by Alice Ward
He straightened, rubbing a knot in his back. He had to be exhausted by now. “I will try to hotwire it.” He looked up to where a cloud had moved over the moon. “But there’s no use, in the dark, without a flashlight. I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”
“That makes two of us,” I mumbled. “But in my case, daylight won’t help. I’m practically legally blind without my glasses.”
Wyatt suddenly stopped paddling, dropped the oar to the floor of the boat, and sank down to his knees. Alarmed, I rushed to him.
“Fuck,” he said, clutching at his side. “I think I’m going to take a breather.”
I pushed his hands away from the wound. It was dark save for the moonlight, and everything was blurry without my glasses, but that was not just some scratch. “You need more than a breather.”
He tried to sit up, but then his head fell back down again. “No. I’m good.”
“Stay right there.” I scrambled to the front of the boat and looked under the cushions. I grabbed the first aid kit.
I crawled across the boat’s floor to him, opening the kit as I went. There was gauze, tape, some antiseptic towelettes, antibiotic cream, forceps, and a pair of tiny scissors. Not much, but it would help. Wyatt was already trying to scuttle up to standing.
“Hey. Relax,” I ordered him.
“I’m—”
“Good, I know,” I muttered, pushing down hard on his shoulder to get him to stay still. “I just don’t want you bleeding all over the boat, because if I wind up slipping on one of your blood puddles, I’m going to be really peeved.”
“All right, all right.” He laid back and tossed his head to the sky. “So they didn’t… those men?”
I shuddered. “No. This old guy in a military suit was asking me all these questions. I have no idea what military they were from, though.”
“I might have met the same asshole,” he muttered. “His fist and my forehead became very well acquainted.”
“Well, I told him he could fuck his mother, so…”
He stared at me. “You… what?”
I gave him a guilty look and mumbled, “He deserved it.”
“I think they’re a faction of ISIS,” he said. “They wanted me to plead my case on camera to the president so that the United States would stay out of their dealings.”
My blood went cold at the mention of ISIS. I knew they were bad, but I didn’t know just how bad. “Oh, my…” I breathed. I pointed at his side. “And how did…?”
“Knife blade,” he mumbled.
“Knife?” I really started to worry then. Because this was not exactly the kind of wound antibiotic cream was created for. I pushed gently on the wound, and he grimaced. “You need to apply pressure. Stay still.”
His skin was hot to the touch. I’d never seen anyone hurt so badly. The wound itself was small, but the center looked dark, with flesh and muscles torn. I wiped the antiseptic towelette around the wound and applied a little bit of antibiotic cream to the edges. Then I folded the gauze and taped it to his side. It was completely inadequate. The wound was deep. He needed medical attention. When I looked up, his eyes were on me, not on his wound.
“Like I said,” he murmured, “I’m fine.”
I was glad he was so sure. Because even if he was a stubborn asshole who drove me absolutely bonkers, I didn’t think I could stand to lose him now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Wyatt
Escaping with only a belt buckle may not have been one of my brighter moves. But it had gotten us here.
And here was better. I was sure of it, even as the damningly hot sun began to rise, and the full force of the pain began to hit me.
I’d been pumped on adrenaline, which was why I didn’t even know I’d been badly injured until after I found Atlee. I’d taken a knife to the side when I’d overpowered the guard who’d come to my cell when I pretended to be sick. I’d stabbed him in the neck with the prong of my belt buckle and kicked away his gun, just about the same time that he must’ve gotten ahold of his knife.
Using the belt to choke him out, I’d watched him die at my hands, but not before he’d gotten a solid shot to my side with the sharp blade.
When it was done, I stood over him, unable to believe I’d done what I just did. I’d never killed a man before, and never wanted to do it again.
I shook that mental image away. It had come down to one thing… kill or be killed, I’d have to deal with the guilt of it later. Right now, we were not even close to being safe.
