Page 16

SIXTEEN

RYDER

When Emily finally pulls away, it’s like someone ripping a warm blanket off me on a cold winter morning.

My first instinct is to pull her toward me again, but I resist the temptation. The sun is beginning to set, the bursts of pink and purple reflecting off the water signaling that nightfall is almost here, and we need to come up with a plan.

“I can’t find our compass,” Emily says, checking her pockets frantically. “I think—shit, I think I dropped it when Malcolm popped out from behind that tree.” She searches her pack quickly, then smacks it in frustration. “Please tell me you know something about celestial navigation.”

“Uh,” I say, trying to shake off the lingering embarrassment I feel from my meltdown. “I know a tiny amount.”

She perks up. “Tiny’s better than nothing. What do you know?” she asks hopefully.

“Just that old saying: red skies at night, sailor’s delight, red skies in the morning, sailor’s warning,” I say, grabbing my paddle.

Emily glances up at the sky. “What about pink skies at night?”

I shrug. “That wasn’t in the poem.”

She closes her eyes, as if willing her soul to leave her body, and when that doesn’t work, she opens her pack and takes out a granola bar, tearing it into two pieces and handing one to me.

“Thanks.” We both chew quietly for a minute, probably trying not to think about the fact that we’re out on the open water near nightfall with no compass, no plan, and no more than half a day’s food in her pack. I didn’t have much of a strategy when I directed us to the canoe, except to put as much distance as possible between us and Malcolm, and the new prospect of being caught by henchmen in open water makes my skin crawl. At least on land, we had someplace to run and hide. Out here, surrounded by algae and fish, we’d be screwed.

Trying not to focus on the heavy fatigue weighing down my arms, I force myself to keep paddling. With each row, I concentrate not on my burning muscles but on how Emily’s lips parted when I stepped toward her earlier and grabbed her by the waist. I think about the way she looked at me when she said I’m yours , her expression earnest and open. I know now isn’t a great time to tell her that I wasn’t just acting for Malcolm’s benefit, that I meant every word I said, but whether we get off Isle Royale alive or not, I’ll probably never be alone with her in a canoe again, the pastel hues of the setting sun giving her an ethereal glow.

If I’m gonna shoot my shot, I need to do it now, before Sinclair or a wild animal has another chance to take me out.

“So,” I say, swallowing my nerves, “I wanted to talk about what happened between us. With Malcolm. I mean, not with Malcolm, but in front of Malcolm.” My words are not at all coming out as smoothly as I hoped, and I wish, just this once, I could say what I mean and sound halfway intelligent doing it.

“I want to answer the question you asked me earlier,” I explain, the burning in my shoulders no match for the burning in my heart. “About how I look at you.”

“Wait,” Emily says, and the bubble of hope bouncing around inside me pops.

“I’ll wait if you want me to,” I say. “It’s just that we may not have much time—”

“No, I mean, wait as in look ,” she says, pointing at something in the distance. “There’s some kind of tower over there. See?”

I follow her index finger to the shoreline, where a black steel tower sits nestled among the trees.

“It could be a radio tower, Ryder,” she says, her tone suddenly energized. “A radio we could use to call for help. Let’s go!”

We paddle quickly, which is a mistake, because we start accidentally going in circles again, and it takes us a minute to get our rhythm. By the time we reach the rocky shoreline and bank the canoe, dragging it uphill and stashing it behind a tree to keep it out of view, my arms ache like they haven’t since the time Caleb and I challenged each other to a pull-up contest. I whip out my flashlight to do a quick sweep of the area, and when I’m satisfied that no one’s lurking in the bushes, ready to jump out and murder us, I take Emily’s hand and we hurry toward the tower. If by some miracle it has a functioning radio and we manage to signal the rangers for help, maybe they’ll rescue us with a helicopter and we’ll get to watch while they arrest Sinclair for murder, attempted burglary, and the universal crime of being an absolute douche. After all, it would be a damn good ending to Cover of Darkness .

“Dammit!” Emily says when we reach the tower. “It’s closed.”

