Page 4

Chapter 4

Liberty Call

Zane

“Where the hell are they?” I pace down the trail and back to Dante, who is cleaning up from the bass. The smoker on the beach is ready to turn the leftover fish into jerky. Fish jerky isn’t something I thought I’d want to eat. But it’s not half bad. I check on it several times, watching my steps as I go between the beach to the smoker. It’s an almost moonless night, but there are no clouds in the sky, so there’s enough light to almost see.

I’m back at camp for a few minutes when I hear them coming down the trail. I want to fucking punch Calvin in the face. But my mother didn’t raise a fool. When they come around the corner, I freeze.

Calvin’s holding her against his chest. Her eyes are fluttered closed. She’s asleep and not sort of asleep and faking it. No, she’s unconscious.

“What did you do to her?”

“Good,” she mumbles. “So good. Tired. So, so tired.”

I glare between Calvin and Easton. But then Dante pops up. “Did it work?”

“Sort of.” Easton drops Calvin’s clothes on the makeshift table. “Thicker’s going to be more useful.”

Dante nods. “Oh, it separated. Did you shake it or stir it?”

“You didn’t say anything about stirring it.” Calvin raises a single eyebrow. I wave at him to give me Haley, and he remarkably does, pulling on his clothes afterward. Easton hangs up the towels.

“I didn’t? Yeah, sorry about that.” Dante tosses some small scraps to Pepper.

“Can you make it up here, Little Bird?” I hold her limp body next to mine. Calvin and Easton have used her so hard, I’m not sure she can lift her head.

“She needs to eat first.” Dante’s holding a bowl.

“Upstairs.” We’re so close to having the sleeping platform done. I fucking wish we’d finished it. Haley needs the space to sprawl tonight. But it’s not ready yet.

“I can do it.” Haley opens her eyes. “You can put me down. I want to go up to sleep, and you can’t carry me.”

“Don’t tell him he can’t do something, Haley. He’ll have to prove you wrong.” Dante pats Pepper.

“I can do it.” She looks from Calvin to me. I put her down slowly.

“I’ll be right behind you.” I rest my hand on her lower back. “Take it easy.”

After they leave, I spend time cleaning the living area, changing it back into the sleeping room. “It looks good,” Haley says through hooded eyes. “Thank you.”

I pull back the woolen blanket. She always gets the cushions, and the guys next to her for the night end up getting some blanket. We’re all using our life vests as pillows. It’s not much, but even a little makes it feel like home. I tuck her in. “Anything you need, Little Bird?”

“Stay with me.”

“I need to go check on the smoker. And talk to the guys about what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

“No. Stay with me.”

“Haley, I have to?—”

“Stay with me.” I shake my head even though I know she can’t see me. “I’ll be back.”

She exhales. She won’t even know I’m gone. I quietly sneak down the ladder.

“What are you doing?” Calvin stops me on the bottom step.

“The smokers are going and then we need to talk about?—”

“Tomorrow is Sunday. Crew day off,” Calvin barks.

I furrow my brow and glare at him. It’s not Sunday, it’s...

“Ah, he’s still in there.” Dante feeds Pepper another bit of fish.

“You’re working too hard. We can take a day off.” Easton’s got his hands on his hips.

“We need to finish the sleeping room before the rainy season.”

“We will or we won’t, man. But you’re pushing yourself too hard. And by yourself, I mean all of us. You need to chill.” Easton drops to the wood stove and puts another log on.

“What are we going to do?” It comes out before I realize what I’m saying.

“Do or do not... actually that doesn’t work here. We can lie on the beach, and you can retell the plot of the entire Star Wars universe or Marvel if we want to take two days off,” Dante says.

I raise my eyebrows at Dante.

“Or we can go for a swim in the ocean and then at the waterfall,” Easton adds.

“We can hike up the mountain. I can show those of you who haven’t seen it what it’s like.” Calvin nods at me. “But we’re not working on the shelter, and we’re not making jerky or fishing. I’ll open the back end of the weir. We won’t even have to check it.” Calvin points at me. “No cooking. We have fruit and jerky. No one works.”

“I don’t know who the hell you are anymore, Calvin Green.” Dante laughs.

He smiles his lopsided grin. And it hits me. The fucking asshole is in love. I don’t say it. I can’t say it because I am too. Only I’m trying to show her how great things can be with making the best-most-homelike-home we could ever have. Show her that I’m a provider too. That she needs me as much as she needs the rest of them. Stay with me , she said. I nod at Calvin. “You can finish up the jerky tonight?”

“I’ve got it,” he says.

“I’ll help too.” Easton stands.

“I’m going to go to bed.”

“Good idea. The stars are coming out. It’s a good time to just lie there and breathe.”

I climb the ladder. Do nothing tomorrow. Haley will like it. It’s not my idea, but she’ll like it, anyway.

“You’re back.” Her voice is sleepy.

“Aye.”

“You’re not Scottish.” She lets out the softest of laughs.

“No, but everyone says Scots are sexy.”

“You’re sexy.” She lifts the edge of the blanket. “Can we snuggle?”

