It was the same plane that got me from the Celia about twelve hours after the ship departed from the island with my gunshot ass. Ten days ago, like Finley said. Because of the special plane my agent’s friend owned, I got to Cape Town within a day of what happened. It was a late debridement, but there wasn’t much left in me anyway. The good doctor had a .22, so it was a small bullet. Probably the ricochet through the muscle is what snapped my top two little ribs and nicked my shoulder blade as the bullet blew out my back.
One of the scientists on board the Celia was an MD doing cancer research based on fish. I owe that guy my life. He packed my wound in a way that kept it from fucking up my lungs. The ship had oxygen for divers and a couple bags of saline for emergencies. The MD saved my life by keeping me warm and pumping me full of saline when my blood pressure would drop…which was a lot, I think. Dude even rode the Albatross with me and helped me till I got to Cape Town. I wish I could tell Finley about it.
But I feel so fucking weak. Even breathing takes a lot of energy.
Next time I open my eyes, my dad is here, and I smile because he’s playing with Baby. “Hey, Baby,” I whisper.
Dad’s hand ruffles my hair. Then Finley is hovering all around me, checking my pulse…doing some other stuff. I think I’m drinking water. I don’t know. It’s kind of funny really. I’m just laughing.
“You make me feel…a whole lot better.”
“Is that so?” She kisses my cheek. “I think that’s not my doing. But I love you, darling.”
I’m falling asleep, but I want to tell her… When I was trying to hold on between Tristan and Cape Town, I kept seeing those gold waves—my death dream waves; the waves that brought me to the island with the thought of drowning myself—and I finally knew what they meant.
I lived through overdosing just to fight again to kick up from below those flashlight-brightened waves at Tristan. When I was trying to hang on until Cape Town, I latched onto the thought that I’d never told Siren how much I really loved her. That’s what I told myself to find the strength to hold on, even when it felt so fucking hard.
Twenty-One
Declan
“When the plane—” My voice gives out. I swallow, and Finley holds a sports bottle to my mouth.
“There you go…”
“When the Albatross landed in Cape Town,” I rasp, “I don’t know. I kind of came to more, I guess. Realized…I didn’t know what happened with you. I thought you might be dead. I don’t remember, but they told me later that I flipped my shit.” I almost raise my arm to run a hand through my hair, but I stop myself in time and shut my eyes a second instead. “They said I demanded to be taken back to Tristan. I was fucking furious that you weren’t with me.”
It’s nighttime now. She and I are lying in the adjustable bed Dad set up before he left. Finley’s got her arms around my waist and her legs threaded through mine. She’s craning her neck back so she can see me over all my bandages.
“After the debridement—that’s when they clean a bullet wound…my nurse told me later that I made someone call Tristan.” I smile. “Ask about you. I don’t know who they got, but they found out you weren’t dead.”
“And Doctor was,” she whispers slowly. “It was Mrs. Acton who took that call. I found out the next day.” She rubs her eyes, and I realize they’re wet again. “Can you imagine? No one thought to tell me you survived until the morning after that call came.” She shakes her head as her eyes glimmer with more tears.
“For two days, I didn’t move from Anna’s bed—Anna and Freddy’s.” Her lip tucks up a little on one side, but it’s not a smile. “I tried to get an update, but that took another twelve hours. That time, I was told I couldn’t have details, but your father called me back quite quickly. He listed your injuries, and I wept. I was passed out when they got you into the boat. From hearing when Father tried to grab the gun and it went off. Doctor fell
on me,” she whispers.
“Dammit. I think that’s why I thought you might have gotten shot, too. I must have had some kind of memory of not seeing you…when they pulled me in.”
“Yes…” Her mouth trembles before she presses it into a frown. “I wasn’t conscious when Mark pulled you from the sea. I came to about the time the Celia departed. I screamed and raged to go, but Freddy wouldn’t let me.”
“Freddy. I think he was talking to me on the boat.”
She smiles sadly. “He told me when they got you out of the water, he took care of you for me.” She wipes her eyes. “It didn’t make me feel much better.”
“It’s okay, though. I’m okay.”
“You will be, because I’m not letting you come down from the marijuana cloud—not for…however long it’s necessary.” She smiles.
“Siren?” She kisses my lower abs, and my dick twitches.
“Yes?”
I swallow hard, because my throat’s gone tight again. I have to whisper so my voice won’t crack as I tell her, “I want to touch your hair.”
She spreads it over my chest. I squeeze my eyelids shut. She’s watching close enough to see my tears in the dark, I guess, because she wipes them. “What’s on your mind, Sailor darling?”
“I wanted to tell you something,” I whisper.