“Am I okay?” I ask, sitting up a bit.
He removes his hand from mine and nods a little. “Yeah, you look fine, anyway. I think you passed out just before we crashed.”
Crashed. Oh, God. We crashed. I was in a freaking plane crash!
“Where are we?” I look out the window. Water slides down it in rivers, but I can make out what appears to be a whole lot of sand, and maybe a wooded area in the distance. No buildings. No road that I can see. “Oh, my God. Are we on a desert island?”
“Deserted, not desert. And, maybe.”
“What do you mean,maybe? You’re thepilot. Aren’t you supposed to know where we are?”
“Yeah, well, forgive me for managing to crash land without killing us while you were screaming the entire time.” He glares at me for a second, then his face softens. “We were above a string of about twenty cays, and we got blown around so much, I don’t know which one we’re on. There’s a good chance that it’s deserted though.”
I suddenly notice that he has a deep gash above his right eyebrow. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine,” Mac says, waving away my concern. “We’ve got bigger problems than a little cut on my face.”
This is real. This is all happening. I glance down at my dress, and the truth of what’s happening hits me. “I’m not going to make it to my sister’s wedding, am I?”
Mac shakes his head. “Not unless there’s a miracle, and at the moment, I’d say it’s not looking too good.”
“I don’t think you understand. Ihaveto get there. I’m her sister. Who else is going to hold up her dress when she needs to pee?” I say, feeling a panicky lump form in my throat. “Just radio someone, okay? Maybe there’s a boat nearby. They could pick me up and take me, then when the storm stops, you can fly back to Santa Valentina Island.”
“Fly back in what? Did you miss the part when I said we crashed?” He runs a hand through his hair and breathes hard out of his nose. “Eight hundred dollars. Fucking hell. My livelihood is this aircraft. And it’s gone.”
I try to focus on what he’s saying and not how he’s saying it (like a jerk).His livelihood may be gone, but he can always get a new job. I can’t exactly get a new family.“Won’t your insurance pay for it?”
“Yeah, and wish me luck getting it renewed after this fuck up,” he says, shaking his head. “I knew better than to come back for you. I should have left you at the dock.”
“Clearly! You almost got me killed, Mr. Gambles-Both-Our-Lives,” I snap.
He sets his jaw, his eyes narrowing, but he says nothing.
Okay, that was unnecessarily mean. And really not helpful at all.Tears blur my vision as the reality sinks in a little further. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just … so upset.” My voice comes out as barely a squeak and I have to suck in a breath so I can speak clearly. “Is there a chance we could beonAzure Island? Or maybe it’s so close I could swim? I’m a very good swimmer. Well, I took lessons, anyway, when I was a kid. But it all comes back to you, right? It’s like riding a bike, isn’t it?” I stare into his eyes, pleading for him to think of some way to fix this.
His face softens a little. “We had another ten minutes to go by air. Even if you were Michael Phelps, it would be impossible.”
“Fine. Whatever. Just radio someone for help. There’s got to be a boat nearby.”
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he says, “The radio’s dead. It got fried along with the rest of the dashboard when we got hit by lightning. But even if I could contact someone, nobody’s going to be out in this storm.”
“No, but … there must be…”
Mac shakes his head.
“Nope.” I jam my thumb into my seat belt buckle, and it comes loose on the first try. “No way.I’m not going to justsit hereand do nothing. I’m leaving. I can’t miss it. I won’t. Just tell me which direction to go, and I’ll get there!”
I reach for the door handle, but Mac stops me with his tone. “Don’t open that, you’re just going to get soaked. We’re roughly thirty nautical miles away.”
“Nautical miles? I don’t… Give it to me in real miles.”
“A little under thirty-five, but in this storm, it might as well be a thousand,” he says. “I know this is hard, Paige,and it’s a lot to take in, but I need you to accept what’s happening so we can get on with things.”
My head snaps back. “Get on with things? What is that supposed to mean?”
“With surviving until someone finds us.”
“Surviving?”Surviving?That’s not something I have to worry about. It just happens, doesn’t it? Apparently, not today. I suddenly feel cold even though the air in here is hot and sticky. My body starts to shake uncontrollably as the shock of what just happened sets in. We almost died. Like, real death. The kind you don’t come back from. We didn’t, but we could have. And now, it seems as though I’m being told we may not survive until we’re found. A voice in my head says,Buck up, Paige. You’re a Chadwick. Chadwicks … oh, fuck it.I nod quickly, and when I talk, my voice is a high-pitched whisper. “That’s it. I’m afraid I’m going to fall apart now.”