She points to the no entry sign posted at the bottom of the stairs, her face crumpling like she’s on the verge of tears.

“And?” I say, climbing over the sign.

Her jaw drops. “We can’t just ignore the sign, Ryder!”

I don’t even try to hide my grin. “Watch me. I live on the edge, remember?”

I jog up four flights of creaking metal stairs, Emily cursing under her breath as she clambers up after me. When I reach the top, I attempt to throw open the door leading inside, but the knob doesn’t budge.

“See?” Emily says, breathless from the climb. “It’s closed.”

Shielding my face, I use the flashlight to break a window, and then I stick my hand through and reach around to unlock the door.

“Will you look at that,” I say dryly. “It’s open.”

I open the door and step inside a small, dank room, where the intense scent of mildew assaults my senses.

“Homey,” I say, pausing to study the dusty ceiling and sticky linoleum flooring.

But Emily has no time for that.

“The radio!” she says, brushing past me to marvel at a dusty panel of buttons and switches. She glances sideways at me. “Any chance you know how to work this thing?”

There’s as much chance of me knowing which buttons to push as there is of her taking up skydiving as a casual hobby. I shake my head.

“Okay,” she says, biting her lip as she studies the equipment. “Let’s see.”

I watch as she brushes a curl out of her face and gets to work, her jaw flexed in concentration as she flips switches and turns knobs.

“My dad used to tinker with old radios sometimes,” she says, picking up a small handheld microphone and tapping it. “He liked taking broken things apart and figuring out a way to make them work again. I only wish I’d paid more attention when he talked about it…”

She trails off, frowning, but her expression transforms into a smile when she hits a series of buttons, and a blinking red light comes on.

“Is it working?” I ask, my pulse racing as the sound of radio static fills the tiny space.

“I think so.” She taps the mic again. This time, a low-pitched echo fills the airwaves, and she smiles at me.

“How’d you do it?” I ask, staring at her like she just solved the problem of world hunger.

“It was incredibly difficult. You see, I determined the location of the power button.” Grinning, she points to a red button labeled on and taps her temple. “Never forget that you once kissed a genius, Ryder Fleet.”

I shake my head, but I’m not grinning. “I never could.”

“Okay,” she says, lifting the mic toward her mouth. “Here we go.”

I nod at her, and she takes a deep breath before speaking.

“Hello,” she says politely, as if she’s greeting a friendly passerby on the street and not blasting out a call for help. “This is Emily Edwards and Ryder Fleet—”

“ Dr. Emily Edwards,” I cut in, and she gives me a look.

“We require emergency assistance,” she continues with a calm, even demeanor of someone well accustomed to dealing with the chaos of the ER. “We witnessed a homicide near the wreckage of the Explorer on the northwestern side of Isle Royale. The victim was Dr.Benning Sharp. The perpetrator was Dr.Killian Sharp, chair of Science of the Human Past at Harvard.”

“He’d love that you mentioned Harvard,” I mutter, but she shushes me.

“We have sought refuge inside the radio tower from which we are broadcasting this message,” she continues. “I repeat, we require emergency assistance. We are not injured—”

“I was grazed by a bullet!” I correct her.

“—but we are being pursued by Dr.Sinclair and an unknown number of armed men. We require emergency evacuation off the island. Our lives are in imminent danger.”

She holds the mic toward me and nods in case I want to add anything.

“This is Cover of Darkness signing off,” I say, not able to pass up my one opportunity to live out my action movie fantasies. “Please help us. Over and out.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. “Cover of Darkness signing off? Really?”

“Sounded cooler in my head.”

She sets down the microphone and sighs, rubbing a hand over her weary eyes. “Okay. So now we just hang out and wait for someone to rescue us, I guess.”

“I’m sure the rangers will be here before you know it,” I say confidently. And even though the thought should fill me with pure relief, it doesn’t. Because yeah, I want to get the hell off this island as much as anyone—hearing the words a little bit grazed by a bullet took at least ten years off my life—but leaving Isle Royale means heading home to an empty apartment and a soul-sucking existence spent doing mundane odd jobs for flirty housewives. It means no more heart-pounding excitement, no more chances to prove that I’m more than the dimwitted he-man people think I am.

