I hold my breath as a wave crests precariously close to the top of the rock.
“I’m going,” Theo says.
“How will you get back up?”
“One problem at a time, Wheeler.” He takes off his shoes and pulls his shirt over his head, and it’s not lost on me that my stomach fills with butterflies. I shake away visions of skinny-dipping in the Mediterranean and fix my eyes back on the phone. Another wave nearly sweeps it away.
“Don’t jump too close,” I warn. Theo springs away from the mossy cliff and dives into the slate-colored water. He waits for his own waves to settle before doubling back to pick up the phone.
“Four percent battery,” he yells before chucking it up to me. “My hands are too wet.”
I catch it with a scream. “Who do I call?” I yell.
“Penny, or my sister Louise.” He pulls himself out of the water and balances on the rock. He leans his forearms against the cliffside, craning his neck up to see me.
I scroll Henry’s contact list with shaking hands and find “Penny,” the woman who has been the royal nanny since Theo was a baby. He once described her as his second mother. I bite my lip and hope she’s waiting for a phone call.
I press her name.
The sound of the phone ringing catapults my heart straight into my throat. “It’s ringing!”
The call drops before the second ring. My hope collapses inon itself like a building marked for demolition. Turned into a pile of smoke and ash in three seconds flat.
Battery life: three percent.
“The signal’s gone.”
“Find it again!”
I keep my eyes glued to the phone screen as I jog along the edge of the cliff. My heart pounds so hard I might collapse. When the world’s weakest signal bar flickers to life, I click on the contact “Lulu.”
The phone rings once before sending me to voicemail. “My name is Wren Wheeler I was on a plane with your siblings. We crashed near an island but we’re all alive—”
The phone dies in my hand. It’s not perfect, but at least someone will know we’re alive. If they look along our flight’s route, they’ll find us.
I turn and sprint back to where Theo is still waiting. I drop to my hands and knees at the edge of the cliff and gulp giant breaths of air, fighting a new wave of dizziness. “The phone’s dead now, but I found another signal. I left a voicemail.”
“For Penny?”
My left arm is trembling. I transfer all of my weight to my right elbow. “Your sister.”
A full smile breaks across Theo’s face, and it feels like seeing sunshine for the first time in days. “Louise?”
“Yeah. Lulu.”
His expression clouds over. “Lulu? You calledLulu?”
“You told me to!”
“Lulu isn’t my sister.”
“Then who is she?”
He drags a hand over his face and nearly topples back into the water. “Henry’s ex-girlfriend!”
“Okay.Well.” I cross my arms defensively and try not to wince from the pain. I was too jittery to question it when I saw a “Lulu” in Henry’s contact list; I assumed it was a nickname. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll get the voicemail.”
“No, she won’t.”
