Page 113 of No One Aboard

Lila swallowed the lump in her throat. It was Tia’s own fault she’d ended up overboard, right? She was too stubborn, too aggressive. She wouldn’t have obeyed her mother to climb into a life raft. She was too hell-bent on fighting.

But to picture her... dead...

Would the coast guard recover Tia’s body? Maybe the media would chalk the incident up to tragedy after all. In a way, Lila would have exactly what she’d wanted: her face on every paper in the country. Even though she hadn’t planned foranyone to die, there was nothing, no matter how you spun it, more sensational and newsworthy than death.

Lila’s arms were stiff, but she stretched them out anyway and pulled Rylan into her chest. He didn’t fight her, limp and unblinking. She stroked his hair and hummed tunelessly. He was going to be okay.

“We’ll be rescued,” Lila rasped. “We just have to hold on.”

Rylan nestled into Lila’s embrace, and she shielded his face from the sun’s advance.

“What if no one comes?” Rylan’s voice cracked.

Lila couldn’t think like that. They would be rescued, of course they would be. Once a ship passed them, they could... oh, what was it that people did in movies? Fire a flare gun? She knew there were plenty of survival supplies packed on this raft.

She broke her hold on her son to rummage through the raft until she retrieved a canister. Thick, tasteless crackers. Packets of water. Flares, a mirror, and a compass.

“See, lovey? We have everything we need,” she told him, but the cheer in her tone fell flat.

She worked to peel open one of the water packets, cursing her French-tipped nails, but the only thing Rylan seemed to be interested in was the little black compass. He picked it up and studied the horizon.

“What is it, my dear?” Lila managed to puncture a hole in the plastic and take a couple greedy gulps of water. She handed it to Rylan, but he didn’t take it.

“It’s just numbers...” Rylan murmured.

“Numbers? Rylan?” Lila touched his shoulder.

Rylan’s eyes shuttered, and he began to count. “One, two, three, four...”

Lila didn’t know what to do. Had he gone mad?

She hugged him to her chest, hoping her embrace would be enough to snap him out of it, but her son counted on.

“Five, six, seven, eight...”

“Rylan, darling...” Lila detangled his salt-caked hair and willed for him to come to. She couldn’t bear to face the sea alone.

“Nine...” Rylan’s eyes popped open. “One hundred and forty.”

“Lovey, I think you skipped a few numbers...”

Rylan jolted to his feet, which sent the raft teetering and Lila’s stomach to her toes. She grasped the sides of their rickety salvation. “Sit down!”

“One hundred and forty,” Rylan told her, as if that meant something. He tapped his finger on the face of the black compass, numbers ringing its perimeter. “That was the heading we were at. Tia told me, she told me days ago that we weren’t far from the final destination.”

Lila tugged on Rylan’s sleeve until he sat again. “How could you know that? He didn’t tell any of us where we were going.”

Maybe they should have saved Francis.

“No, but Tia found out.” Rylan’s expression shone with pride. “If we follow the heading, we can make it to the island. Unless a boat comes to pick us up... that island is our only chance, Mom.”

Their only chance was the mystery island Francis had purchased and plotted to bring them to. After everything they had done to escape their fate, they were just going to claw their way to it? Lila searched every inch of the horizon. They had flares to signal for help. In all of Lila’s daydreams about being on this raft, she had never imagined that they simply wouldn’t find anyone to rescue them. There had to be a ship nearby, right? There had to be someone who could save them.

But the sky and sea were blank.

They were alone.

As if he could read her mind, Rylan took Lila’s hand. “Whatchoice do we have?” he asked and held out the compass in his palm.