Surviving Raine (Surviving Raine 1)

“A little,” I said.

“Why don’t you get the fire built up, and I’ll see what’s for breakfast?”

“I guess.”

I reluctantly removed myself from lying on her and winced as my leg cramped up on me. I pushed through the pain and flexed my thigh a few times. It really wasn’t bad at all once I got moving on it. Raine went back into the shelter, and I started tossing wood on the smoldering fire. I pushed a bunch of the shit out of my head by focusing on the task at hand, but other thoughts came in to take its place.

I found myself thinking about John Paul a lot lately – where he was and what he was doing, assuming he had survived at all. I honestly didn’t care if I ever saw him again, but it would be good to know if he was alive or not. Since I had taken care of Raine’s needs, I had more time to think about what had happened that night. I had certainly heard John Paul’s voice and assumed he got onto one of the lifeboats with the other passengers, but I didn’t know what had happened to cause the ship to roll in the first place. I had theories ranging from the plausible to the extremely improbable, starting with the storm being worse than I thought and going all the way to wondering if Franks had decided to kill me off. I doubted the latter. If he wanted me dead, he would have found me long ago and taken care of it. Why would he bother, anyway? Gunter died in prison within six months, and Franks was completely exonerated. Nephew or not, if Franks had cared about Gunter in the least, Gunter never would have been convicted.

After a half hour or so, the flames had burned down to embers and Raine started cooking a kind of stew she had come up with that included a mixture of the edible plants and fish. It was pretty good, considering what she had to work with. It had me wondering what her cooking would be like if she had a whole fucking kitchen to exploit. I would have bet it was fucking awesome.

“Bastian?”

“Yeah, babe?” I responded while tipping a seashell bowl full of Raine’s stew into my mouth.

“I still miss my dad.”

Placing the shell on the sand next to the fire, I looked up at her and saw tears in her eyes again. Reflexively, I wanted to both comfort her and beat the shit out of whatever had upset her. Since she was obviously upset about her dad, I didn’t know what to do other than pull her into my lap and hold her.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I said when she finally took a deep breath and seemed to have calmed down. “I should have done something…”

“Hush,” Raine reached up and placed her fingers over my lips. She was getting to be far too fond of that particular act. “You know, when I think about everything that has happened since I lost him, I have to admit that I’m pretty confused about my feelings.”

“How so?”

“I miss my dad,” she said again, “but if he wasn’t gone, I wouldn’t have you now. I lost my dad, but through an extremely roundabout way, he brought me to you. I…I don’t know how to feel about it now.”

My muscles tightened up. She was right, of course. If I hadn’t watched her father die, we wouldn’t be here right now. If whatever events caused him to show up that night hadn’t occurred, Raine would still have her father but we would never have met. For a brief moment, it all made sense. Everything – from my parents ditching me, to juvenile detention, to the reason sixteen people had to be slaughtered – it all suddenly made sense to me. Everything had to happen exactly the way it did to bring her to me. Otherwise, there would have been no way for us to have ever met. Henry Gayle had to die so I could be with his daughter, and I was abruptly glad it had happened.

I guess I was a selfish prick after all.

Chapter 16 – Gift

Blinking my eyes a couple of times, I knew right away I was awake way too early. It was still quite dark out, and there weren’t even the sounds of any morning birds. There weren’t any horrible images left over in my brain from a nightmare, so I didn’t know the cause of my sudden wakefulness, which confused me. I didn’t usually wake up without a reason. I twisted my neck around a bit, stretching it out, and then tried to figure out what woke me up.

Raine was underneath me with her head tucked into my chest and her legs tangled up with one of mine. Both of my arms were around her, holding her securely around her shoulders. I rested my head on top of hers, nuzzling into her hair a little. I heard her take in a deep breath, causing my arm to rise slightly, then let it out slowly. She wasn’t asleep, so I started to untangle myself to roll off of her, but her fingers gripped my arm, holding me in place. I gazed down at her, even more confused. Usually if she woke up before me, it was because she needed to pee and wanted me off of her as soon as possible. It was still so early in the morning, though, and that wouldn’t fit her normal routine.

“What’s the matter, baby?” I whispered. I don’t know why the fuck I whispered – it wasn’t like someone else was going to hear me.

“Nothing,” she replied. She cleared her throat and looked away from me.

“Bullshit,” I said. I placed my hand under her chin and tilted her head back to look at me.

“It’s nothing, really,” she said again. I scowled at her, and she sighed. “It’s only…I just…I miss Lindsay!”

Raine broke out in tears and covered her face with her hands. I moved my arm up around the back of her neck and held her against my shoulder, wishing I could do something about it.

“I want…to go…home!” she sobbed between broken breaths.

Fuck.

“Aw, baby.” I wrapped my arms around her tighter and held her against my chest. It fucking hurt, seeing her like this and knowing there was nothing I could do to make it any better, especially when it came to something I didn’t want to see happen at all. I had no desire to go…well…anywhere else. I didn’t have a home to miss unless I wanted to entertain the idea of hauling it up from the bottom of the sea. I was also pretty sure trying to fit me into Raine’s idea of home was going to be problematic at best. This was not something I planned on discussing with her – I didn’t see the benefit of doing so.

“I’m tired of waking up here,” Raine went on. “I’m tired of eating the same food every day. I’m tired of my s

kin being dry and flakey from washing in salt water. I’m tired of wearing the same clothes every day. I’m tired of-of-of…everything!”

She was getting close to becoming hysterical, and the idea of slapping some sense into her crossed my mind but only very briefly. She shook, and she sobbed, and she screamed out her frustrations as I held on to her and tried to figure out what I could say that would make any difference. It’s not like I could tell her it was going to get any better because I had no idea if that was true. We could be found today or tomorrow or next year or never. I couldn’t offer her any false hope, not just because it wasn’t available, but because I was afraid if I managed to get the words out of my mouth at all, she would immediately know I didn’t want it to happen.