“I don’t know about that because it looks damn bad. It’s not quite a sheer bluff, but it’s the closest it can come to being one. Not sure how I can do it with one arm.” Rock climbing has never been my forte. Sure, I’ve done it over the years. It’s good training. I’m not afraid of heights. At least, I tell myself I’m not. I’m afraid of falling.
“You can do it,” Green says with authority.
“Sure, I can. Let’s go.” We leave the stream on the opposite side from where we entered. There are fewer ferns here and a hell of a lot more sharp rocks.
Green takes the lead. We’re still well under the canopy, and I’m just hoping that when we get above it, we’re not sitting ducks, beacons of light shining on the mountainside, attracting the pirates to our location.
We head up. The climb isn’t too bad to begin with, and I try to remind myself to not use my right arm. But it’s damn hard. We get a quarter of the way up. The slope is a slow grade to begin with, but when Green pauses on a ledge and I get a good look at what’s to come, I realize no fucking way are we a quarter of theway up. We’re not even an eighth. Quantifying it is just damn stupid at this point.
“You okay to keep going?” Green asks.
“What choice do we have?” I reply.
“Go back down? Make camp? Give it a day or two. Hope that they leave and haven’t taken the WaveRunner or shot it full of holes and we can get back to camp that way.”
“Is this how you came when you got the pomelos?” I ask.
“Not exactly here—a little bit farther down the mountain. But there’s a field of thorn thickets that lasts for acres. When I came down from the pomelos, I came back this way—that’s why I never got as far. We’re not exactly dressed for a thicket of thorns.”
“We are not,” I reply.
Chapter 5
Casting Off
Haley
I’ve got two water bottles and a bunch of jerky in my backpack, plus the first aid kit, a knife, and some spare clothes for Calvin and Easton. I’m standing in the middle of camp, my eyes clenched. What else could we need?
No one else is anxious to go. Dante’s collecting all the extra stakes Calvin made from the fish weir. Sam’s on top of the lookout stand. And I’m not sure where Zane has got to.
It’s just Penny and me waiting to go. “We need to get moving. They’re wrong about this,” I say to her.
Penny cocks her head at me and lies at my feet, her head resting on her paws. If ever there was a “yup” from a dog, it’s now.
I clear my throat. “Hey,” I say. There’s no response. The three of them had been whirling around the camp like moths while I collected the supplies, and now there’s no one. “Hello?”
Where have they gone? I know Sam can’t hear me up on the platform over the wind, jungle noises, and the ocean’s roar. ButI yell, “I’m going. Anyone who wants to go with me can. Or not. But I’m going.”
I haven’t lost my common sense. I won’t go alone. But it’s something my mom did when I was just old enough to stay in the house by myself. I’d tell her I didn’t want to go to the store. She’d wander around finding her car keys, her cloth bags. She was one of the first to bring her own bags to the store. It sent me into a spiral of embarrassment—her neatly folded canvas bags with pictures of a cartoon earth with big burly arms giving a thumbs up.
I still have those bags—well, back in the garage in Maryland, slowly rotting.
Mom, I need you.
That’s the thing. We’re all too busy floundering around in our day-to-day to appreciate things. My mom’s Chanel No. 5. Her stack of overstuffed bags bouncing around in the back of her hatchback. The way Calvin looks at Pepper when he’s scratching her belly. Easton deep-diving to find me pearls.
What if I never see them again?
What if I never see them again?It sticks in my throat.
I’ve been a fool.
I love them, all of them. Calvin’s told me he loves me. He’s said it multiple times. But I’ve never said it back. And Easton? The day we buried the diamonds, I thought he was going to say it. He loves me. I know he does. My stomach twists. I didn’t tell them out of fear. Fear they would disappear into the wind when we got off this island, that they’ll leave me like Steven, like my mom, my dad. Like everyone I’ve ever loved.
It’s stupid. So stupid. These guys are nothing like Steven. Not even close.
I drop to my knees in the dust next to the slab Dante uses as a kitchen counter. Penny crawls a few feet closer to me so that her cool nose is pressing against my leg. I sink my hands into theuneven curls on the top of her head. Sam’s no dog groomer. It pulls me from a downward spiral of stupidity.
