Page 7

Tethered

Sam

T here’s no talking her out of it. I’ve got the gun.

We’ve got all the supplies we might need.

And there’s nothing we can do about it, but I’m going to have to bring Penny.

She’s bouncing around the campsite. She always knows when we’re going on a trip.

No matter what type of trip it is. “Zane, when you’re up there, can you grab the L-E-A-S-H? ”

“Y-E-S.”

“What in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is going on?” Dante appears from the stream path. The last two water bottles are filled.

Zane scurries down the ladder. “Our blond, four-legged friend isn’t fond of bondage.” He puts the leash down on the counter, hiding it behind a tub of supplies.

Haley’s turning an adorable shade of pink. “I?—”

Dante tugs on Haley’s braid. “Did you grow an extra two legs, Sassy? Plus, I think you might have a different feeling about bondage.” He trails a finger down her neck. “How have we not tried that yet?”

“We—”

“Holding your hands above your head isn’t the same thing, Sassy.

” Dante angles his shoulders at Haley, and she moves in unison with him.

I’m sure she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.

And it’s damn enticing. Haley sucks in her lips.

My dick’s getting hard. Which isn’t what I need right now, that’s for sure.

Dante tips his head back and laughs. “Here, Sam, hold this.” He attacks Haley’s wrists like a venomous serpent and pulls them above her head. My eyes flick to where their hands join. He’s got his lips on her neck.

“Dante!” she says, a playful lilt in her voice. “We need to go.”

“Or come.”

Her eyes flick to mine. “Some help.”

For a second, I contemplate taking Dante up on his command. I reach for her hands and Dante drops his, thinking I’m up for his game. I interlace my fingers with hers, dropping our hands down. “You’re ready to go?”

“I’ve been ready for a long time.” She rises on her toes and gives me a quick kiss. “Thank you.”

“Any time, Sugar.”

“Ah, see, there’s some player in you, Sam.

Let’s get go find the rest of your guys, Sassy.

” Dante takes the leash from the counter and snaps it onto Penny’s collar without so much as a whimper from my so-called best friend.

He snags his pack from a stump-chair and walks a few feet down the trail, then turns back to the three of us. “Well, are we going or not?”

Zane, Haley, and I are frozen.

“Let’s go, girl. They’ll figure out what they’re doing and catch up, eventually.” Penny trots next to him, her focus on his face like she understands every last thing Dante says.

I take the pack Haley has next to her legs and throw it on my back.

“Oh, Sam. I’ve got that.”

“It’s fine. I can take both.” I pick mine up, and it weighs a lot less than hers.

She cocks her head at me, her hand on her hip.

“Fine, take mine. It’s lighter.” I hand her mine.

She puts it on. Her eyebrows rise.

“I’ve got everything I need for Penny,” I answer her unasked question.

Zane has the best length of rope we have at camp for climbing wrapped diagonally across his body. The path to the waterfall doesn’t seem as long as it did the night the boar chased me all those weeks ago.

I reach back and offer a hand to Haley as we head up the side of the mountain near the waterfall. Dante has Penny, who hasn’t moaned or stopped and complained about the leash at all.

Zane brings up the rear. I see him looking around, searching the area behind us. I’m doing the same thing. All my senses are on high alert. If the pirates were to come to the middle of the island, we’d only have a few minutes’ head start on them. The sooner we know, the better.

Dante and Penny pull ahead. Penny will alert us if she hears someone else. The times I’ve taken her hiking on isolated trails, she always barks before I see the approaching hiker. I’m just hoping that goes for yacht-stealing pirates as well.

The climb isn’t too bad. The rocks here act like stairs.

“This is the trail to the cave that let us find you to begin with.” Dante points to a rocky scramble to the south of us.

Up ahead between the trail we’re on and where the ocean will be, to the left side of the trail, a tall bluff rises.

Our path curves away from the ocean to the right and continues up in spots.

It’s almost flat, and then it surges upward.

The rocks grow larger with the rise in elevation.

“This is as far as I’ve ever come,” Zane says behind me. “It gets steeper up ahead.”

And Zane’s right.

Haley stops and sits on one of the larger boulders. I slide her pack off my back and hand it to her. She takes out a bottle of water and offers it to me.

“You first.” Once she’s had a long drink, I have some. “Thank you.” I hand it back and replace her pack on my back. Dante shares some of his water with Penny, and she’s resting her head on his lap.

Dante pets her ears. “The boulders are getting too tall for Penny. We might need to carry her.”

“That’s why my pack is so empty. She can make it a while longer, with some help. But when the time comes, I have a way of putting her in my pack. I’ll cut some holes in the bottom of it and sling her through it like a baby. I don’t want to cut the holes until I have to.”

It’s been forty minutes since we left camp. The trees are thinning, and the sun’s heating up. There’s a sheen of sweat on my skin.

“You doing okay?” I run my fingers down the side of Haley’s arm.

“Physically, I’m fine. Emotionally?” She shrugs. “Not so much. I’m really worried. The knots were a sign that Calvin got off the ship. But what if Easton’s not with him? What if...”

“Hey, none of that.” I wrap my arms around her and kiss the top of her head. “We don’t know what’s going on with them. So let’s assume the best.”

Haley laughs, and her blue eyes glisten up at me. “You sound like Easton when I was worried about you.”

“See, Easton’s a smart guy. I turned out just fine. There’s no reason that Easton and Calvin won’t both be fine.”

She sniffles and straightens her shoulders. “You’re right. There’s no reason to assume the worst. I have a habit of going there. And it doesn’t do any good.”

“No, it doesn’t do any good.”

Dante lifts Penny up for the next few boulders, but then it levels out for a while and the last bit of the trek to the top of the mountain isn’t bad.

We’ve been on the trail for not quite an hour when we reach the tree line.

The summit would be breathtaking in other circumstances.

The wind picks up and brings a bit of relief to my sweat-drenched skin.

“It’s really beautiful.” Her smile lifts my mood.

“It is.”

“When we first landed here, I was really scared. Worried... about you. About how we could survive. But we worked together and really found a...”

“A rhythm,” Dante finishes.

“Working together, we built the camp,” Zane says.

“Some of us more than others.” Haley grabs Zane’s hand and locks their ring fingers together.

“I longed for home a little less. Then when we found you, Sam, I was so relieved.” Haley’s face turns up to me.

“And part of me started to care a little less about making it home. I was... happy. I mean, I am happy. This place—until the pirates came—it became a home. And now it’s like they’ve broken my bubble.

My bubble of safety. They have to be okay,” she says with a firm nod.

“They are.” Dante kisses the top of her head. “You’re right. This island is a special place. Nowhere else have I ever been more myself.” He pivots and points back the way we came. “That over there is where the pomelo trees are, and back toward camp, that’s where we found the derelict.”

A million or so years ago, this might have been a volcano.

But now we can see a good portion of the island.

Not the area past the bluff near the alcove the Rock Candy was beached in, though, or the area around Chicken Beach.

The top of the trees near the camp rise above the rest, and behind us there’s a bulbous part of the island.

“And that over there is Chicken Beach?” Zane asks.

There’s a ridge down the side of the island. Intermixed in the trees, I can make out a large rock outcropping.

Dante hands me Penny’s leash, and she glares at me. “Yes, damn. Look at how tall some of those rocks are. It’s like a fence dividing a quarter of the island from the rest of the island.” He takes a drink of water. “That’s where they are.”

“How are they going to get over that?” Haley leans forward.

“Calvin knows it’s there. I’m sure he’s got a plan, and if not, we’ve got the rope. We’ll go over and get them.” Zane pats the rope on his shoulder.