Unseen Messages(61)

Her face tightened with determination. Her second hand disappeared in the hole. Her toes planted and she rocked backward, using her inertia to free whatever she’d grabbed hold of.

She fell backward with a splat, holding up her prize. “Here.”

Holy crap.

Adrenaline drenched my system as I gently accepted the nondescript shell of a clam.

A clam!

“Wow, great find, Pippi.”

She giggled. “That’s not my name.”

I waggled my eyebrow. “It is now. Pippi Longstocking. Did you ever watch that show?”

She shook her head.

“Neither did I, but a girl I once knew did. She braided her hair with wire and made pigtails stick out the side of her head.”

“Eww.” Pippa wrinkled her nose. “If you can call me that, then I want to call you something.”

“You don’t like my name?”

She paused. “It’s long.”

“All right.” I tapped my fingers against my lip. “Well, you choose. Whatever you want.”

Seconds switched to a full minute while intense deliberation tightened her face. “G.”

“G?”

She nodded. “G.”

I’d had a few abbreviations of my name growing up. Gal, Gallo, Way-wasted. But never G.

I kinda like it.

I shrugged. “G, it is.”

“Good.” She sniffed with authority as if my identity had just been switched by the queen herself. Then, as if the topic completely uninterested her anymore, her attention fell to the mollusc in my hand. “Can we eat it?”

The very mention of eating made caveman urges rise and demand I smash the innocent creature apart and suck its meat straight away.

If I had the damn Swiss Army knife, I could get into it.

I looked at my crutch. I could smash it open...but then it would be covered in sand. As much as my body demanded to feed, I wouldn’t waste it. Not if it was the only one we found.

“Yes. We can. But before we do...let’s see if we can find some more, yeah?”

She pouted. “But I want to eat it now.”

“Me, too. But we can’t forget about your brother or Estelle, can we? That wouldn’t be fair.”

Her stomach growled, a wildness entering her gaze. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the clam, but slowly, she switched from feral monster to empathetic girl. “I guess.”

Hopping forward, I dug another hole with my crutch. “I’ll dig and you search, okay? I can’t bend down.”

Seeing as she was soaking from landing on her butt, she crawled on all fours to the new hole and stuck her hands in it.

I didn’t breathe as she foraged.

A few moments later, she squealed with delight. Yanking her hands up, she presented another clam.

If I could’ve moved, I would’ve grabbed her and danced around like a crazy idiot. Instead, all I could do was pat her head and swallow back my happiness. “Good work, Pippi.”

She grinned. “One for me, one for Conner. We need one for you and Stel.”

“Stel?”

“Yes, she told me I can call her that.”

I hated the jealousy that a little girl was given a nickname to use when I’d kissed Estelle, wanted her, and been kept at arm’s length.

I had nothing to offer her.

But now...Pippa and I had found hope.

I’ll show her that I’m better than what I portray.

Looking at the expanse of beach, I murmured, “Come on, Pippi, let’s get dinner.”

.............................

Smoke.

Something’s on fire.

My hobbling became a painful mismatch of shuffle-hops. “Pippa, run ahead. Make sure the camp is in one piece.”

“Conner!” She took off, her entire body saturated from clam digging.

We weren’t far from home, but the fact I couldn’t run drove me insane!

Pippa would beat me but what the hell could she do if something was on fire?

We’ll lose everything.

Everything we couldn’t afford to lose.

I followed as fast as I could. The messenger bag dripped down my thigh from excreted seawater from the clams.

Nausea from moving too quickly mingled with starvation as I cut across the soft sand.

Instead of stumbling onto a scene of carnage where the sun had somehow incinerated our belongings just for the hell of it, I slammed to a halt as Conner grabbed Pippa in his arms and danced with her.

Estelle laughed, waving a palm frond with fiery ends.

“What the hell is going on?”

I couldn’t decide if I was impressed, grateful, or pissed off that, once again, Estelle had made me look like an idiot. She’d conjured fire. She’d created heat and cooking facilities and— Goddammit, who am I kidding?

I wasn’t falling for this woman. I was absolutely bloody besotted.

Where had she come from and how the hell did I make her mine?

Conner clapped his hands, his face rosy and flushed. “Fire! We made fire!”

For a second, I ignored the massive implications of such a marvel and peered at Estelle.

Had she obeyed me? Had she avoided going near the dead? However, nothing haunted her gaze or tainted her voice. Her eyes glittered as she spun like a dancer, holding her burning frond aloft. “We did it! We created fire!”