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Chapter twenty-seven

Weston

N o, I must have heard her wrong. This sweet, kind girl has not been stranded on this island alone for fifteen fucking years.

Everyone is silent as we take in the enormity of what she’s finally confessed to us. I knew it must have been more than a year, but I had guessed maybe two, not fifteen .

A sudden thought has my eyes widening. “How old were you?”

“Thirteen,” she answers, biting her lip nervously. She was still a kid.

“At least you had your dad with you. When did he pass?” Kingsley asks gently, because we all know he’s buried on this island, having seen the grave marker, and knowing she’s alone now, it’s easy to put two and two together.

Her eyes drop to her lap at the question, the answer clearly making her uncomfortable. When she speaks, it’s barely a whisper. “I’ll tell you, but I’m not ready to talk about what happened yet.”

“That’s okay, you don't have to tell us the details unless you want to,” Kingsley reassures her.

I’m glad he does because I feel like I can’t speak right now, that anything I say will come out sounding angry and upset.

Because I am. I’m fuming that she’s been stuck out here all this time.

But I’m not mad at her , I’m mad at the situation.

“It was four months after arriving here.”

A pained groan leaves my lips and I drop my head into my hands.

It’s all so much worse than I expected. Four months?

Four god-damned months? That means she’s been alone for over fourteen and a half years.

How is she so normal? She missed her entire teenage years and most of her twenties.

While we were in high school and college she was out here on this island with only a lemur and a rock for company.

How is she not raging at the world right now? How is she not a crazy savage?

Unable to hold myself back anymore I stand and move over to her as I not so gently grumble for King to move out of my way.

I help her sit up and move most of the pillows to the side before slotting myself in their place.

I’m careful not to jostle her propped up ankle as I get her situated between my legs, her back to my chest. I wrap my arms around her tightly, dropping my head to her shoulder and closing my eyes.

Her hands come up to grip my arm as she tilts her head against mine. “Weston?” she asks softly.

“I just need to hold you right now, baby.”

“Okay.”

Okay. That one word crushes me even more. She’s the one that should be falling apart right now, and yet she easily concedes to what I need without a second thought.

Bower comes to sit beside King, his hand resting just above her knee as he gently rubs his thumb back and forth over her skin.

King regains her left hand, and we all sit there, silently holding her as we try to come to terms with what she’s admitted.

She’s barely told us anything, and yet, its magnitude isn’t lost on any of us .

After a while, I press a kiss on the soft skin of her shoulder. “I can’t believe you’ve been out here that long. I knew it had been awhile, but fifteen years? It’s unimaginable.”

She reaches a hand out towards the wall and strokes a finger down one of the marks. I realize now there is a heavy concentration of them around this height, with far fewer at the top of the wall, and my heart clenches, realizing what they are.

“Tally marks,” I whisper in anguish.

She nods ever so slightly. “One for every day I’ve been here.”

Everyone is silent for a moment as we glance around the room. Seeing the physical enormity of every day she’s laid in this treehouse, completely alone and scared, is almost too much to fathom.

“Was there a reason you didn’t want to tell us sooner?” King asks, breaking the silence.

“I don’t like thinking about it. But I was also afraid it would kill your hope of being rescued.”

“Tink, you don’t have to worry about that. Reece is out there right now, trying to figure out how to find us. He’s probably hired a team of professionals to search for us.”

She doesn’t say anything in response and I wonder if it’s because she doesn’t believe she’ll be rescued after all this time.

“Reece is a good man, he won’t stop until he finds us,” I tell her, giving her a little squeeze of reassurance.

“Zee, did you build these huts yourself?” King asks as his eyes scan the room.

“My dad and I built the first one, the small one I just use for old storage now. After he… died, I built the second one, and a year later, I decided to bu ild a third one so I could use one as a sort of kitchen and storage room and live in the other one.”

“Tink, how did you possibly build this on your own? That’s incredible,” Bower says, his wide eyes looking at the hut as if he’s just seen it for the first time.

She would have had to find and cut every piece of wall and roof in here, then carry them, one at a time, up here and secure them.

