Baited

by Crystal Green

  If she hadn’t stepped in, Will would be dead. Tying him up had saved him—for the time being.

  Surprisingly, the wind and rain had died down and the sun began to peek out from the clouds. It forced everyone to suck it up and work. If they didn’t take advantage of this reprieve and put their terror into little inner compartments, they’d never survive long enough to see a rescue. Later those pressures could spring open like jack-in-the-boxes. But first they needed food and fire.

  Chris and Eloise, two of the healthiest in the group, had taken Will’s knives for protection as they’d stumbled down to the beach, intending to salvage more materials. Kat hoped they would be alert enough to mind any predators, though. On the way out, both of them had moved like zombies, with Chris at a distance from his aunt.

  Kat gave Larry, who was still mourning Tink, a flashlight and set him to work using the bow, stick and a rock slab to create fire in a protected area where there was no wind. Small pieces of wood and bark from the cave, as well as light planks found at the beach, would be their dry fuel, she hoped. At first Larry had pitched a fit about Will’s incarceration, and Kat had needed to explain why his captain was being tied up, that it was better than a screwdriver to the throat any day, that the Delacroixs were crying for Will’s blood and this was the agreement that saved Will’s life.

  His eventual acceptance of the captivity made her realize how much Larry trusted her. Or was it because he, too, thought his captain was guilty? Was he also wary of all the rumors surrounding Captain Macintosh’s death, even though Will had denied them? And had Will’s attack on Louis back on the M. Falcon shown too much of a violent temper, one that made it easy to believe him capable of anything?

  Or maybe having a suspect made them all feel a little safer, like the trouble had been neutralized.

  At any rate, as she stood guard over Will, knife at her hip, she tried to stay frosty. Lack of sleep was getting to her, and her throat was stinging. Her chest was tight and her limbs were starting to feel heavy and achy.

  The last thing she needed was to get sick, exposed to the elements as they all were. She’d heard the others beginning to cough and sniffle, too.

  Louis, who had finally bandaged up his shredded ankles, was sitting and staring blankly at the rain. Dr. Hopkins was tending clumsily to an exhausted Duke, who was still having bouts of nausea. He was soothed enough to fall into a partial sleep. Kat was growing anxious about Louis’s boar bites. Would they get infected? And how much blood had Louis lost from his wounds?

  An excited voice from the cave made Kat flinch away from her thoughts.

  “Fire!” Larry cried. “Fire!”

  Kat waited, listening, craving more good news. Even this pitiful amount of it had perked her up.

  “Is it still going?” Kat yelled back.

  Will stirred. She reluctantly undid the knife sheath.

  Louis got to his hands and knees, making his way toward the cave. “I’ll help him.”

  Minutes after he crawled away, Chris and Eloise returned, arms laden with coconuts. As the teen told everyone how the fruit had been knocked to the ground by the winds, he went about getting the meat from them. First, he drained the nut by skewing one of the kitchen knives into the softest “eye” on top, pouring the juice into cups. Then he put the nut in Will’s duffel bag and slammed it against the wall to break the shells.

  As Kat jerked from the crack of the contact, a victorious whoop and another, more victorious cry of “Fire!” made her start, then smile for the first time in…jeez, had it been hours? Days?

  Maybe now they’d be able to bring back that mama boar, have maybe Larry or Louis skin it, then ready it for some roasting over the flames. Stomach growling, Kat wondered if they could even find Will’s boar under that tree.

  As if hearing his name go through her mind, Will groaned. Kat tensed, her fingers touching the rubber of her knife’s grip.

  “Uhhh,” Will said, shifting. His eyes shot open once he realized he couldn’t move. “Kat? What…?”

  All activity in the shelter ceased. It was only when Kat didn’t answer that everyone got back to work.

  “It’s the only way I could keep you alive,” she said, tentatively smoothing back the hair from his forehead in spite of herself. “Louis, Eloise and maybe a few other people who’re playing their cards close to their chests wanted to put you on some kind of wham-bam trial where you’d come out hanging.”

