Chapter 17
Luna’s tentwas broken and torn, her paddleboard had only sustained some dings, but her trailer board, Boosy, was cracked almost in two. Tree needed to be repotted or it wouldn’t survive. Luna’s desalinization kit was a muddy wreck. Her food was soggy. Most of it they piled on the deck of the H2OPE so that Luna and Beckett could make sense of it all once she woke up.
Luna was carried into a room off the lab and deposited onto a cot. Dr Mags and Sarah bathed her. Dr Mags said, “We have to let her sleep it off. When she wakes up, we’ll see what we shall see.”
Beckett asked, “What time will she wake up?”
“Probably morning. But I’ll stay here with her for a few hours and—”
“I’ll stay here tonight.” Beckett glanced around the cramped storage room. He’d be on the floor.
Beckett returned to the upper deck where the crew were appraising the pile of stuff that Luna used to paddle the ocean. It was small. Pitiful in its broken state. As was Luna, pitiful, broken. Beckett shook at the memory of her wild eyes. He ran his hands around and around on top of his head.
Sarah gave him a pitying smile.
Rebecca asked Dan, “Isn’t it time for dinner?”
Dan said, “I’ll whip up something in a moment.”
Rebecca, Jeffrey, and Sarah headed to the lab to get some more work done.
Dan and Beckett stood staring at Luna’s stuff. Dan said, “How you holding together, that was pretty brutal back there.”
“Not good.”
“The good news is your instincts were correct. You had to come. She was not going to live through this. Her board is wrecked. She couldn’t figure that all out in her state.”
“Yep, I rescued her fair and square, so why do I feel like shit?”
Dan nodded. “I know. Is she pretty forgiving?”
Beckett shrugged. “We’ll see when she wakes up.”
Dan clapped his hand on Beckett’s shoulder. “She’s incredibly brave to head out on the ocean with only this, alone. So you have to trust that she’ll make it out of wherever she just was. You did the right thing.”
“It’s the alone part, that’s what did it.”
“She’s not alone anymore, she has us. And speaking of us, come help me in the kitchen, I have to feed everyone.”
