Smash, slash, boom—
Hit head-on by a stone wall…toppling, heeling over before Kat had a chance to suck in a breath.
That’s when her sight broke apart, splatters of wood spearing away from themselves, an explosion that erased the boat from the face of the ocean.
Kat smacked into the dark water below it, salty liquid shoved into her mouth. It felt like an invisible hand pinning her under, drowning her, just like that day, at the beach, pinning her to the sand, helpless.
Her brain couldn’t register the sensations quickly enough—gulping, choking on brine, arms flailing, head dunking under again and again until…
Her hand hit something on the surface, and she clawed to grab on to it. She pulled it to her, levering herself upward, breaking the surface of the water.
Sinking over the piece of wood, she sputtered and coughed, the wind and waves still attacking her.
The life she’d felt sliding away rushed back. Her vision scrambled and chilled her blood until life thrashed in her veins, pumping her with the will to survive.
Got to get out of here. Got to…
She got her bearings as best as she could in the dark. Lightning flashed, revealing pieces of the boat washing around her like shrapnel. Rocks stood against the crashing waves. A mass of dark ridges loomed nearby.
Was that…?
A sheet of water slammed against her, coupled with lightning and thunder. Rain? Spray? She gulped against it, a splinter of hope stabbing her belly.
Was that land?
She embraced the optimism. She was going to beat this storm, dammit. The water wouldn’t get her. It would never beat her down.
Another silent blade of lightning revealed, amidst the debris near her, a blond head bobbing below the water, a hand reaching out for help.
Without hesitation, she kicked toward it, using the wood to keep herself afloat. The waves fought her, but she was helped by an unexpected ally—the moon. As if choosing sides, it ripped a shroud of clinging clouds from its face, shining faint light on the ocean.
As Kat struggled onward, Eloise screamed to the surface, arms jerking as she tried to find purchase on whatever would prove solid. Using all her strength, Kat yanked the older woman up and onto her plank. Groaning with the effort, she pushed Eloise until she lay gasping, her fingers taloned as she scratched at the wood.
Wildly, Kat scanned the rolling waves for others. At first, all she saw was floating furniture, abandoned life jackets, a book winging face down.
Chris. Where the hell was he? And Will…?
Her gaze fixed onto a colorful piece of wood about fifty feet away and…oh, no, no, no. The plank bore a shirt. One of Duke’s tiki shirts.
Kat turned to Eloise and yelled, “Kick toward land!” Her voice was hoarse, but she thought that the other woman heard.
She didn’t have time to make sure. Dammit, how could she swim to Duke?
There was only one way she could think of that would be faster than fighting the waves. Let the water help you, she thought. Trust it.
She shucked off her life jacket. Without a moment’s regret, she heaved in a deep breath. Submerging, she gave herself to the ocean she knew—the one that made her feel akin to it. The one less affected by what was going on above the surface.
She kicked through the restless darkness, swimming around falling debris. When she reached the spot where Duke was floating, she burst out of the water, fetched a bobbing white seat cushion, shoved and held it under his body.
“Duke!” she screamed, trying to turn him over.
She could’ve sworn she saw his chest rise. Maybe he hadn’t been facedown for long.
Please, God, please let him be breathing!
She heard the commotion before she saw it coming—a growing roar.
Taking a huge breath, Kat braced herself for the wave. Her surfer’s sense made navigating waves a natural instinct. Luckily, she was at the point where it lifted her, carried her, then deposited her behind its roll, but it had separated her from Duke….
With a smashing rush it pounded over him.
“No!”
In the distance, the white cushion wavered in the foam. Alone.
Before she could scream, another wave swept her up and pushed her toward shore. Sand scraped her knees as she crawled to her feet. Legs rubbery, she could barely stand as rain fell around her. Through its opaque rush, she thought she saw Eloise sprawled on the beach. Someone else was a little farther down, with…was that Alexandra?
Frantically, while the rain slashed at her skin and blurred her sight, she scanned the angry ocean. The wreckage.
