“It’s what my swim coach called it when I was five.”
“It sounds mental, but I like it,” he muses. “I can picture a five-year-old Wren shouting ‘chicken star rocket’ from the pool.”
“Stop talking so much or you’ll drown,” I call back.
“What’s taking so long?” he moans, and I wish I had an answer. The coast was to our left on our way out, and it’s to my right on the way back. There’s no way we could have gotten lost, but it feels like we should have reached our makeshift camp by now. I’m about to say this to Theo when I see smoke in the distance.
“Fire!” I shout. A new shot of adrenaline courses through me.
“I’ll meet you there,” he says.
I run while Theo swims, but I outpace him and reach the small, smoky campfire first. The group is gathered around it while Brooke tends to the flames. “I can’t believe you made fire! Scratch that. I can’t believe you convinced Reggie to let you make fire,” I tell her. A lungful of smoke triggers a coughing fit, but I can’t contain my smile. This is the first thing that’s gone right all day.
I instinctively check the sky for rescue helicopters and am only a little bit devastated that it’s still empty.
“We found water too!” Naomi hands me a bottle. “There’s a stream that runs through the forest.” I close my eyes and tip the water over my tongue. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted—no contest. I drink until my empty stomach protests the sudden rush of liquid. I twist the cap on the bottle and hand it to Naomi. She’s leaning back-to-back with Victoria, whose head is tipped against her shoulder. Victoria’s face is pale. Like everyone else, she looks filthy and exhausted.
I kneel next to her. “Do you feel okay?”
She slowly lifts her head and looks at me blankly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I wither. She has a special way of making me feel like an idiot for asking a simple question. “Theo said…”
Her gaze hardens.
I trail off as I realize she doesn’t want to talk about this. With me. In front of everyone. Maybe at all.
The rest of the group stares at me expectantly.
Henry leans forward. “Well?”
I move closer to the fire. The smoke burns my eyes, but the muscles in my shoulder unclench for the first time in hours. It feels unbelievable. “Theo’s on his way. He should be here any second,” I tell them.
Reggie sighs impatiently. “Did the phone work or not?”
I pretend to choke on another lungful of smoke to buy myself a few more miserable seconds before I have to drop the news. I got so distracted by the fire and the water that I momentarily forgot about the phone.
When I open my watery eyes, everyone is staring at me. I stare directly into the flames. I can’t bear to look at any of them.
“That’s a no,” Victoria says flatly.
“You couldn’t find a signal at all?” Naomi chews her lip anxiously.
“We did,” Theo says as he joins the group. Water drips off him onto my shoulders. I scoot over to make room for him in front of the fire. He sits next to me and leans into the heat. “We found a signal. I tried to ring Louise, but my hands were shaking so badly they slipped, and I ended up calling Lulu instead.”
Henry’s jaw drops. Mine does too. “You don’t have to—”
“Yeah I do,” he says evenly. “I have to tell them what happened. I left Lulu a message, but I think she still has Henry’s number blocked, so she probably won’t get it. Then the phone died.”
“That’s not funny,” Henry says.
I open my mouth to confess, but Theo cuts me off by putting his hand on my leg, narrowing the universe down to that single touch.
I stare at the fire as my eyes well with tears. Hopefully everyone will assume it’s from the smoke.
The first day I met Theo, it was raining, and I had just sprained my ankle. He wanted to call me a cab to take me to the airport, but I’d refused to let myself be saved by Prince Charming. If I had let him, I probably would have made my flight in time.
Maybe I don’t need to be saved, but it sure does feel nice.