It means no more Emily.

“So,” I say as we hunker down to wait for our rescuers, the last rays of sunlight disappearing over Lake Superior. “I was thinking…”

I trail off, searching for the words to say what I mean. I want to revisit the conversation I started in the canoe, but it seemed simpler out on the water, where we were surrounded by fresh air and the risk of imminent death. Now that we’re cloistered together in a tiny room that reminds me of my grandpa’s creepy basement, I feel like a nervous kid gearing up for a round of seven minutes in heaven with his longtime crush.

But before I can swallow my nerves and figure out a smooth way to tell her that my feelings for her are as strong as my navigation skills are incompetent, she shrugs off her backpack and drops to her knees in front of me.

“Holy shit,” I say, the words coming out of me before I realize that she’s bent down to examine my calf wound.

“Sorry,” she says, drawing her hand back even though she hasn’t touched my leg yet. “Does it hurt?”

“Oh. No. I mean, yes. It does. Sort of.”

She looks up at me, and her gaze meeting mine is not at all helpful to the wild fantasies running through my mind right now. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I say gruffly, forcing myself to look anywhere but at her. The last thing I need right now is a hard-on, considering I should be more focused on getting the hell off this island than my growing desire.

Easier said than done.

“I’ll get us something to eat,” I say, turning away from her, but she rises to her feet to stop me.

“Hold on. I need to clean your wound. An open one is a breeding ground for bacteria. Sit, please.”

Letting her touch me right now seems like a bad idea, but I don’t have the strength to argue. Instead, I sit down and stretch my injured leg out, watching as she switches on her lantern and pulls out her first aid kit.

“So, do you want the good news or the bad news?” she asks, sliding the light closer to my calf.

“Uh, the good news,” I tell her. “And only the good news.”

She sighs. “The good news is, the wound isn’t very deep. The bad news is that it’s deep enough that I want to give you stitches.”

“Uh, no,” I say quickly. “Hard pass. I don’t do needles.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were afraid of needles.”

“I’m not afraid of needles,” I say tersely, pulling my leg away. “I just don’t like them. Kind of like how I’m not afraid of the dark, I just prefer sleeping with a night-light.”

She looks at me for a long moment.

“It’s a very small night-light,” I add. “Almost infinitesimal.”

“Look, Ryder,” she says, rifling through her medical kit, “you don’t have to let me stitch you up if you don’t want to, but it is the clinically appropriate course of action.”

“Well, I hardly ever take the appropriate course of action,” I remind her. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

Emily smiles. “Oh, I’ve noticed.” She glances around thoughtfully. “Hey, what if I find something that will distract you while I’m giving you the stitches? Will you get them then?”

Unless she’s going to thread my skin back together topless, I’m not going to be distracted, but I don’t say that to her.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “What’s the distraction?”

She combs through her pack and pulls out Sharp’s notebook. “Here. Read to me.”

No offense to Dr.Sharp and Captain Sebastian Evermore, but that’s way less exciting than anything I envisioned.

“Oh good, a notebook about an old dead guy written by another old dead guy,” I say dryly. “Riveting.”

But I don’t want her to think I’m a coward, and so I leaf through the pages as Emily assembles her little tray of torture tools. I flip through maps and diagrams and Sharp’s barely legible notes about the layout of the Explorer , and then I find one of the letters Captain Evermore wrote to his wife.

“Find anything good?” Emily asks.

“Mayb—ow!” I twitch as a burst of pain washes over my calf. “Holy shit, Edwards, can you warn me before you slice me open?”

She stares at me. “That was the alcohol swab.”

“Right. Well, the alcohol swab sucks.”

She pulls the wrapper off a syringe, and I feel my head getting woozy before she even does anything with it.

“I’ll inject you with numbing medication, and after that you won’t feel a thing,” she says. “Now read to me. Read me one of Evermore’s letters.”

I study the page in front of me. “I don’t know if you want me to read this one.”

