Page 20 of Hate Wrecked

RILEY

I run to the plane, my excitement making me skip and hop. I can hear Rowan laughing behind me, and when I turn around, I see the ghost of a smile lingering at the edges of his full lips, the white of his teeth on display. He’s so beautiful when he lets go.

“I want to fly one day,” I admit, tentatively reaching for the plane door. It’s a good thing I’ve had my tetanus shot…

“Like your father? Is that what you mean?” Rowan asks, approaching the plane from the other side.

“Yeah.” I nod, opening the door slowly. I duck down and peer inside; the cockpit glass is coated in dust and grime. On the other side of the plane, Rowan peers inside, cupping his hands.

I pull back, shutting the door delicately. “It’s too gross in there to sit down.”

“Don’t you want to play pilot in a World War II plane?” Rowan asks, stepping away from the rust.

“I’ve seen enough of the small creatures living in this island’s dark places. No thanks.” I take a few steps back, admiring the plane. “It’s beautiful, though. Not meant to be here. Meant to be in the sky, flying away.”

“No planes like that are still flying,” Rowan laughs.

“You know what I mean. It wasn’t meant to die here,” I trail off. Like the captain. Like the woman who came here in the 70s. Like all those sailors from the 1800s. What a beautiful curse this place is.

“Yeah. I do,” Rowan says, kicking a rock and staring at the expanse of ruin before us.

“How much work do you think they’ll have to do here before the research can start?” I ask.

“A lot. It’s a mess. People have trespassed here for years.”

I clear my throat, earning his gaze.

He smirks. “Like we did, yes.”

“This is what we get.”

“This is what I get. You were just collateral damage. You didn’t know.”

“I knew where I was supposed to be. On a plane, flying away from this ocean. But I chose to go with you. To be with you here.”

“For a few days, yeah.”

I roll my eyes, not ready for another of Rowan’s epic guilt trips he plays on himself. “Let’s see what else we can find,” I test.

Rowan follows me, his hand in the pockets of his shorts, his eyes glancing at the sky from time to time. I watch the wrinkles around his eyes; the melancholy in his stare weighs on me. Maybe I want to be here alone with him for a little longer. Maybe I don’t want rescue to come just yet.

“We would hear it before we saw it,” I chastise him.

He shakes his head, looking away from the blue above us to the trail ahead.

* * *

We come upon a white, two-story building—dilapidated and worn by the elements. I sprint ahead, hearing Rowan call out. “Be careful.” It’s instinct to protect me.

I slow my pace, halting my steps. I can almost see his eyes rolling.

There is one large building and four smaller buildings surrounding it.

A shed appears to be behind the main structure.

On the side of the largest building, someone has painted Hilton.

I chuckle. Yeah right . Like any of the Hiltons would dare to stay somewhere so derelict , I think as I rush to the building, my legs aching.

I hear Rowan catch up. “Wait, let me look in first.” He reaches for the axe on his hip, his hand moving toward the doorknob in slow motion.

I watch from behind him. This isn’t a horror movie—well, not like the ones I grew up watching.

Jason or Michael Myers aren’t going to jump out of the building, but my heart still starts to race as Rowan jiggles the lock.

When it doesn’t budge, he grabs the axe at his hip.

With the butt of the axe, he carefully applies pressure to the stubborn door, and the wood creaks in response, resisting the force.

Rowan adjusts his stance and tries again with the edge of the axe, pushing it between the frame and the door.

Finally, it opens, and Rowan turns to me, a triumphant smile on his face as he says, "After you. "

The door creaks, revealing only darkness when he opens it fully. The bright Pacific sun streams through the windows, and I stay close behind Rowan as he enters. It smells dank, and I scrunch up my nose before saying, “Done that a time or two before?”

“Yeah. I had to get a bathroom door open,” he says. And I wonder if he means for my mother. Or for me.

“Holy shit,” I whisper, walking past Rowan. There are wrought iron beds and piles of mattresses everywhere. “You mean we’ve been sleeping on the ground, and there are mattresses here?”

Rowan grumbles. “What part of waiting and being careful do you not understand?”

“All of it, sometimes.” I shrug.

“Do you want to sleep on one of those?”

An image of a den of spiders lurking in the mattresses flashes into my mind, and I start to gag. Rowan nods. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“But…” I bargain with myself.

“Maybe if we find a decent one, we can lay it out in the sun. If anything that loves the dark is in there, it may move on. We could put the tent on the mattress if it’s comfortable.”

I get excited by the possibility. The sand is okay to sleep on, but I miss a mattress. Not that these are the therapeutic kind, but it can’t hurt to try.

I walk to the stack of mattresses, leaning in, squinting my eyes.

“Watch out. One might jump on you,” Rowan hisses.

I jump back, and he laughs. And I know I would do it again to make him give me that sound.

I inspect the mattresses in the large room from a safer distance as Rowan moves about, overturning items and looking for anything we may need.

Many items are decades old, but there is always the chance of finding something valuable from the Fenwick-Lowe family, something recent and not in ruin.

Unfortunately, the room is a bust, other than the mattress situation.

After we canvass everything, Rowan joins me at the mattress pile. “Did you pick a winner?”

I point to the one I want, wedged in the middle. “I think, or hope, that since it’s in the middle. Maybe it’s the least damaged. No moisture from the ground? No moisture from a leaking roof?” I shrug. “Or, you know, it could be the one with the most spiders because it’s in the middle.”

“Always a possibility,” Rowan shrugs, and I reach out, smacking him on the arm.

He tries to swat it away a little too late, and I wish I were slower or faster so he would have touched me back.

“Okay, let’s get the ones on top of it off.

Go to that side.” He points to the edge of the mattresses.

I jog over, and we both grip the edge of the one directly above it.

“Okay, pull,” he instructs. We remove the stack of four mattresses above it, sliding them off.

Dust goes everywhere—in the air, in my nose, making me cough.

I step away, fanning the air. Through the smog and dust, I see Rowan doing the same. After rubbing his eyes, he gazes at the mattress I wanted.

I step closer, squinting as I look for bugs and other gross things.

“Okay, let’s get it out of here,” Rowan commands, and we both reach for the mattress, sliding it off the stack.

Rowan adjusts his grip, flipping to a vertical position, and backs out to allow me to walk forward.

I appreciate the gesture. If I had led, I would have found myself flat on my ass with a dirty mattress suffocating me.

We wrangle the mattress out of the building and walk toward a clearing, leaving the cover of trees, dropping it on the ground unceremoniously.

It feels like another small, bright moment in a day I hope won’t end in tears.