  He shut his eyes, like he was trying to remember. Clearly, he did—right up to the part where Louis had whomped him.

  “Untie me.” He started forward, then winced. The cuts on his lips were still mean and red.

  “Everyone has a lot of questions about you.”

  Crack went Chris’s coconuts, the sound making Kat ultra-aware that Dr. Hopkins, Eloise and the boy were listening.

  Torn between being a guard or a supporter, Kat offered him a cup of rainwater. He refused at first but seemed to reconsider and drank greedily, his eyes half-closed in difficulty. Then he looked disgusted with himself for giving in.

  “Don’t fight this,” she said, “because it’ll end up being worse if you do.”

  He finished, licking a stray drop from his lips. Kat’s body fired to flame. Even all tied up he had the power to overcome her better instincts with one innocent, suggestive move.

  “Does that mean you’re going to kill me?” he asked.

  He gave a deliberate look to her knife.

  “Listen,” she said, feeling Eloise’s glare on her back. “Someone’s running around carving up faces and stabbing people. Got it?”

  “And I’m the killer. Why? Why would I be?”

  She steeled herself. “One theory going around is that you’re after my five percent, and you’re killing off the present heirs to get to it.”

  “Right. I killed Duffy. And Alexandra.”

  Kat lowered her voice to a whisper. “Yeah, even your favorite passenger.” Bitterness. Envy. Her tone was steeped in both.

  Will offered a defensive laugh, lowering his own voice so that Kat had to lean in to hear him. “And now you’re buying into it all? For the record, since you seem to need reassurance, I wasn’t interested in Alexandra. We had a few conversations, that’s it. I was the captain who was making his guests feel at home—”

  Without warning, he strained at the rope, catching her off guard. Shooting him a fiercely conflicted glare, she sprang to her feet, levering her shoe against his chest to keep him down and putting her hand on the knife. She wasn’t going to look around the shelter to see everyone giving her I-told-you-so glances.

  The area was quiet now.

  “Kat.” Under her control, he was panting, voice soft, so damned persuasive. “How could we go from loving each other to this?”

  Her heart flared, then seemed to tear apart, raining cold and dead inside her chest.

  But she couldn’t give in. Not until she absolutely knew that Will was in the clear. Because of the Delacroixs, it was a matter of life and death, a symptom of the fever attacking them all now.

  Through her disturbed fog, Kat became aware of someone entering the shelter from the cave. Larry.

  He came to stand before her, giving an apologetic, cautious nod to his captain. Larry looked like a kid who’d come to the zoo just to see the nice tigers he worshipped in the picture books he’d read. And now that he was on the other side of the cage, where the only barrier between him and the threat of a beast was a rope that had been cut in two and secured into knots that might not even hold, he wasn’t so sure about this animal he thought he’d known.

  Was it as warm and fuzzy as he’d once believed? Or would it attack?

  “Larry?” Kat asked.

  He roused himself. “Delacroix is feeding the fire with the gathered wood. What can I do now?”

  There it was again—the assumption that she was in charge of their survival.

  And with the speed of a flash flood, she then realized that she pretty much had been ever since they’d wr
ecked.

  God. Katsu the leader. The world had really fallen on its ass, hadn’t it?

  Still, she couldn’t stop a surge of pride from pumping her up. It was pretty nice to be valued.

  Katsu. The leader.

  But then reality edged its way back again. Darkness, heavy, liquid and all too scary.

  “I hate to ask you this,” she said, “but I can’t leave Will, and no one else…”

  Larry’s direct gaze didn’t waver. “Just ask me.”

  She inhaled, then exhaled on a trembling breath. “Alexandra and Tink.”

  He got it. Earlier, Kat and Larry had moved the socialite’s body next to Tink’s, wondering when they would be able to bury them. It had to be taken care of before nature took its course and made their location a target for predatory animals with good noses…like boars.

  Now, the dreadlocked guy—the baddie of the group—pursed his lips. He was fighting back tears, Kat thought.