Plus, I had other things to worry about. Like the fact that I was bleeding all over the boat, and that my damn pants wouldn’t stay up. I’d left the belt around the man’s neck, unwilling to touch the makeshift weapon again.
“Apply pressure!” Atlee ordered me for the thousandth time as the sun began to rise in front of us. The bandage she’d applied hours ago had bled through immediately, so she’d found fabric from an old sack, which she thought might be more absorbent, and wound that tightly around my middle. Bright spots of blood were still beginning to appear.
I let out a curse. Turned out, the direction I thought was west was actually east. Meaning that we’d spent all night floating away from the Malaysian Peninsula.
Contrary to what Atlee believed, I didn’t own a yacht. Not one. I didn’t like boating. In fact, I hated it. And now, I fucking hated it more.
I sat down in the driver’s seat, wondering if we should turn around. If we did, we’d be fighting against the current, and wouldn’t that lead us closer to our captors?
I leaned to the side to check under the console, lifting the wires underneath the ignition. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t MacGyver. Who knew if hotwiring a boat was even possible? It wasn’t possible anymore with newer models of cars. This was an early model, so… it probably could be done. If I even knew where to start.
Atlee took off her — my — jacket and wrapped it around her waist. She sat down next to me and said, “This is where I’d pull out my phone and google How to Hotwire a Boat.”
I raised an eyebrow at her as I moved the wires around, slicing them with the scissors from the first aid kit, succeeding in nothing but snarling them.
“I admit it, I’m a slave to my phone. Anything I don’t know, I google. I know you think that’s weak.” She shrugged. “But if I get home, I’m not going to rely on it so much. I’m going to teach myself as many hacks as possible.”
Dropping the tangle of wires, I clenched my teeth together as pain shot up my side. “Not if. When.”
She nodded. “Right. When.”
She handed me the water bottle. If I had the luxury, I’d be able to drink two full bottles of that in thirty seconds and still be thirsty for more. But this one had only a few good sips of water left in it. I’d set up a tarp overhead to give us shelter, and also capture any rainwater that might happen to fall, but damned if there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, now that we really needed the rain.
“Not thirsty,” I muttered, nudging it away.
“Bullshit.” She thrust the bottle closer.
I didn’t touch it. “You can’t pay me to drink that.”
It may not have been as humid as the jungle, but it was shaping up to be as blisteringly hot. Worse, because we didn’t have the dense foliage to protect us, all we had was a flimsy, holey tarp that only one of us could fit fully under. My skin took a tan. I’d burn, but I’d be fine. It was more important to protect Atlee’s skin. Hers was as pale as sugar.
Sweet as it too.
I shouldn’t have been thinking of that day in the jungle. Was it possible that’d only been yesterday?
But dammit, that was probably the last really good thing that had happened to me. My eyes drifted closed, wanting to savor it.
The next thing I knew, she was holding a banana out to me. I shook my head.
“Stop being the martyr. You have to eat something.”
“So do you. But I can at least eat fish.”
She looked around. “And how wou
ld you catch them?”
I held out my hand, wiggling my fingers. “Bare hands, baby. I’m like a ninja warrior that way.”
She broke the banana in half and placed a section on my thigh. “Just eat this. If you can manage to catch a fish like that, I’ll eat it.”
“Well. Then the deal is on.” I popped the banana into my mouth and grinned at her. It was only an appetizer, just enough to remind me how famished I was. The second I swallowed, my stomach screamed for more.
I closed my eyes again, rubbing my jaw, which now had a three-day beard. My thoughts drifted back to Atlee, naked, under me. “Stay under the tarp,” I murmured to her, not opening my eyes. “You’ll burn.”
“What about you?”
I half-smiled and stretched back on the chair. “I’m working on my tan,” I said, remembering my wound too late. Merely stretching felt like it was opening something up, tearing away at my insides. Fuck. Not the best move.
I tried to hide the flinching from her, but now her eyes were on it. I looked down. Blood had soaked through the sack. She opened her mouth, but I held up a hand.
