“Had a bad experience?”Was it a joke he just cracked?
“What happened to ‘not asking questions’?” I counter with a smug smile, making air quotes.
After sending me an evil stare, he heads toward the stones. A rooster spreads his wings and makes a move to attack Ezra but doesn’t actually go with it. He just jumps around, flapping his wings and making loud clucking noises. Ezra pushes a handunderthe still-sitting chicken and pulls an egg. And then another.
“Whoa! Where did you learn how to do that?” I ask, creeping closer since the rooster is now eyeing me.
“What happened to not asking questions?” he repeats my phrase, barely able to contain his smug laughter.
“Touché,” I admit, feeling like we might have broken the ice a little bit.
He checks two more spots and brings more eggs. Total of four. They are not big but way better than nothing.
“We don’t have fire, obviously. So it might not be to your taste.”
“Stop profiling people around here,” I say, shooting a glare his way, dropping the fact that I’ve been doing the same to him since the moment we met. “Eat them,” I say as I stare at the eggs in his hands.
“Maeve?” His voice cracks with a note of humor.
“Mhm?” I keep staring.
With a loud sigh, he stretches his arm toward me. “Take some.”
“Okay.” I carefully pick one egg from his open palms, noticing how large they are that they can fit all the eggs at once. “Thank you.”
“Take more,” he offers gently.
I shake my head. “Nah. I’m good. You build stuff and find everything and all that. You need energy. I’m good, really.” Reinforcing my statement with a smile, I grab a small stone from the ground and carefully tap on the top of the egg, trying not to crack the whole thing and lose its precious elixir. When the top is soft, I carefully peel it away, revealing a tiny hole, and bring it to my lips. Once it reaches my tongue, I moan and finish everything in two, maybe three seconds flat. And I don’t even like eggs. But I guess hunger can make you change perspectives.
“Take more.” He pushes the eggs toward me, ordering this time.
I shake my head.
“Take it.” His tone is firm. “I don’t want to carry you around when you pass out from muscle atrophy. You look like you’re two breaths away from it.”
How is he saying such a shitty thing with such a good intention?
“I’m good,” I reply stubbornly, even though my stomachlets out an embarrassing cry. Ezra pushes another egg into my hands, curling my fingers over it. So I’m pretty much forced to eat it too and suddenly feel much better. A cup of coffee would top the cake and make for the perfect morning in paradise. But we have only water, so we go back to the waterfall.
Once we’re there, Ezra goes for a dip. He spends a few minutes in the water before walking to the waterfall and standing under it like a shower.
I lean back on my elbows and enjoy the show.I mean, what else is there to do, right?
Once he’s done with a thorough cleaning of himself, he comes out of the water and plants his butt next to me.
“We gotta talk, Maeve,” he says, sounding grim.
“What about?”
He sighs. “About what we’re going to do.”
I push my elbows off the ground and sit straighter next to him. “Do you really think rescue isn’t coming?”
He chews on his lips before replying. “I don’t know. When the wave hit, the guy didn’t have a chance to report Mayday. It was in a matter of seconds, honestly. And out of nowhere. So I don’t know if they even know where to look. We’ve been here for what? Two days? And no one’s here yet. We need to look for options while the rescue’s looking for us. It might take them some time.”
I roll my lips in. “They should have some GPS equipment on those boats, right?”
“Maybe,” he agrees skeptically. “But have you actually seen the boat? It’s from two centuries ago.” Then he adds with a smirk, “Maybe even older than your phone. Though I doubt it.”