  But he quickly gathered himself, puffing up his chest as his eyes got watery. Hiding his face, he lurched toward the cave opening, holding up a hand to tell Kat that he was all right and she didn’t need to pursue him. He would get the job done. Complainer or not, Larry was dependable.

  And that left her with Will, who was watching her with narrowed eyes, his last question hanging in the air.

  How had they gone from loving each other to this?

  As a rumble of thunder shook the sky, Kat unsuccessfully tried to come up with an answer.

  Chapter 12

  I’ve got to get out of these putrid clothes, Kat thought later that afternoon.

  She couldn’t take it anymore. The scent of the boar’s blood—though partially blocked by a nose that was getting more plugged by the second—nauseated her. Calling Larry over, she told him to guard Will, knowing she was taking a risk, gambling that Larry was indeed on her side. She knew he was aware of the consequences if he were to betray her by setting Will free.

  And when she told Larry that Will wasn’t his captain now—that he was a prisoner—the crewman didn’t argue with her, so that was hopeful for maintaining order.

  She quickly set about scrubbing herself under a palm whose fronds were splashing water to the earth. Afterward, Kat felt as decent as she could, dressed in a pair of her own surf shorts, a T-shirt and a lightweight jacket they’d found on the beach. In fact, when she got back to the shelter, the others went, bit by bit, to freshen up, too. Chris helped Duke, Eloise helped Louis and Dr. Hopkins managed by herself right before Larry took his own “happy shower,” as he called it.

  They could afford the luxury, now that they thought they had the killer restrained.

  But Kat still wasn’t so sure.

  Tink kept haunting her. So did Duffy’s and Alexandra’s altered faces. There was something about Duffy’s eyes, mouth…Something about Alexandra’s nose, ears…

  What was eating at Kat? Why couldn’t she put her finger on what was bothering her about the way they had looked?

  A near miracle was the only thing that ended up keeping her sane: an hour later, the sun struggled through the clouds and cast a streak of gold over the ocean. Kat was the first to see the spot on the back of the newly lit water. It was a spot so tiny that it looked like a black ant ready to drop off the edge of the world.

  She stood near the overhang with its beach view, trying not to forget that Will was still behind her.

  “Come here!” she yelled.

  Everyone did, lured by Kat’s urgency.

  She pointed, and Eloise grabbed her arm.

  “Is that…?”

  Impulsively, she hugged Kat, and they all yipped and danced around as well as they could. Even Louis, who couldn’t stand fully, was included soon. He’d crawled over on his hands and knees, caveman-like. He was still wearing patches of the boar’s blood on his face, where Eloise obviously hadn’t scrubbed hard enough. And even though he sported a new set of clothes, they were too big. Hugh-the-steward’s grubs. Earlier, Eloise had begged Louis to let her wash his leg wounds again. And, from the way he was dragging around, Kat suspected it wasn’t a bad idea.

  Trouble was, they had no more ointments in the first aid kit. How much good would rainwater do Louis?

  “A ship, a ship!” Chris sang, dancing around.

  Kat ran down a mental checklist. Was their SOS sign intact for a plane to spot? Could they build a signal fire out there? She needed to get out and make sure.

  “A ship!” Dr. Hopkins said, knocking hips with Chris. “When it gets close enough, let’s light up a few torches and run down to the beach. They’ll see that, right?”

  “Thank you, God,” Will said from his corner.

  Louis stopped his celebrating. “I wouldn’t get so excited if I were you, Captain. You’ll be turned over to them next.”

  “I’ve nothing to hide.”

  As everyone else went back to watching the dot on the ocean, Kat’s gaze lingered on Will, remorse holding her to him while he stared back, disappointment shading his eyes.

  When Duke started to moan in his bed, holding his hands to his head, Kat sighed roughly, the spell broken. Chris hopped over to help his grandfather.

  “Rescue!” Louis said. He didn’t sound happy so much as starving. “Back home.”

  “Back to the swimming pool,” Eloise said. “Back to massages and martinis with three olives.”

  Both Louis and Eloise went quiet, no doubt thinking of how tasteless those martinis would seem without their children to enjoy them, too.

