I could offer to stay and let Hunter go, but how safe was it for him to be with Tom in his condition? How safe was it for me to stay here alone, unarmed? We were in the wolf, goat, and cabbage brain teaser, only we had to cross an ocean by boat, not a river. How could we reach safety without Hunter, me, or both of us being eaten? My heart pounded painfully against my ribs. Hunter needed medical assistance, and I had no trust in Tom. Hunter and I must both go. There was no other way around this.
“Fuck,” Hunter muttered, and his eyes darted around the room. “There is no time to hide it.” He took the books off and stuffed the gems and coins into his side pocket. Water soaked the fabric of his shorts, not helping us at all.
“I don’t like your friend,” I said, grabbing my father’s urn from the desk. It was the only item I cared to not lose again.
“He is not my friend,” Hunter said, rising from kneeling and quickly grabbing the table’s edge for balance, but using the wrong hand. “Jesus!” he roared, wincing and clutching his hand to his chest. “Fucking hell, that hurts.”
“How dangerous is he?” I stepped to Hunter and helped him get up. “What if he has guns on his boat?”
Hunter looked me in the eye. “We’ll be okay.”
I wanted to point out that he had avoided answering both of my questions, but we also had no choice. Hunter needed a doctor. I could take the flare gun with us.
The boat’s motor roar sliced through the air. Hunter and I stumbled to the porch.
Tom skidded over the waves toward his sailboat with his back to us.Shit. Shit. Shit.I threw the urn into the bushes and ran to the beach.
“Stop! Please.” I chased after him, waving my hands like an idiot. I was a fool. How stupid of us not to walk with Tom back to his fucking boat. “Come back, you, asshole!” I screamed, dropping to my knees in the water.
ChapterTwenty-Six
“You should have told me your friends are a bunch of modern-day pirates,” I said as I walked into the hut, dragging in sand on my legs that I didn’t care to shake off before coming in. I yanked my soaked shorts off with so much anger the fabric scorched my thighs.
“They are not pirates. They are just”—Hunter exhaled, shaking his head—“people Edward and I should have avoided.”
Hunter sat on the end of the bed, elbows pressing into his knee, the good hand gripping his hair. He hadn’t looked up at me since I returned.
“He is coming back, but not alone, right?” I asked, discarding the wet T-shirt I wore on the floor. Back on the beach, I had sat unmoving in the water, watching Tom getting on his boat, lifting the dinghy to it, and the asswipe had the nerve to wave me a farewell. I should have flipped him off, but my arms were heavy with dread.
Hunter lay back, rubbing his face and exhaling a long sigh. “Yes. And probably soon.”
From where I stood, it was apparent Hunter needed rest, and maybe I shouldn’t be grilling him right now, but goddamnit, I was mad and scared. “What doessoonmean? Tonight? Tomorrow? In one week?”
I couldn’t believe this was actually my life right now. It must be because I didn’t forward all those chain letters to my friends years ago, and now the promised curse had caught up with me. First, I barely survived the storm, then almost overdosed on snake venom (okay, fine, that one was on me), and now I had to deal with a questionable man who had no decency to help people in need and stole from us.
“I don’t know.”
“How much do you owe Tom?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“A little over one hundred thousand.”
“That’d better be rubles and not dollars.”
He released a weak chuckle, which was followed by a low curse. It was unclear if it was because of the pain in his hand, or this situation, or both.
For a brief moment, I debated whether it was safe to give Hunter another penicillin injection. Instead, I pressed an antibiotic pill out of a blister pack, shook out two Tylenol from a bottle, and sat them on the nightstand next to the mug that still had some water from the morning. “Take the meds and lie in bed.”
Neither of us had eaten since yesterday evening, and even if hunger wasn’t clutching my stomach (fear was doing enough of that job), Hunter and I needed to replenish our strength. I rubbed the skin of my face with my hands and pulled them over my head, tugging on my hair with frustration. Anger at Hunter for not being honest with me bubbled up in my chest, but seeing him unwell tamped it down.
I exhaled an aggravated breath like a dragon releasing its steam. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?” I said, keeping my tone cool with difficulty.
“Because you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have met Tom. Ever.” Hunter slowly sat up, and his bloodshot eyes looked everywhere but me. “Who I owe money to is none of your business.”
Ouch. That hurt, but I could deal with it. Hunter had all the right not to tell me everything about his past. When I asked him what he planned to do once he found the treasure, Hunter mentioned he wanted to pay off the debt. I just assumed it was credit cards, school loans, or a mortgage, the normal things people owe money on, and not a debt to some thug.
“Maybe your financial situation isn’t my business, but you should have warned me about someone searching for you and the treasure. I specifically remember asking if someone else was looking for it, but you didn’t answer my question. You deliberately hid it from me. You owing them money puts me in danger because I’m stuck on this damn island with you.” I walked to the door but stopped before exiting. “When Tom returns, we’ll be outnumbered and utterly screwed. You should have been honest with me about it from the start.”
“And what would you have done differently if you knew about Tom and my debt to him?”