“Why?” she asks, adjusting the fingertips of her gloves.

I watch her work, appreciating how calm and focused she is. It’s easy to imagine her doing this day in, day out, helping her patients feel better with her expertise and caring demeanor, and I marvel at her talent.

“It’s a love letter, Edwards,” I explain.

She doesn’t look up from her work. “So? They’re all love letters.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, “this one’s different. Steamy, if you will. I’m not sure you can handle it.”

She inserts the syringe into a small vial and draws out liquid. “Anything you give me, Fleet, I can handle. Promise.”

Her words, paired with the very recent memory of her crouching in front of me, turn my throat dry, and I grab my flask and sip desperately.

“Read,” she says, eyeing the liquid in the syringe and holding it up to the lantern. “For me.”

The last part just about kills me, and I return my attention to the page and force myself to focus only on Captain Evermore’s words and not the memory of Emily’s lips parting to make way for mine.

“?‘My dearest Katherine,’?” I read, squinting at the captain’s neat, sloping cursive, “?‘I dreamed of you last night. I dreamed of you in my bed, your dark hair strewn over my pillow and you underneath me.’?”

“You think that’s steamy?” Emily asks, leaning over my calf. “Bless you, you sweet summer child.”

“No,” I say, turning the page in Sharp’s journal. “I think this is steamy: ‘I dream of kneeling over you and spreading your legs open, of pressing my mouth to your most tender, aching part. I dream of the soft, sweet gasp you make when you come, of the way your fingernails claw at my back and the way that when I am inside you, there exists only us and the insatiable passion that has consumed me since we first met.’?”

A sharp sting lights up my calf, and I suck in my breath.

“That’s the anesthetic,” Emily says. “The worst part. Don’t stop reading, ’cause that shit is juicy.”

I force my attention back to the page as the stinging peaks, stabbing my calf like a tiny bolt of lightning, and then, slowly, eases.

“?‘At night, my dearest Katherine,’?” I continue, my gaze flitting between Evermore’s words and Emily’s face, “?‘when I cannot sleep, I grip myself and think of you, only of you, of your raven hair and sweet mouth and nimble hands. I think of you underneath me, and on top of me, and beside me. I think of how, were the world to meet its end, I know exactly where I would want to spend my final hours: inside you, our bodies rising and falling together, one last time and forever.’?”

Emily glances up from my leg, and I could lose myself in her soft gray eyes, but the look she gives me implores me to keep going.

“?‘You are my home,’?” I read, glancing from the page back to her. “?‘And with those thoughts of you, desperate for the next time I shall look upon your face, I erupt.’?”

Emily doesn’t say anything, and neither do I, but I cannot continue to look at her and think about erupting without giving in to the intense longing taking over my body, and so I close Sharp’s notebook with a thud.

“So yeah,” I say finally, extreme sexual tension practically radiating off me. “Pretty spicy stuff. How’s the old calfy-calf?”

I would love to throw myself off the top of the tower right now as punishment for saying calfy-calf , but I can’t help that I ramble when I’m nervous, and if it takes uttering ridiculous words to get my imagination to stop pairing Emily and erupt together, so fucking be it.

“Oh, it’s uh, it’s finished,” Emily says, clearing her throat. She removes her gloves and sanitizes her hands, looking everywhere but at me.

“That’s it?” I ask, and if I’m being honest, I’m kind of disappointed. It’s not that I want more stitches—I’m not that stupid—so much as I want the chance to keep reading to her.

“Yep,” she says, glancing at the notebook on my lap and then at my face. “That’s it.” She smiles. “See, all you needed was a little nineteenth-century sexting to distract you.”

“I’ll admit, Evermore had some serious swagger,” I say. “Not many men can talk about erupting and make it sound halfway decent.”

She laughs. “Right? One can see why Katherine chartered a ship to find him.” She tucks her first aid kit away and crosses her legs, scooting closer to me. “They were such a brave couple. I mean, he had the courage to stay aboard a sinking ship to save his crew, and she risked her life to sail across the sea to try to find him. The sex must have been insaaaane.”

