He closes his eyes and jumps straight down into the water, sinking beneath the waves, only the top of the fishing pole visible.
“Tai!” I scream, as his life jacket pulls him back up the surface. “What are you doing? Get in!”
He shakes his head and shoves the rod in the raft, then starts to swim up alongside the boat, away from us.
“What is he doing?” I cry out.
“This raft is only for four people and we have too many supplies,” Richard says grimly. “If you haven’t noticed, Tai is all muscle. If he came in here, we would sink.”
Oh, I noticed all right, but now’s not the time to dwell on it.
“He’s trying to swim to shore,” Lacey says. “Pull us all in.”
“A modern-day He-Man,” Richard comments.
“But that’s crazy!” And yet, that’s what Tai is attempting to do, he’s swimming, making powerful strokes and we’re actually moving away from the boat a little, I guess because the boat could suddenly collapse on us, or we could be bashed against it.
The land in front of us is getting closer and when I chance a look over the side into the water, I think I can see the coral reefs just below the surface. No wonder we ran aground, the reef is so close to the surface, I—
A scraping sound fills the raft cavity, then a hiss. The raft seems to stop moving for a moment, then we’re lurched forward as Tai pulls us.
“Shit!” Richard swears. “I think we punctured on the reef.”
He leans out of the raft and Tai is swimming back to us.
The raft starts to deflate in one corner, water starting to seep in right behind Lacey.
“Stay where you are,” Tai yells at us, spitting out water as we bob up and down in the waves. “Stay in the raft until you can’t.”
He starts swimming again, trying so hard to get us closer and closer to land.
It works.
We’re about fifty meters from the beach.
But the raft doesn’t have enough buoyancy anymore.
“Time to get the fuck out,” I say, grabbing my bag.
Lacey and Richard do the same, grabbing the rest of the stuff.
One by one, we awkwardly, reluctantly pile out into the water.
I think this is the point where my adrenaline runs out.
The moment I’m floating in the water, I barely have enough strength to hold onto my LV, let alone swim. All of us are struggling. We’re just slaves to the life jackets at the moment.
But then I see Tai coming back for us, walking, lit from behind by the light of dawn. He grabs me underneath my shoulders and hauls me up onto land until he leaves me on the beach.
He does the same for Lacey and Richard.
Then he goes and collapses on his back further up on the sand.
The waves are breaking on me now, so somehow I manage to get to my knees and then crawl up onto the shore, away from the water, collapsing on my side.
It’s hard to breathe. I spit out water. Everything aches and burns.
I don’t know how long I lie there, but eventually my breathing slows and the sky lightens enough that I can make out the colors in the shadows.
A white beach.
Dark green jungle.
Clear blue water.
We made it.
But where?
“We need to take shelter,” Tai says, helping Lacey to her feet. “Just over here.”
I get to my feet and stagger forward, following, Richard behind me.
The sand gives way to coconut palms and flowering bushes and ferns and a dark, earthy smelling jungle beyond.
I collapse again to my knees, finding a soft spot in the sandy dirt, laying my head against my bag.
“Everyone okay?” Tai asks.
We all make sounds that either sound like yes or no, but obviously none of us are dying.
Yet.
“What do we do now?” I ask, my voice sore and hoarse from screaming and swallowing salt water.
“We wait for the storm to die down a bit,” Tai says, leaning against a palm tree, watching the horizon.
Watching where his boat is.
Or what’s left of her.
My heart sinks for him. As glad as I am to be alive, what happened to Atarangi is all too much to handle.
“Then,” he says, “I’ll use the satellite phone to call for help.”
“Will that work?” I ask, thinking of the VHF.
“It will, as will the locator beacon that activated when the raft opened up. No matter what happens, people will know where we are. People will find us.”
“Do you promise?”
He turns his head ever so slightly, though I can’t read his expression in the shadows.
“I promise. Get some rest.”
Twelve
Daisy
I wake up with my face pressed against wet dirt, my eyes focusing on an ant that is hurriedly crossing in front of me, heading somewhere on a mission.
I’m also drooling. I guess some things don’t change, no matter where you find yourself.
And where am I, anyway?
I blink, my eyes burning from the dried salt water on my lashes, and I slowly, carefully sit up, my head woozy. My muscles ache like I’ve been passed out on the hard ground for a few hours, which isn’t a lie.