“We need to get you the fuck out of there. You’re smart enough to know that. Let the damn blade go.” His voice smacks me.
We’re fucked without the machete. We’ve got a saw, but how long will we last without the blade? We’ve got my utility tool, and Zane has his knife from the Rock Candy too. But without the machete?
I brought as much as I thought we could to camp. Did I think that pirates were going to steal the ship? Fuck no. I thought a storm was going to push her sideways onto the reef and crack her in half, filling her with water. So hell, I brought as much to the shore as I thought we could.
I’m inching down deeper into the mud. I’ve known I need to disperse my weight from the second I got in here. But which way? I lie down, my head facing the machete. There are a few spears of bamboo growing around it.
“What the hell are you doing? You can’t move that way.”
“I’ve got to get the machete.”
“For the love of... You are the most infuriating person on the damn planet.”
“So I’ve been told.” I’m staring up at the darkening sky. I reach over my head and grab a rotten stump. It breaks apart in my hand, but it does give me enough leverage so I can inch forward to the machete.
“You blockhead, turn the fuck around.” Rockwell’s voice is moving. It’s less at my feet and more to the side now.
Another reach and pull of mud, another fraction of an inch. But my toes are free. And I fucking still have my shoes.
“Would you just listen to me for a change? Can you listen to anyone?”
“That machete is our life. We won’t make it another rainy season here without it.”
“We can go through the huts. They must have had one. The big house that Zane mentioned he saw when you went for water.”
“We’re not going in there.”
“We are, if it means getting a damn machete. Or something else we might need.”
In my peripheral, I find another medium-sized stump. This one holds, and I move three feet.
“Fucking hell, you’re going to actually do it. You’ve got another three feet, and you should be able to reach it with your left hand. I’m making my way over there. There’s a big clump of bamboo. I should be able to get close enough to throw you a vine through the trunks,” Easton says.
“Bamboo doesn’t have a trunk. They’re all stems.”
“Now you want to get into fucking semantics. Just get the fuck out of there, Green.”
“I’m working on it.” I turn my head, looking for another tree to grab, and get a splatter of mud in my left eye. I get a strong grip on another stump and drag myself another foot.
“Here, I’ll toss you a vine. Hold your right hand up.”
I put it up, and there’s a smack of mud near my head.
“Too short. Hold on.”
That continues two or three times, and then I catch the fucking vine. The vines we picked are narrow and more suited to being bound into a rope. I don’t have much hope that a single one is going to work. But I wrap a length of it around mywrist because when I get closer to the machete, whatever hasn’t broken off could come in handy.
“Give me some more slack.” I hold on to the vine with both hands. And fuck if he doesn’t move me two feet before it snaps. But he’s also pulled me away from the blade. I flutter, wiggling in the mud, getting myself close enough to throw the vine around the handle. It takes more than a half dozen tries before I loop it and pull it close enough to bring it to my body.
“You want me to throw you more vine? I’ve got it doubled up this time.”
“Do it.”
This time he does it with no warning and it smacks me across my face.
“Fuck.” It stings, but it was more the shock of it.
“You good?” Rockwell asks as I wrap it around my wrists.
