Should be,” Val said.
“Then I’m saving the gauze and using those.”
“Good idea.”
“Try to hold still. I have to shift again.”
I traded out the gauze for the bandaids and began to cover the places on her arms. The small of her back was hard to position, but I got most of the wound covered with the bandaid. I ran my finger around the outer perimeter of each, making sure they were secured.
“How do you feel now?” I asked.
“The numbing solution in the balm is kicking in.”
“Numbing solution?”
“Mhm. It’s great stuff. It’s a disinfectant and a pain reliever wrapped up in one. It’s expensive, but it reduces the amount of supplies I have to carry with me. And every ounce I can unload off my back is a victory.”
“I can only imagine.”
“After carrying me for two and a half miles, I think you can.”
Silence fell between us before she leaned her body back into my chest. My hands slid down her thighs as my body folded around her. I felt her give into me. I felt her finally rely on me for something for the first time since she’d dropped through the damn trees. I put my nose in her hair and sniffed, drawing in her scent and the comfort of her presence.
“Thank you for carrying me,” she said.
“Thank you for saving me,” I said.
“You would’ve done the same for me.”
“In a heartbeat.”
We sat there, allowing the sun to sink as the water rushed over our bodies. Neither of us were in a hurry to go anywhere. Just like Val had been hired to get me out of this bind, I felt like it was my responsibility to make sure Val was okay. And right now, she wasn’t okay. The more she sank into me, the heavier she sighed. And with each sigh that left her lips, I felt her becoming more and more defeated. Maybe it was the exhaustion or maybe it was the pain she had been in. But something was draining her confidence.
And I needed to find a way to instill it back. Like she had done with me.
“We should find shelter for the night. I don’t think it’s smart to move anymore today,” I said.
“Yeah. And we need a fire.”
“I can take care of that.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so…”
“Lost?”
“Helpless. Like I was as a child.”
I wrapped my arms around her and dropped my lips to the crook of her neck. Without thinking--without checking myself--I kissed her skin. Tried to bleed into her the confidence that still pumped through my body. I figured she would push me away. Jump up from my grasp and put distance between us. But instead, she burrowed deeper into me. Tilted her head off to the side and offered her more of herself.
In any other circumstance, I would’ve taken her. Stripped her down, laid her out in the dirt, and lapped at her slit until she pushed me away and begged for mercy. But now wasn’t the time to get wrapped up in her body. Now wasn’t the time to lose myself in her scent.
Though I wanted to. Part of me felt like it needed to. Like a carnal desire I couldn't shake.
I needed to get out of the wilderness. It was turning me into an animal.
“Do you hear that, Silas?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
“Sh-sh-sh. Listen.”
I nuzzled my nose against her skin as I trained my ears to listen to my surroundings. And a few seconds later, the sound I heard made my skin bristle.
There was thunder rolling in the distance.
Valencia - Two Days Later
I tossed another small bite of the stingray into my mouth. I was thankful for my massive catch, because the storm that came upon us the day I almost lost Silas was still raging on. Two days. For two days, the wind and rain and thunder had done nothing but block us into the cave we were lucky to find. But Silas and I were running out of luck. Running out of chances to get off this island. As a survivalist, I knew how rare luck was.
And we were running ours out.
I wanted to blame all this shit on Silas’ security team. I wanted to blame it on their crappy technology or their incompetence or their inability to predict storms and fly between them. But I knew I couldn’t. It was an unfair standard to set for most professionals. The weather had been non-stop. We were smack dab in the middle of the rainy season for the Leeward Islands, and I knew it would be tricky enough getting us off the island in the first place.
But adding an extra passenger and an egotistical brute to the mix made things a hell of a lot more complicated.