  From his bed, Duke growled, then roared, sitting up. There was a twist to his gaze that made Kat’s breath catch.

  “And who’ll pay for all of that, you leeches?”

  Kat took a step backward.

  “Father,” Eloise said, voice thick. “How can you ask such a thing? After all we’ve—”

  “Don’t ‘Father’ me when you aren’t half the daughter I needed.”

  It was a strange Duke. A man Kat didn’t know—one with a mean, baffling flare in his darkened eyes, one whose temper had mounted his pain and been made bigger, more intense.

  The shelter suddenly seemed to have a heartbeat of its own, a pulse that pounded through Kat and shook the air.

  Shoulders drooping, the fevered billionaire lost his fire, shaking his head in dissipated anger. “I know everything, Eloise. Remember that.”

  As Kat stood helpless, Duke suffered all alone, sinking into his bed and pulling a newly dried canvas jacket over himself. Chris retreated and sat nearby, gauging his grandfather, probably afraid to go near him.

  The rest of them tried to ban the ugliness from the shelter by turning back to the spot on the ocean and planning how to best attract its attention when it got closer.

  But it never got any bigger.

  When the sun faded, they all got a little nervous.

  The wind picked up and Kat’s eyes started to sting with disappointment. Thunder declared itself again; lightning answered.

  Suddenly, the ocean looked like a pot of boiling water, agitated and dark. Rain crashed down, erasing the beautiful black spot and the golden waves it moved upon.

  Kat never got to talk to Duke because he soon became violently ill, then succumbed to a deep sleep. Best thing, really. He was in a lot of pain. His body needed to shut down and replenish—if it could.

  They all ate their boar meat in near silence. It was surprisingly tender and likely delicious, even though Kat couldn’t taste much of it. Not many of them could with their worsening colds. But, still, as Kat sniffled and struggled to grasp its flavor, she could feel the protein strengthening her.

  Now all she needed was sleep.

  And so she cut a deal with Larry: alternating shifts, where they would take turns napping.

  The group moved themselves to the cave opening, near the fire. Luckily, more exploration produced more dried wood, and it was given to the person on watch to feed the flames during the night. They’d also salvaged and dried enough blankets and clothing so that they c
ould bundle under a decent pile of warmth as they went to sleep.

  “’Night, Kat,” Will said as he huddled near her, still restrained. “Hope your dreams are as sweet as mine.”

  There was an edge to his tone. Even while hardening herself against it, she felt his anger slash into her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it’d been just anger, though. There was also a tinge of regret—a reminder of a fork in the road and the different directions they’d taken. A reminder of how they’d lost each other along the way.

  Kat swallowed. “You know this is the last thing I want to be doing—holding you prisoner.”

  “And being trussed up is my last choice.” He paused, then raised his voice so everyone could hear. “I may have a temper, but I’ve never killed anyone—not Duffy, not Alexandra, not Captain Macintosh.”

  “I wish,” she said, “you’d just see that I’m your protector and not your jailor.”

  No one said anything in the cave. Only the crackling fire and some sounds of the winds provided commentary. Maybe everyone was already asleep.

  “Will…?” she whispered, trailing off, not knowing where to start.

  His exhausted sigh spoke more than a thousand words ever could. “As I said, sweet dreams, Kat.”

  Her throat was too choked to pursue it, so she took her knife in hand and blinked her eyes, forcing them open. But she couldn’t help watching Will, piecing together her confusion, her apologies, their past….

  A downtown bar on a summer Saturday. A popular Brit-rock band had been slumming it in a small venue. She’d caught Will giving her a grin from across the room and, when she’d gone to get a second beer, he’d told her that she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. Flustered by the force of her immediate attraction to him, she’d accused him of recycling a bad line that’d probably worked before. They’d listened to the music together, bodies brushing against each other in innocent contact. They’d talked about their favorite bands, their favorite movies, their favorite types of Mexican food. Then, they’d walked to the harbor in the dead of night, watching the sun come up and talking about their favorite breakfasts. And…