She couldn’t see if there were any more people out there, she couldn’t…
She crumbled to the sand, consumed by utter cold and disbelief.
But she would’ve saved that sense of horror if she’d only known what the next few days would bring.
Chapter 7
By dawn, survivors had gathered from different parts of the beach, the wind and rain chopping around them.
Kat. Louis. Eloise. Dr. Hopkins. Alexandra. All that was left of the crew: Larry and Tinkerbell.
And…thank God. Chris.
As the bedraggled party huddled against each other under a rock overhang that overlooked the beach, shielding them from the elements and affording them enough light to live by, Kat hugged Chris to her, trying to keep him—them—warm. The storm batted against pine and cypress trees, all the survivors shivering from the cold in tattered clothing still wet and clammy. Bruises colored Kat’s aching flesh. Scrapes marked her skin like gnawing burns—living tattoos earned from the sand and rocks.
She could faintly see the shoreline of their unknown island from where they sat. Past the curtain of rain the wreckage could barely be seen washing up. Now that the sky was a temperamental gray, giving her the weak illumination to reveal what they were up against, Kat’s mind started to shed its veil of numbness and go to work.
“The other survivors won’t be able to find us up here,” she said, throat stripped raw.
None of them responded at first. Was it because they had no ideas or because they thought the others weren’t alive and were too overcome to speak?
Kat wouldn’t accept that last part. No way. Duke was out there somewhere, and so was…
Tears prickled her eyes, infusing her with regret. Will wasn’t dead. He was too smart, too vital. If anyone was stronger than the sea, it was him.
Duke, Nestor, Duffy, the rest of the crew…she was more doubtful about their chances than Will’s.
Louis, holding Eloise to his chest as she squeezed her eyes shut, finally stirred. The husband and wife were mourning the absence of their sons and…possibly…Duke. A shell-shocked Chris had already told Kat that things hadn’t changed with the Delacroixs, even after their family meeting on the boat. They had all remained weird around one another.
Louis’s coarsened voice hinted at the depths of his sadness. “We have nothing to guide any survivors, Katsu. The weather won’t allow us to build a signal fire. It’s too wet.”
“Too fierce,” Larry added. He and Tinkerbell had crowded against each other for heat. “This weather is a demon. It’ll keep Search and Rescue away, even if they received the captain’s distress signal and know our location. Just look at that tumbling water. There won’t be planes or ships out this way until all of this settles.”
“Lovely,” said a female voice to the right of Kat.
A nasty cut decorated Alexandra’s cheek. Probably in an effort to deny the loss of her brothers…and grandfather?…she’d avoided crying and had wholeheartedly thrown herself into the duty of playing nursemaid to Dr. Hopkins, using a life jacket to prop the woman’s head up. The scientist seemed to be in worse shape than any of them, her face tight with anguish as she cowered from the cold. She was in the fetal position, hunching over her hands, which had been smashed by falling debris during the wreck.
“I’m just being realistic,” Larry said. Moisture beaded on his dreadlocks. �
��I’ve never experienced anything like this. It happened so fast…”
Tinkerbell sniffed. Her dark face looked scoured. “And the storm isn’t stopping.”
“First, there were whitecaps,” Larry continued. “From out of nowhere. Then—kaboom. Everything went to hell.” He hugged Tink to him. “Captain did his damnedest to get us out of it, steered us toward this chain of isolated islands—God even knows which one we’re on—and shouted his Mayday before the communications equipment went out.”
“While that’s all very interesting,” Alexandra said, “it doesn’t help us right now.”
As Larry shot the rich girl a dirty look, the wheels turned even harder in Kat’s brain. Kat knew that she, herself, was the last person she wanted to depend on, but it sounded like they needed to help themselves for the time being.
“I’ll be going down to the beach,” she said, “whether the storm clears or not.”
“Don’t.” Chris clung to her waist.
Alexandra stood, glaring at the beach. “We don’t even know what’s out there. You wouldn’t be safe.”