What’s insaaaane is how badly I want her right now, but I only make a noncommittal noise in reply.

She tucks a hand under her chin. “Can you imagine loving someone that much? So fiercely that you’d lay down your life for them?”

“Yes,” I say without thinking, because I don’t need to think. I don’t even need to imagine. “I can.”

“I—” Emily pauses, wrapping her arms around herself. “Can I ask you a question? A personal one?”

I shrug. “Our lives are in imminent danger, remember? If there was ever a time to ask personal questions, it’s now.”

The lantern casts a shadow across her face. “Will you tell me about Caleb?”

I suck in my breath, because asking me to tell her about my brother is asking me to tell her about the rawest, most tender part of me. The darkest part of me.

“Tell you about him?” I ask. “Or about what happened to him?”

She reaches out like she wants to touch me before hesitating and pulling her hand back. “Either. Both. Whatever you’re comfortable sharing. And if you’re not, I understand.”

I run a hand through my hair, contemplating her request. I’ll pretty much give Emily anything she wants—I let her stick a needle in my leg, for Christ’s sake—but I’ve barely talked about Caleb to anyone since he died, and even though I want to tell her, I’m still trying to figure out how. I tried joining Tara at her grief support group once, but the facilitator mispronounced Caleb’s name, and that was enough to make me leave before anyone even touched the free donuts at the refreshment table. I didn’t even talk to Hannah about him much when we were still dating; I was too busy drinking, and she was too busy getting on with her life as though nothing had happened at all.

“He was my best friend,” I say finally. “Don’t get me wrong, we drove each other insane sometimes, but he was the one person in the world who liked me just the way I was. Our dad wasn’t exactly a winner, and our mom busted her ass with two jobs, so Caleb was the one who took care of me a lot of the time. He’s the one who taught me how to swim and ride my bike. He used to give me pocket money from his paper route so that I could buy something at the school book fair. I didn’t even like books—I’d waste the money on something stupid, like a yo-yo or bookmarks I’d never use—but he gave it to me anyway, because he didn’t want me to be the only kid in the class who couldn’t afford to go.”

I pause, tapping Sharp’s notebook against my knee. Emily doesn’t say anything as I gather my thoughts, doesn’t try to rush me or change the topic. She just waits patiently, silently, as if we have all the time in the world. But we both know time is a fickle thing—one second you have plenty of it, the next you’d do anything to rewind it—and so I take a deep breath and tell her how my kind, industrious big brother grew up to be a kind, industrious man, and how Fleet Outdoor Adventures was the culmination of everything he loved: family, adventure, and the great outdoors. I tell her how I tried to keep things running after he died, but trying to fill his shoes was like trying to fit a dumb peg into a smart hole, and I spent more time drinking and being angry at everyone and everything than doing anything useful. I tell her what it was like when the agency finally tanked, to walk alone through the silent, empty office that had once thrummed with people and activity.

I tell Emily about the beginning, and I tell her about the middle. She doesn’t ask about the end, and maybe that’s why I find the balls to tell her about that, too.

“He died three weeks before his wedding day,” I say, and it shocks me now, even two years later, as I say it out loud. “He wanted to do a vertical camping trip for his bachelor party, so he and a few of his buddies—guys who were experienced tour guides at the agency—went climbing.” I swallow, remembering Tara’s voice on the other end of the line when she called me at four a.m., remembering how I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to wake up and realize the whole thing had been a terrible dream.

“Caleb was always careful,” I tell Emily. “Intentional. He never took unnecessary risks. But there are accidents in nature you can’t always predict. They got caught underneath a rockslide, and—well.” I pause, trying to stop my brain from forming the images it always tries so hard to create. “Four of them made it out. But two of them, Caleb and his buddy Charlie, didn’t.”

I go quiet, thinking of how the medical report listed his injuries as unsurvivable . I couldn’t get the word out of my head for a long time after reading it, because it was the only word that seemed to adequately describe my grief. Surely losing Caleb would be unsurvivable ; the earth, without him on it, would stop spinning. Surely my heart, without him there to love me and tease me and kick my ass in Mario Kart , would stop beating. Surely I could not bear this pain for the rest of my life.

