Uncharted(23)

There it is.

The truth, laid out for us both to swallow. It’s a bitter pill.

I’ve known from the beginning, but it’s different to acknowledge it aloud. It feels somehow like a defeat. Like admitting failure, though I’m not exactly sure how we failed.

Can you fail a situation you have no control over?

“Violet.”

It’s the first time he’s ever used my name, and it moves through me like an electric shock. My eyes open to focus on him. I didn’t even realize I’d closed them.

“Drink the water,” he says intently. “Please.”

My mouth opens. I’m not sure whether I’m going to accept or reject his offer, but it doesn’t matter because the words don’t make it past my lips. My eyes go wide as saucers as I stare at the horizon.

“Hey, princess, did you hear me?”

I’m trembling, half convinced I’ve gone mad, half hopeful that my eyes aren’t telling lies.

“Would it kill you to listen to me for once?” Beck grumbles. “Grant a dying man one final request. Drink the damn water. It’s the least you can do.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because…” I hardly dare to believe my own words. “Beck… look behind you.”

He goes totally still. “Why?”

I press a hand to my stomach, but it does nothing to calm the explosion of butterflies that have just hatched inside my gut. I stare at the small patch of green and gold, growing clearer as the currents sweep us toward it. If I squint beyond the rough break of reef… I can just make out the shape of palm trees lining a white sand beach along the shore.

It’s real.

It has to be real.

“It’s… it’s an island.”



My feet hit the beach, wobbly and weak. I can barely stand upright, but I don’t care. I dig my toes into the white sand to ground myself in reality. Part of me still thinks this must be an elaborate delusion brought on by intense dehydration. But no hallucination could ever be this detailed. My brain could never dream up the crystalline sparkles on the water’s surface in the small inlet where we’ve washed ashore, the brilliant blue of the sky overhead, the riot of dense green rainforest twenty yards up the beach.

The waters here, in the shelter of the reef, are still and so clear I can see straight to the bottom. Curious fish dart in and out of the aqua shallows, lured close by the bright colors of our raft. I watch crabs scurry under rocks, their hard-shelled claws clicking like castanets. Small shorebirds gather on the jagged rocks to our left, where coral and algae grow in abundance.

We made it. We survived.

I could kiss the sand beneath my feet, but I’m afraid I might not have the strength to get back up. Plus, there’s Ian to think about. We’re so exhausted, we can’t lift him from the raft. Instead, we drag the entire vessel, Beck grabbing a handle on the right side as I grab one on the left. We both grunt with the effort as we pull it from the shallows onto solid sand. The grains slip and slide beneath my feet, so fine it’s hard to walk a straight line. The sun beats down so strongly against the white beach, my retinas are scorched by the refracted beams. I grit my teeth and keep pulling.

Before the atoll came into view, I thought I’d reached the absolute bottom of my energy stores, that one more move would land me at rock bottom. It seems I still have some unforeseen stamina left, though, because I stagger stubbornly onward, running on gasoline fumes from an empty tank. I can’t let Beck and Ian down — not now that we’ve finally found sanctuary. Or… at least some semblance of it.

Our odds of survival have to be better here on land than in the middle of the damn ocean.

We move with the alacrity of octogenarians; it takes an eternity to pull the raft a half dozen yards. By the time we come to a stop, my head is pounding, my eyes are swimming with sunspots, and my limbs are barely cooperating with executive orders. I tug a line from the raft and secure it to a fallen palm tree, embedded in the sand halfway up the beach. Tying the rope around the trunk saps the last sliver of strength from my bones. I can feel myself hovering on the precipice of unconsciousness as I stare down at Ian’s pale face, swaying on my feet. I wish I could help him but right now, a rogue gust of wind could carry me away.

At least he’s covered by the canopy and — I think — far enough from the water’s edge that he won’t float out to sea with the swells. The inlet is so calm that seems unlikely, but I’m not sure how far the tide rises here. I’m not even sure the South Pacific has tides the way we do at home.

Home.

The thought is nearly enough to break my remaining resolve. I shut it out before it cripples me completely.

There’ll be time to fall apart later. On the rescue boat. Because, surely, now that we’ve made it to land…

They’ll find us.

Someone has to find us.

I try to move toward the shade, but my body finally gives out beneath me, a paper doll folding in on itself. My knees hit the sand beside the raft, my back hits the beached driftwood trunk. For a long while — it could be minutes or hours or eons — I lay there in the sun, unable to focus on anything except the foreign sensation of solid ground beneath me for the first time in days. My body still feels like it’s moving, swells of vertigo crashing regularly through my system like the rhythmic waves that ferried us along to this atoll. I wonder vaguely how long it will take my sea legs to fade, if I’ll die of thirst before I’m able to walk straight again. I can’t summon enough energy to truly care. About water, or walking, or even the hot sun scorching down, baking me like Mom’s famous spinach-artichoke dip, the longer I lie here exposed to the elements.