“So what do you want to do then?” Kat gestured behind them, to a dark entrance that she thought might lead to better shelter. A deeper cave than the open-sided shelter they were in now. “Waiting out this storm means we might be here a while. We’ll need warmth and light for nighttime, which is going to be here before we know it. We’ll need food. Water. We’ll need a signal that leads the others to us and attracts Search and Rescue.”
“How can we do that without fire?” Louis asked, just as though Kat knew all the answers.
His apparent confidence took her aback. She was no survival expert, but her dad had learned a thing or two in the military. Kat had been his “little tomboy,” loving to hear all his stories of wilderness training and exotic assignments because it’d meant quality time together.
But, God help her, it was hard to remember the details of what he’d told her so long ago.
Kat pointed toward the beach. “There’re things washing up. Who knows what we can salvage? And I’m wondering…” Okay, would her idea sound stupid?
“What?” Larry asked.
His interest propped up Kat’s self-esteem. Suddenly, she realized that she—bullied Katsu—had somehow taken the lead here, that the others were watching her. Depending on her.
“What if we tried to make some kind of sign on the beach for the rescue plane that’ll come after the storm?” she asked. “An SOS made out of wood pieces? Larry said this island is just one in a chain. S&R might not know which one we’re on, so we’ll have to help them out.”
“That can be done later,” Louis added.
“Are you taking charge?” Tink fired at the Delacroix patriarch as she got to her knees, bunching her fists.
Louis moved away from Eloise, his face going red. “Watch your mouth, you little—”
Larry sprang over to Louis, his hand reaching for the patriarch’s throat.
“Stop it!” Kat yelled, darting toward Larry and hauling him back by the arm. She took him by the shoulders. “Calm down. We’re depending on you.” She glanced at everyone. “All of you. The last thing we need is more injuries. Can’t you guys just think with me instead of going crazy?”
Clearly ashamed, Larry backed off as Tink sat him down. He gave Kat an apologetic glance.
The tussle with Duffy, she thought. That’s the day she’d won Larry’s respect.
When she looked at Louis, he seemed stunned. They’d all have to remember to cut the Delacroixs some slack, even though they were all hurting in their own ways.
Duke. Will…
She chased away the renewed devastation in the pit of her belly. “Maybe we can make…I don’t know…arrows or something on the ground for the others to find us. Arrows pointing to this cave.”
Tink stood. “Perfect.”
“We need weapons.” Larry shook his head. “As the rich girl said, we don’t know what’s out there.”
Alexandra flashed an irritated glance at the crew member. She was hiding her sorrow well…if she was feeling any, that is.
“But we know what we have up here,” Kat said. “And that’s nothing. Zip. If the weather doesn’t calm down soon, we’ll be dehydrated and starving.”
When she got to her feet, Chris followed her.
“No,” she said. “You’re staying.”
“I want to go,” Chris whispered. His hangdog look told Kat just how much he needed her.
Understanding his reluctance to be with the family he clearly still didn’t trust, Kat wasn’t sure what to do. All she was sure of was that Duke’s disappearance was, in a cynical way, very fortunate for the Delacroixs.
When it came right down to it, she didn’t trust them alone with the possible ninety-five-percent heir, either. Not after a possible attempt had already been made on his life.
Dr. Hopkins weakly spoke up. “Come here, Chris. You can keep me company, all right?”
“Yeah.” Kat patted the teen’s back, then leaned down to whisper into his ear. “I won’t be gone long enough for anyone to mess with you.”
“You think you’ll find…” His words choked to a stop.
But he didn’t have to finish.
“I’m sure your gramps is out there,” Kat said, voice thick. “Don’t worry.”
And Will was out there, too. Somewhere. God, please, somewhere. In the face of near death, it was clear. Life was giving her a second chance, and she couldn’t blow it if he was still alive. Her beating the storm had swept away the doubts for now, made her see what she needed to do.
But she knew she might be riding a stream of misguided hope, even as she cautiously led Larry, Tink and Alexandra down the slope toward the beach. A fevered, wet breeze throttled the harboring trees, the bushes, making every step a terrifying leap into the unknown.