“Always.” She turns her back to me, and I spoon her.

“Do you really know the plots to all the Marvel movies?”

“Aye.”

She laughs.

“Did you hear everything?”

“Yeah, the walls aren’t exactly walls.”

“We thought you were asleep. I’m sorry if we woke you.”

“You didn’t, and it’s fine. I like the idea of a day off. If you’re okay with it.”

“I can be.”

“I can’t keep them all straight.” Pepper jumps up the last step and curls up in the crook of my legs.

“Can’t keep what straight?”

“I got completely lost somewhere after Hulk 2.”

“Oh, that’s not hard to do.”

“I’m waiting.” Her voice vibrates through my chest.

“For?” I give her a squeeze.

“Marvel.” Her voice is already sleepy.

“I don’t know if we have time for all of it tonight, Little Bird. But in the beginning, there was Captain America...”

* * *

S omehow, I wake last. It’s like my body knows. I push myself back, leaning against the giant trunk of the map tree. Everything we need to do pulses through me, but I take a moment and breathe through it.

Haley’s dirty blond hair pops up the ladder. “Hey sleepyhead. I’m proud of you for taking the do-nothing day seriously, but we’re going to do something now. Nothing productive, just a little jaunt up the mountain.”

I stretch and come down the ladder after her. The rest of the guys are standing around the stove. “What happened to no cooking?”

Dante shrugs and hands me a cup. One of the ones Calvin carved out of a hunk of wood.

“What’s this?”

“It’s pretend tea.” Haley jumps up and down. “Last time we were talking about what food we miss the most—you said tea!”

“This is very much not tea. But it’s not water.” Dante laughs. “It won’t kill you.”

“I like it.” Haley smiles at me.

I bring it to my lips. It’s floral, with an undernote of coconut. But that could just be the cup, though. Everything we eat has coconut in it. I take a sip. It’s hot, and that might be where the similarity to tea ends, but when I take another, it’s pretty good. “What is it?”

“Young bamboo leaves,” Dante says. “Drink up, it’s time we get going. I’ve got the fire out already.”

We’ve been keeping it going night and day. It’s a heck of a lot easier in a stove than in a pit in the ground. If we ever see a boat or a low-flying plane, we can grab embers out of the stove and take them to the signal fire.

Watching Dante fill the bottom of the stove with sand, smothering the fire, is... well, it sends a nasty pain into the pit of my stomach. I’m not Calvin. I still have hope. Yes, we’re well past the twenty-one-day mark. We’re closing in on five weeks. Haley wraps her arm around my shoulder. “You ready for the hike?”

“Not a hike. I don’t hike. Stroll through the woods. We’re forest bathing,” Dante announces, dusting his hands on his pants.

“What the hell is forest bathing? We’re in the jungle.” Calvin turns to Dante.

“It’s where you take the time out of your busy life to notice nature and fuck. It’s an article I read on the plane on the way over. I couldn’t sleep.”

Haley laughs. “Okay, let’s get this bath on the trail.” We’re a few feet down the path when Pepper follows. “No stay here, Pepper. We’ll be back soon.” Pepper meows and sits down.

“I still wonder where she came from.” I shake my head.

We get to the pool and stop to run our hands through it. “Should we take a quick dip?” Dante looks about ready to strip his clothes off.

“I don’t want to get sidetracked.” Haley runs back to the trail. “Come on, a dip in the waterfall will feel a lot more fun as a reward after the hike.”

I grab Haley around the waist and kiss her. “But if it’s a do-nothing day, can’t we just go straight for the reward?”

“I’m with the redcoat on this one.” Dante’s got his shirt off.

“No.” Haley points to the two of us with her Chief Stew face. “Up you go.”

“Right. Up, up, up I go.” Dante adjusts himself and takes Haley’s hand. “Fine, but I’m walking next to you.”

It gets steeper with each passing minute. The vegetation actually changes some as well. There are fewer palm trees and more hardwoods. And when we hit a small clearing where there are only lava rocks, it’s drier and a hell of a lot warmer.

I turn around and offer Haley a hand to get up to the ledge I’m standing on.

“Damn, this is a proper mountain.”

“I told you, the island is a lot bigger than we first thought. Even after we saw it from the top of the map tree.” Calvin nods.

“Whoa.” Haley looks around. “What’s that over there?” She points to the East. Among the dark rocks, I can see an inky black hole.

“I don’t know. That way, though, has a cliff straight down. You can’t see over the edge though. There’s a wall that goes straight up. But I think it drops right back down on the other side.”

“Do you think it’s a cave? Like the one you and Easton spent the night in after the fight.”

“I... maybe? Only one way to find out.” Calvin reaches for Haley’s hand and helps her up to the next level.

I follow right behind. Calvin’s right, there’s a sheer cliff that goes straight up. It’s the way the rocks are stacked. It takes even more effort to work our way parallel across the mountain. But when we get there, I can hear the ocean on the other side of it. And even crazier yet, there’s a cave. This one was a lot bigger than the one Easton and Calvin spent their night in the doghouse in. Haley takes a step into it.

“No,” Calvin shouts.