“I know. Pressure.”
She redressed the wound carefully, but by this time, the first aid kit was empty of anything but Band-Aids. Then she leaned over the side of the boat and rinsed the sack out, gnawing on her lip.
“You know,” she said, “This would’ve made a very good blog entry. Two absolute idiots surviving on a boat in the middle of the ocean. I bet I would’ve gotten a million hits. Or at least a million laughs.”
“That all you think about?” I muttered, scanning the horizon. Still, nothing but ocean.
“Is all you think about making money?” she retorted. “Oh, wait, no. There’s also sex.”
I smiled. “Well, what else is there?”
She ignored my quip. Two days ago, she would’ve tried to argue with me and put me in my place. I considered it progress that she knew I was only kidding. She scooped cool water out of the sea and splashed it on her skin. “What would happen if we drank sea water?”
“You’d dehydrate.”
She licked her cracking lips. “Well, I’m dehydrated now.”
“Okay. You’d dehydrate faster. A lot faster.”
“And what happens then?” When I gave her a look, she shrugged. “This is why I’m a slave to Google. I have a lot of questions.”
“Well…” I gave it some serious thought. “I guess at first all you can think about is how thirsty you are. And then your blood pressure starts to drop, and your body starts to overheat, and it doesn’t even really bother you anymore. Because your brain needs fluid, and you’re not thinking straight. Eventually, you just go insane, and all your organs begin to shut down. Then you die.”
She pressed her lips together. I could tell she was regretting asking the question. She changed the subject.
“You know, if I knew I would be stranded out here in the middle of nowhere, I would’ve brought a satellite phone.”
“Damn. You really should be better prepared,” I said. “But really, we have nothing to worry about. You already texted your friend, remember? I’m sure they’ll be right over.”
I expected a snarky comment in return, but she pressed her lips together, and I could tell she was thinking of back home. I’d been too.
“So where do you live in Manhattan?” I asked her.
“The Village,” she said, swiveling her chair toward me. Her pale legs swiveled into the sun, so I extended a leg and pushed them back under the shade of the tarp. We sat there, with our legs intertwined, and I could almost think this was a date, if not for my starving stomach, and the constant pain shooting up my side, and the fact that back home, I never really had the time for dates. “What about you?”
“Upper West Side.”
She rolled her eyes. “Figures. You probably never go to Greenwich Village. Too beneath you.”
“I do. I’m kind of partial to Washington Square Park. Whenever I’m down there, I always take a stroll through there. You know St. Joe’s?”
Her eyes widened. It was still weird to see her without the glasses. A good weird, but still weird. “You mean, the church? I live a few doors down from there. I didn’t know you were religious.”
“I am, kinda sorta. But actually, I meant the soup kitchen. I’ve been volunteering there since I was ten.”
She stared at me. “I… you volunteer?”
I grinned and readjusted my position. “Only when I’m not being a scumbag. My mother was really into us giving back. So I did. Every weekend. You said you grew up in Oklahoma?”
She was gazing at me, mouth slightly open, so the subject change took her off guard. “Oh. Er, yes. Only came to New York for college, and then law school. You lived in Manhattan your whole life?”
I nodded. “Yep. And don’t let the soup kitchen thing fool you. You’ll find plenty to hate about me. The Dalton School, summers in the south of France, believe me, I’m as spoiled and privileged an asshole as you’ll ever find.”
“You don’t say,” she deadpanned. Then she smiled. “I don’t think you’re an asshole. Or a scumbag.”
“I’m touched,” I told her, placing a hand over my heart. “So, what was life like in Oklahoma? Did the wind come sweeping down the plain?”
She rolled her eyes, a look I was getting used to. I’d like to think her eye-rolls were reserved just for me, because only I could rile her up so much. “Wait. Are you actually trying to make me think you’re an asshole now?”
I considered this. “I thought I didn’t need to try.”