But surely never came.

“Ryder,” Emily says, taking my hand, but I haven’t even told her the worst part yet.

And suddenly I have to. I have to tell her, because if by some crazy miracle she does want me after all of this is over, she can’t know that without knowing this. Because it’s not just Caleb’s death that’s haunted me for two years and turned my life unrecognizably upside down; it’s that I wasn’t there for him when he needed me the most. I wasn’t there for the brother who’d taken care of me from day one, and every day I wonder why I’m even here at all. It’s why I can’t sleep, can’t date, can’t channel some energy into finding a new career I give half a shit about. Because I failed Caleb, and so the rest of it is meaningless.

The rest of it is dust.

“I was supposed to be there,” I tell Emily. “At his bachelor party. I was the best man. I missed my flight because I slept through my alarm, and I had to schedule a new one for the next morning.”

“Oh, Ryder,” she whispers, squeezing my palm.

I wait for her to say something to stop me, like Everything happens for a reason or Time heals all wounds or some other politely cruel way of saying Please take your misery elsewhere, because you’re really killing my vibe . I wait for her to say He’s in a better place now or one of the two dozen other trite phrases people throw out when they don’t know what to say in the face of unnerving, all-encompassing grief, but she doesn’t. She only sits, and waits, and watches.

She only listens.

“If I had been there,” I tell her, my voice breaking, “if I had fucking shown up like I was supposed to, maybe I could have done something.”

And because I promised Emily honesty, I close my eyes and say the other thing, the darkest thing, the thing that Hannah screamed at me the night she left and that I scream silently at myself all the time.

“It should have been me instead,” I confess, my eyes burning. “But I let him down, so I wasn’t there, and I will never forgive myself for it.”

It’s dark in the tower, but not so dark that I can’t see Emily’s eyes shining with tears.

“It should not have been you,” she says. “And it shouldn’t have been him , either, but it’s not your fault, Ryder. Has anyone told you that? That it’s not your fault? Because it wasn’t. It isn’t. It will never be your fault, no matter how many times your grief tries to tell you that it is.”

Her words are a gift, but I’m not sure that I can accept them.

“I wish I could believe that,” I tell her.

“I wish you could, too.” She frowns, still clutching my hand. “You know, earlier you said that I think I’m better than you, but I want you to know that’s not true. I don’t think that at all.”

“It’s okay if you do,” I tell her. “Truly. I mean, you are better than me. You’re someone who heals people for a living. I’m someone who knows way too many SpongeBob episodes by heart. Honestly, sometimes it’s okay to call a spade a spade.”

She shakes her head. “You’re not the only one who feels like you let down the person you love. I’m not better than you, Ryder. I’m exactly the same.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, mystified at the distorted way she views herself. “You describe yourself as someone who’s scared of practically everything, and you still came to a remote national park to honor your dad. That’s the opposite of letting him down.”

“Remember how I told you my dad asked me three times if I’d go to Isle Royale with him before I said yes?” she asks, her hand shaking. “ Three times . He raised me and loved me and set aside his own wants to take care of me, and I was still too selfish to go do the one thing he asked me to do. The only reason I’m here to honor him now is because I didn’t do it while he was alive. I missed my chance, and just like you’ll never forgive yourself, I’ll never forgive myself, either.”

“That doesn’t make you selfish, Emily,” I tell her, wishing I could make her believe it. “It just makes you human.”

“No, you don’t understand.” She sniffles and wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “I thought my dad was happy with the way his life turned out. I thought he was content, you know. Like maybe he couldn’t go hike the Swiss Alps or parachute into the rainforest, but he was happy enough with running the local paper and walking his dog and listening to my stupid little diatribes about Judith. But he wasn’t. I was wrong.”

I don’t know who Judith is, but I’m pretty sure that’s not important here, and I squeeze her hand to comfort her.

“Why would you think he wasn’t happy?” I ask. “Did he tell you that?”