What was hiding behind each piece of foliage? How long would it be before they found out?
Feral aminals, a killer…Immediately, Kat suggested that the group pick up sticks to arm themselves, the pointier the better.
At the shore the wind was so strong that it threatened to gust them to the ground, so they hurried their pace gathering useful wreckage scraps, running from the relative safety of the trees to the beach, then back again. Little by little, they retrieved light boxes, bags, pieces of driftwood that had all been spat out by the churning tide.
When they dug into their trove, they found gems: a box of bagged potato chips from the galley, plastic cups, individual cans of soda, a bag of health and beauty aids, some loose diving gear—including a mask tangled with a holstered knife—plus a screwdriver and a bigger sheathed knife with a wicked blade wrapped in the ties of a seat cushion. Shaw’s knife.
They were optimistic for the first time in hours, ooohing at every present. Kat clipped the sheath of Shaw’s eight-and-a-half-inch knife to a belt loop, hoping she’d never need it for wildlife protection, but thinking it was good insurance anyway.
Soon, she led one more trip to the open beach with Tinkerbell while the others worked on that SOS sign and those arrows for the other possible survivors. And that’s when she came upon the best treasure of all washed to shore.
A battered body dressed in a ragged tiki shirt and khaki pants. He was scratching at the rocks…
“Duke!” she yelled, pulling Tink with her so they could both drag him back to the trees.
Kat laid the bloodied man on the ground. Heart joyful, she tested his pulse, put her ear next to his mouth, hoping to hear healthy exhalation.
Faint, on both counts. God, was he in shock? Kat was no medical expert so she went with her gut instinct—checking his airway.
“Warmth,” she said, voice shaking. “I think we need to warm him up, too.”
As if lured by Kat’s voice, Duke shuddered and coughed up seawater in a violent burble.
Spent and laughing in relief, she sank over him, shot through with so much happiness that she could barely move.
Duke’s eyes c
racked open. His breath was thick with wheezing. But he’d beaten the ocean, too, Kat thought, and she laughed a little wildly because her body didn’t know what else to do.
A few hours later, they were all back at the shelter. Duke, warmed by Chris’s body heat as his grandson embraced him, was just waking up from a nap on his own life jacket bed. He’d taken a cuffing from some rocks and his face and body were cut and scraped. He didn’t remember anything, he said, just the boat smashing, then him waking up, safe in Kat’s arms.
Her heart sparked, but a part of her was still steeped in darkness. Was Will out there somewhere, too? And did he need her help just as badly?
She yearned to brave the storm again in order to find him, but Duke was holding her hand, watching her with such gratitude and tenderness that she couldn’t bear to leave him for fear of bringing about a setback.
Will’s young and strong, she reminded herself. Duke isn’t. And Duke is the one who’s alive, the one who needs me right now.
Please be alive, Will. Stay alive so I can tell you how much I still need you….
As she nursed the old man and the Delacroixs made a fuss over his return, Tinkerbell and Larry had risked a second trip to the beach and brought back a few more items, including wood and blankets that were now airing out. Hopefully everyone would be on their way back home before the wood even dried, but it was smart to be prepared anyway.
Best of all, Tink and Larry had found a waterproof bag that held a first-aid kit and a flashlight. Kat had tended to Duke’s cuts and Alexandra had seen to Dr. Hopkins’s injuries. But now Janelle and Alex were sleeping, leveled by everything they’d been through these past twelve hours. Louis and Eloise had even settled down for their own naps.
Tinkerbell and Larry were using the flashlight, the screwdriver and some heavy pieces of wood—aka clubs—to check out the deeper cave’s interior. They would have used the diving knife for defense, too, but in all the hustle and bustle, it’d been lost.
But it’s around somewhere, Kat thought, resting her hand on the one knife she’d claimed. When Louis had commented on her find earlier, she’d told him that she intended to protect them all from wild animals. She hadn’t dared mention anything about people. Louis and the others had let it go, which surprised Kat. It was almost like she’d earned the knife and the trust that went with carrying it.
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