Nonsense.
I shake my head.
But this island… this island isn’t normal. Not since the day we arrived. The very fact that I can’t remember how I got here is telling. The way Harper arrived here is too random. After God knows how long of me being stranded here, a cruise ship shows up? No. I don’t buy it.
And now a man I thought dead—fuck, I threw the dirt on his body myself—now he’s alive? No.
No.
I can’t sleep. I pace the small shelter and listen for a sound, anything at all that will tell me to be aware of danger, but there’s nothing but the gentle sound of wind outside the shelter.
I hear Harper’s soft, whiffling snores, and I’m grateful she can sleep after tonight. She’s been a fucking champ through this. The girl is made of sterner stuff than any woman I’ve ever met. And I will see to it that she gets what she deserves.
A home. A family.
Which means off this fucking island.
Finally, I lie back down beside her. She rolls over and nestles against me, her back pressed up to my chest as if she’s meant to be here, just like this. I hold her to me and breathe her in and give thanks for this moment. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, or the day after, or the year after. Or if we’ll even make it to the next year. We have to take it day by day. And today, I’m grateful for this sweet woman I’m holding. I could be here alone, but instead I’ve got her.
She’s all mine. Whoever’s out there—Will, or Derek, or whatever or whoever the fuck else might threaten her—they’ll have to come through me first.
I finally fall asleep.
When my eyes flutter open hours later, sunlight floods the shelter through the roughly hewn windows.
“Morning.”
She’s up and snuggled up to me like she usually is in the morning, her hand flat on my chest, one knee hitched up on me. Her auburn hair hangs about her in crazy, untamed waves. I reach out and tug a lock.
“Carrots,” I whisper.
She smirks. “I wish I had a slate to smack over your head.”
I smile and kiss her pretty freckled forehead.
“Took you a while to fall asleep,” she says.
“Yeah.” I don’t say much else. I don’t want her to be frightened.
Her stomach growls, and she yawns. “I am so starving,” she says. “You?”
I sit up suddenly. I don’t know if it came to me in my dreams or my subconscious was working overtime, but the realization hits me so hard it startles me, before I feel anger begin to take over.
Jesus.
Motherfucker.
“What?” she asks, sitting up and staring at me.
“This happened before,” I tell her. “Same pattern.”
“What pattern?”
I get to my feet. “Wolves. Storm.” I frown. I don’t want to tell her what else, but I have to. “If this is the same pattern, when we go out this morning, there will be no food left.”
She stands beside me and blinks, before she pales. “Cy, you’re not making sense.”
I sigh. We’ll know soon enough. “We have to see if the food is gone.”
She shakes her head again, and the look she’s giving me leads me to believe she thinks I’m out of my mind. “Cy,” she says gently, like trying to talk to a patient in an insane asylum you don’t want to upset, “you just need to get something to eat, and you need more rest. I think what I saw last night unsettled you.”
Unsettled me? Goddamn right it did.
But she’ll see for herself. Hell, I hope I’m wrong.
“There’s so much food out there,” she says. “Fish and coconut, fruits and vegetables. We’ve had nothing but an ample supply for weeks on end.”
“We have,” I say to her. “I’m not denying that, babe. What I’m telling you is that I’ve seen this before. And Christ, I hope I’m wrong.”
It was just like this before. We woke up after the wolves and storm, and the food supplies had completely vanished overnight.
Three days into starvation was when they began to grow feral.
“Well, let’s go look,” she says. I nod.
Before we go, we eat a simple meal in silence. She freshens up a bit with some of the water we’ve stored, and I do the same. I hand her the stick I gave her the night before, and I tuck a knife into the loop on my pants. We are not going out there unarmed.
I open the door, half expecting someone rabid to attack, but the only sound is the gentle twittering of early morning birds. It’s gorgeous out here, the sun rising over the ocean, casting golden light on the blue-green horizon, belying the danger we’re in.
“No matter what happens,” she says softly. “No matter what, I won’t forget mornings like this.”
A bird calls overhead, and I squeeze her hand. “Me neither.”