She wipes away a tear. “No. Not me. After he died, I found these journals full of letters he wrote to my mom after she died. I hadn’t even known he wrote to her, but I guess it was his way of trying to stay connected to her. I thought I would glance at them, you know, and maybe they would bring me comfort.”

“I understand,” I say. “After Caleb died, I missed him so much that I read some of his college term papers just to feel closer to him.”

“Did it work?” Emily asks.

I shrug. “Not really. They were super boring. It just made me appreciate how he never used a run-on sentence.”

She smiles briefly, and then it fades. “I found one letter Dad had written to Mom when Brooke and I were in middle school.”

“What did it say?” I ask.

“It said, and I quote, ‘Dear Jenny, I dreamed of a life of adventure, and instead, I got minutiae.’?”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I say. “He was probably just stressed out being a single dad.”

“It gets worse,” she says miserably. “He wrote about how he’d gotten a job offer at a news desk in New York, but he didn’t take it because he didn’t want to uproot my sister Brooke and me. And about how he wanted to travel to Europe for the summer, but I was so scared of planes he knew I’d never set foot on one. He talked about a whole lifetime of things he dreamed of doing, things he wanted to do but couldn’t because I was holding him back.”

“You weren’t holding him back,” I argue. “You were just a kid.”

She shakes her head. “He gave up so much for me, so much joy he could have had, and I couldn’t even make time in my schedule to go on a damn hiking trip with him. And now he’s gone, and I’ll never have the chance to honor the sacrifice he made for me.”

“Hey.” I lean forward to grasp her arms gently. “I bet if your dad was here right now, he’d tell you that it wasn’t a sacrifice. That it was a freaking gift. But come on, Emily, you didn’t miss your chance. We’re here, aren’t we? You said it yourself, your dad loved adventure, and look at you. You’re having the craziest fucking adventure of all time on his behalf.”

She nods and sniffles. “It really is crazy. And I haven’t even gotten the chance to use my solar shower. Or my glow-in-the-dark toilet paper.”

“I know,” I say. “But look, even though the odds are stacked against us—since, you know, we’re terrible at being outdoors and our adversaries have guns and we have no idea if anyone heard our desperate radio plea for help—”

“I think you’ve listed enough odds,” Emily cuts in. “You can probably stop there.”

“Right. Well, even though the odds are stacked against us, we’re still alive. We’ve still got the Evermore. And as long as we’re still fighting, your dad’s story isn’t over,” I tell her. “And maybe, I don’t know. Maybe Caleb’s isn’t, either.”

“Do you really believe that?” she asks.

“I have to,” I tell her. “I have to believe that we can get off this island with the diamond, and that you can spread your dad’s ashes like you wanted. And I have to believe that one day, whether it’s on this island or in court, I’ll get the chance to punch Sinclair in the face and take Caleb’s Discman back.”

“I don’t think they let you punch people in court.”

I shrug. “A guy can dream, Edwards.”

She studies me, her expression thoughtful. “I’ve never told anyone that before. About my dad’s letter. Not even Brooke.”

I hold her hand a little tighter, grateful that she trusts me enough to share something so private.

“You can tell me anything, Emily.”

She nods, and then she pulls her hand back to tuck a curl behind her ear.

“You were trying to tell me something,” she says. “Earlier. In the canoe.”

I swallow, trying to summon the courage to explain that I want to keep being the person she tells things to, even after we leave Isle Royale. That I want to know everything that makes her tick, from her favorite feel-good movie to the worries that keep her up at night. That I want to know her , through and through, in every sense of the word.

“I was trying to answer the question you asked me in front of Malcolm,” I explain. “I was trying to tell you how I see you.”

“Oh,” she says softly, her gaze locked on mine.

“Do you want me to tell you now?”

I pray that she’ll say yes, but she only watches me for a long moment, like she’s trying to read something in my expression.

“No,” she says finally. “I don’t want you to tell me.”

Then, her cheeks flushed and her mouth slightly parted, she leans forward to loop her arms around my neck.

“I want you to show me.”