“It must have taken you ages,” King says, mirroring my thoughts.

“It’s not like I had anything else to do. It gave me structure, a routine to keep me going and a goal to work towards. Wake up, get food, water, work on the hut, break for food, work on the hut, bathe and sleep.”

“Once it was done, what was your new goal?” I ask, my thumb stroking over the soft skin on her shoulder.

She shrugs as she answers. “Surviving. I tried to find better ways to hunt, working on my techniques for building furniture, making better bags, a more comfortable hammock. Anything to pass the time and make me feel like I was doing something besides just… existing.”

“We saw the old hut and can tell how far you’ve come. I still can’t believe you made everything in here by hand,” King says with a warm smile directed at her.

“You looked inside the old hut?” she asks, her body becoming tense.

“Briefly, when we got here. We could see you had many attempts at some of the furniture, but we didn’t look too much, it was a little eerie, to be honest,” Bower says, making her relax.

“You’re incredible, baby,” I whisper, placing a lingering kiss on the side of her neck.

“I probably would have starved to death by now if I was on my own,” Bower says with a quirk of his lips .

“I’d be boar food,” King says, pulling a small laugh from her.

“I’d be miserable and angry,” I admit. “Probably do something stupid to get myself killed within the first week.”

Her free hand grips my arm and she turns her head, looking at me as she responds, “You might be a little grumpy sometimes, but you’re always worried about our safety. If I had to vote, I think you’d last the longest on your own.”

I shake my head. “No. I care about your safety, about their safety,” I say, nodding my head towards the other two, “But if I was on my own, I wouldn't worry so much.”

“But you’re just as important as the rest of us.”

“Not to me.”

“Well, I guess it’s good you have us here then, huh?

” she asks, a smile teasing at her lips.

I stare at her beautiful face as my admiration for her blossoms even more.

Laying here with an injured ankle, talking about how she crash landed here, lost her dad and has been alone for fifteen years.

And she still has a fucking smile on her face.

“You amaze me, Zee. You’ve been through so much, been stuck alone here all this time, and yet, you’re still… you. You’ve got the biggest heart in the world. You should be raging at the world and falling apart, but you’re not.”

“Most of the time,” she whispers, “I feel like I’m falling apart, like one small thing could break me completely.”

“That’s not what I see,” I tell her, leaning forward to press a kiss to the tip of her nose. She licks her lips, drawing my attention there. I haven’t kissed her yet, and the need is growing stronger by the second, especially now after so much has been revealed.

“I’m good at hiding it,” she whispers in response. As I stare into her piercing green eyes, I can sense something there. Something that she’s holding back.

“You haven’t told us everything yet, have you?” I ask, placing another kiss on her neck.

She shakes her head once, swallowing heavily as her eyes bore into mine, as if she really is holding on by a thread.

“Tell us when you’re ready, okay? For now, why don’t you let us help you forget?” I lick my lips, and her eyes track the movement.

“H-How would you do that?” I turn to glance at the others, who both give me nods of approval before they turn to her, their gazes heated.

When King brought up the idea of us sharing her, I was surprised, to say the least. We couldn’t possibly share her, could we?

But the more I thought about it, and thought about Coco, the more I realized that we are exactly what Zee needs.

Not just on this island, but when we get back to civilization.

She’s going to need us, and I might need her even more, even if that means sharing her with these two.

She starts to squirm in my embrace. “Zee?” I ask, slightly shifting her to the side to give me better access to her.

“Hmm?” She bites her lip as her eyes bounce to my mouth before looking up at me again. I slide my right hand to her neck, wrapping my fingers around it as my thumb strokes her pulse point.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” I don’t wait for her to respond before pulling her towards me and leaning down to press my lips to hers.

The moment we connect, my entire body comes alive beneath her and I moan against her lips.

A flame ignites beneath my skin, my heart beats like crazy against my ribcage and in this moment, I know that she’s it for me .

I kiss her repeatedly and slowly, and as if in perfect synchronization, our lips part and my tongue finds hers. She groans against me, her hand coming up to my cheek, her nails scratching through my overgrown beard.