The sun was rising higher now, illuminating a gorgeous, turquoise-blue sea. It was every bit the tropical paradise. She stretched her legs out, putting her dirty feet up on the console. Her toenails were painted a baby blue that matched the sky. “It’s Saturday now, right? What time do you think it is?”
The sun had fully risen so I made a guess. “A little after seven. Seven-thirty, maybe.”
She frowned. “I’m missing my flight.”
I hitched a shoulder. “Ah. Who’d want to miss this?”
“Do you think they’ll refund my money?”
I studied her, trying to see if she was serious. “I guess you have a pretty good excuse.”
“Well, it was expensive,” she huffed. “And I’m not made of money…” she wrinkled her nose at me, “like some people. I really don’t want to be stranded in Malaysia even if… I mean when we get back to Malaysia.”
“Okay, well, I’ll make you a deal. When we go home, if they won’t refund your ticket, I’ll buy you one. First-class.”
She wrinkled her nose again, a gesture I found adorable. “Let me guess. Sitting right next to you?”
“Maybe.”
“Is it better in first-class?”
“Of course. The seats recline so you can sleep, and they feed you a gourmet meal. Only way to fly. Plus, you’d be next to me. How could that be bad?”
I extended my hand. She shook it and smiled.
“You know, this isn’t so bad. It’s pretty here. I bet there’ll be an awesome sunset. All we’d need is a couple margaritas, and I’d actually think I was on vacation.”
“Feel free to strip naked and go skinny-dipping off the back of the boat.” I grinned. “I won’t judge.”
She grimaced at me. “You realize there are probably sharks swarming in these waters?”
“Then feel free to just strip naked and stay on the boat where I can see you. In fact, I’d prefer that.”
She pretended to ignore me, but her cheeks turned a shade of pink to match the sunrise. “God, I want a margarita. And actually, a bean burrito. There’s this place in the Village that makes the best margaritas.”
I wasn’t much of a fruity drink kind of guy, but right then, if she was in, so was I.
“I’ll make you another deal,” I told her. “When we get home, we’ll go there, and we’ll drink margaritas and eat burritos until we throw up.”
I reached across the space, han
d extended, and she shook it.
I muttered under my breath, “Mine’ll have meat in it. Even the margarita.”
She smacked me and pointed a you’re just asking for it, buster finger at me.
Then she looked up at the sky and said, “I read somewhere that a person can die of starvation in two weeks and can die from lack of sleep in ten days.”
“That’s cheery.”
She lifted the bottle of water and stared at the murky contents at the bottom of the bottle. Only a few mouthfuls for each of us. “But you can die from dehydration in a matter of hours, if it’s hot enough.”
I nodded, scanning the horizon. Felt the heat settle down into my bones. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Atlee
So thirsty.
In my dreams, I saw clear blue waterfalls pouring over mountains. Crystalline streams. Ice-cold glasses of water lined up and ready for the taking.
I woke as the sun stood high in the sky, and the back of my throat felt like it was covered in blisters. I’d been dehydrated before, but it never bothered me because I knew I could get water eventually. Now, with nothing to do but drift among water that wasn’t suitable for drinking, all I could do was concentrate on the burning feeling in my throat.
I stretched my muscles, which felt sore since the makeshift mattress wasn’t anywhere near as good as the real thing. I felt as though I’d tossed and turned, and when I looked at my arms and legs, I had the bruises to prove it. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and peered out from the shade.
Wyatt was sitting on the bench in the back of the boat, barefoot, his pants rolled up to mid-calf, his bare chest getting bronzer and more godlike by the second. The stubble on his face was growing thicker, giving him a wicked glint. His face looked red and sun-worn as he squinted in the bright sun, his hands busy.
I pulled my knees under my body to get a better view and realized he was wrapping some of the leftover medical tape around one of the oars. He had the knife he’d used to bust open the lock attached to the end of it. He answered my question before I could ask it. “Making a spear for fishing. I figure I’ve got to try now, before we get too hungry.”
