Unseen Messages(34)

I studied him, slightly in awe. “You’re not like a normal thirteen-year-old.”

“Mum always said that.” His eyes dimmed. “Said I was an old soul.”

“I think she was right.” Prickles ran over my skin to talk of a woman I’d only just met but had sat next to and chatted. She’d been so nice—a great mother to have raised such decent children. A good person who didn’t deserve to die.

Conner clambered toward me and used the skid to lower himself to the forest floor. “It’s my fault they’re dead.”

He said it so quietly that I almost missed it.

Frissons of fear made me snap, “Don’t ever say something like that. This isn’t your fault. At all.”

He ignored me, jumping the final distance and pacing away.

I chased after him, tugging his elbow. “Conner, listen to me—”

He spun, his age-free face scrunched with tears. “I forced them to come. Dad had been so busy, and Pippa kept begging him to spend time with us, but he wouldn’t. Mum asked me what I wanted for my birthday—delayed by months, by the way—and I said a trip to Fiji.”

He grew angry, wrenching himself from my hold. “He said he couldn’t go. That this time of year wasn’t possible. I called him a * and told him he sucked as a father.” His eyes tightened with regret. “I didn’t mean it. But the next day, he cancelled his work trip and booked the hotel on Kadavu. He’s a bank manager. Always stressed. I think Mum chose the resort hoping an island with no internet or phones would help him remember us. We all got excited. I was so happy. Even if I did hate what I’d said to him.”

He hung his head, kicking at a fallen coconut. “I never told him I was sorry. I pretended like going away wasn’t a big deal when it was the best present in the world.”

My heart resembled a pickaxe, eroding me beat by beat.

I knew the feeling of wanting to retract words spoken in heated moments. I would take back many things said to my own parents and sister before they died a year ago. However, life didn’t work like that. And regret and guilt only hurt the living with no power to bring back the dead.

I didn’t touch him or try to hug away his pain. “He knew, Conner. He booked that trip because you were right and he loved you.”

He wiped his running nose on his forearm. “It doesn’t change what I said.”

“No, it doesn’t. But it was a reminder to him that work isn’t important. That his family was. You did the right thing.”

“How can you say that? That’s the point. I didn’t do the right thing.” His grief rose again. “If I’d kept my mouth shut, he’d still be alive. My mum would still be alive. We’d be at home, together, and none of this would’ve happened.”

I had no response to that. I wouldn’t lie and say that wasn’t true because chances were it would be. His parents would still be alive but who knew what might’ve happened in return. “You can’t torture yourself with what-ifs. You and Pippa are alive. That’s enough to be grateful—”

“Shut up. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He sliced his hand through the air. “Forget I said anything, okay?”

An awkward silence fell but I nodded. “All right.”

Conner stormed back to the chopper and hauled himself inside. A few moments later, his voice sailed back. “Do you think we could use this?”

Hoisting myself into the cabin, I winced with pain from my ribs.

Conner held up a metal panel that’d come unscrewed. “Can we use it for like, I don’t know, digging or something?”

I smiled. “I guess.”

Passing me the piece of metal, Conner made his way into the cockpit. I stayed in the cabin but narrowed my eyes at the smashed front window thanks to a palm tree spearing through. Something red and sinister trailed down the jagged glass, leading to...

I slapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh, my God. Is that—”

Conner looked up. “Oh, yeah. The pilot’s outside. I wouldn’t look if I were you.”

Legs bent unnaturally while foliage hid the rest of the pilot’s mangled body.

A rush of nausea hit me. I’d never seen a dead body until I had to identify my family after the car wreck. I still had nightmares about their ice-cold skin and waxy faces. Some things you just couldn’t unsee.

I looked away. Spidery horror crawled over my flesh. “Let’s grab what we can and go. We’ll come back later to collect more supplies.”

The thought of returning to the crash site and dealing with a decomposing body after a few hours in the hot sunshine did not appeal. But depending on how long we were stranded, the helicopter would become a great asset.

“They’ll rescue us, right?” Conner climbed toward me, a black rucksack in his hands labelled with the same registration number painted on the tail of the helicopter.

I didn’t want to lie, but I also didn’t want to be pessimistic. “I’m sure they will. Fiji is a popular tourist destination. There’ll be countless boats and planes around here.”

Conner shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I researched when dad told us where we were going. A friend of mine mentioned he’d been to Bali and bragged about an awesome waterpark in Kuta. I wanted to know if Fiji had one.” He smiled wryly. “It doesn’t, by the way. All it has is over three hundred islands and only one hundred and ten are inhabited. I think it said there are over eighteen thousand, three hundred square kilometres that make up the archipelago of Fiji.”