The constant rain and lightning meant that aircraft couldn’t come within miles of the island. I knew that. Silas knew that. Everyone knew that. And as frustrated as we were, I could only imagine how frustrated everyone else was. Grier. The security team. Silas’ friend and his, well, lady friend. Or whoever she was. Not to mention the two families of the the pilots that probably hadn’t been informed yet of the status of their loved ones. Antigua and Barbuda was hardly considered a civilized island. Sure, it had its resorts and spas. But the rainy season knocked down their communications just like everywhere else in this area.
It wasn’t just us struggling. Everyone was struggling.
But it didn’t keep me from getting any more frustrated.
Even though I knew the helicopter wouldn’t be out to find us during this storm, it didn’t keep me from listening out for it. Only a few pauses in the rain were all we had been afforded, and in those moments I kept an ear out for the sounds of whirring blades. Or the sound of someone approaching us. Or the sounds of animals trying to make their way into our cave. I kept holding onto hope. If anything, so I could feed it to Silas. The pain in my body wasn’t as great, and I could tell cabin fever was beginning to set in on him.
The brute was getting restless.
“What was it like, growing up in New York City?” I asked.
He turned his eyes away from the rain as a sadness settled into his gaze.
“Not fun. But I got through it,” he said.
“Why wasn’t it fun? Did you get teased or something?”
“Or something.”
“Look who’s cooping up now,” I said, grinning.
He chuckled and shook his head before he turned his body in my direction. Away from the hopeless, endless waterfall of rain outside and into the flickering flame of the fire we kept feeding with the logs he had hauled into the cave during the pauses in the storm.
I was thankful to have him with me.
“I was raised in an orphanage,” Silas said.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” I said.
“My parents dropped me off at a fire station after I was born. I don’t know why, and I don’t know if I ever will.”
“Have you ever tried to search for them?”
“I did. After I made my first billion, I tracked them down to rub it in their face. I was angry. Prideful. Full of myself at that point still. But what I found wasn’t good.”
“What happened to them?” I asked.
I watched Silas draw in a deep breath before he closed his eyes.
“My mother was addicted to crack. A stripper who got knocked up by my father. She traded sexual favors for her highs, then went to work in a club to make the money she did make. My father was nothing but an army man passing through. Spending his leave in sleazy strip clubs and getting high. I actually…”
His chuckle was filled with malice, and he shook his
head as tears rose to his eyes.
“I actually found all this out in a police station. My mother had been arrested for prostitution and died from her withdrawal symptoms in a holding cell.”
“Oh my gosh. Silas.”
“My father’s buried in Arlington. He was a war hero, apparently. But not enough of a man to be my hero.”
My heart broke for him and his circumstance.
“I went to visit their graves, but I felt like a stranger. Unwanted, even in their death. It felt odd standing there, but I still arranged flowers to be set at their graveside every Friday morning. Like clockwork, for the past six years. A florist will deliver flowers to their gravesites.”
I scooted closer to him and wrapped my arm around him. He lifted up and took me underneath his wing, burying his face into my hair. I rocked him back and forth, trying to soothe him as best as I could. I’d never wanted to comfort someone like this before. I didn’t know if I was doing it right.
But the way Silas relaxed into me told me that maybe I wasn’t getting it wrong.
“No one adopted you when you were younger?”
“No. I grew up in the system, used all the resources at my disposal, aged out, and went to college,” he sighed.
“That takes a lot of strength, Silas.”
“It’s a very lonely process. A lot of the kids around me fell into all sorts of things. Drugs. Gangs. Petty theft. Most of the friends I did make went off to juvie. Kept up their crime life until it eventually landed them in jail. So, I stopped making friends in the orphanage. It was too painful to make friendships only to be forced to let them go.”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No. I don’t. I walked out on people, not the other way around.”
“But you were hurt by them in the process. Hurt is hurt, no matter how you spin it, Val.”
“You said you met Mr. Robbins in college?”
His cheek pressed into the top of my head as I leaned further into his strong embrace.
“Grant? Yes. We were roommates. We got started together in college. The two of us double-majored in Business and Finance and Harvard.”
