“God, I fuckinghatecrabs now,” Connie says.
“Amen,” the others echo.
The next several hours are both tedious and zip past. They find us some clothes and help us clean up as best they can. Apparently the weather is worsening. The decision’s made to drop two medics and medical supplies down to us while we steam in to the nearest port large enough to hold this ship. They’re afraid to transfer us with the weatherdeteriorating.
Meanwhile, they have Susa suck water from a clean towel to slowly get hydration back into her until they can start an IV on her. We’re all cautioned to sip water, not greedily gulp it, out of fear of it harming us.
They take pictures of each of us to send to the government, and our names.
We’re back on the grid. I take a little grim satisfaction knowing that there’s probablya current and newly minted governor of Tennessee who’s going to be really pissed off at me when I come in swinging and demand he gets the hell out of my office.
I’m not dead yet.
And I’m pretty sure, unless Ed Willis managed to survive, that I am, in fact, the governor of Tennessee.
Not exactly how I wanted my promotion.
* * * *
Susa is definitely in dire shape. The medics have trouble gettingan IV started on her, and now she’s puking again. But at least she’s puking stuff up, meaning the hydration she’s getting is helping her.
I hope.
They also give her some medication that makes her sleepy, and after a few more smart-assed remarks she finally dozes off. I’ve got an IV, too—we all do—but I know I’m way better off than she is.
Still, I refuse to sleep despite my exhaustion.
I can’tlet her out of my sight. Not yet.
Iwon’t.
Not until the feisty lieutenant governor of Florida is either safely in the arms of her men, or she’s back on her own two feet and in full fighting form. I will never forget the early days in the raft, how she immediately stepped up to take charge.
The woman’s a damned hero for how she saved her friend, too.
We finally make it to port and dock. Theytake her out first, and I’m ready to follow. They want me to wait for a stretcher, but I haul myself up off the bunk and to my feet, another medic carrying my IV bag for me and holding my arm to steady me as I stagger down the corridor after them. I’m desperate to keep my eyes on the stretcher and on her. I want to ride in the ambulance with her, be in the hospital with her.
I can’t explain it.
Well, I can.
I couldn’t save my girl.
Iwillprotect theirs. Maybe a little of my overall karmic debt will be balanced if I do that.
I make it to the doorway outside just in time to hear a man, an American, frantically screaming from down on the dock, swearing, demanding to be let aboard the ship.
As I step outside, I can see him arguing—loudly—with a crewman at the bottom of the gangway below.
The next thing he screams makes my breath hitch and nearly drives me to tears.
“Pet!”
Susa says something to the captain, who calls out to someone on the dock. We all hear the man pounding up the gangway.
If this isn’t one of her men, I’m Robert fricking Redford.
The medic is holding my arm to support me, and I lean against the wall and watch as the man runs toward where the other medics arecarrying Susa’s stretcher. She holds up her arm and the man catches up to them, crying, sobbing as he leans in to cradle her face in his hands, kissing her. He’s wearing a wedding ring on his left hand.
