“It’s my fault,” I say miserably. “How far do you think she’ll get?”
“She’s fast,” Henry says.
Awesome.It feels like every decision I’ve made since thecrash is the wrong one, but this is something I can still fix. “I need Winston’s supplies from Theo’s backpack.”
“Is she hurt?” Brooke asks.
“Not yet, but she will be if she runs herself sick.” I unzip the kit, grab what I’m looking for, and chase after Theo.
I catch up to them on a steep, rocky stretch of ground. Victoria is on her hands and knees, her entire body shaking.
“You can’t do that again,” Theo says, lying next to her on his back, breathing like his lungs have collapsed. He throws a passion fruit at her. It bounces off her forehead and rolls away.
“Watch me.” Victoria pushes herself up on shaky legs and manages a single step before tripping and falling, scraping up her palms and shins. She swears loudly.
I kneel next to her and slap one of Winston’s handcuffs around her wrist, locking the other cuff around my own. “Howdy, Princess.”
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” She tugs her arm away from me. Mine follows.
“The key is in my pocket, and I’ll uncuff you as soon as you promise you’re not going to run away again.”
She looks me dead in the eye. “I promise.”
I raise an eyebrow at Theo. “Do you believe her?”
“Give me a couple of minutes to catch my breath. If she bolts again, I need to be able to keep up with her.”
“Okay.” I sit, pulling Victoria down to the ground with me, and unearth two passion fruits from my pocket. “While we wait, I’m sorry for accusing you of selling our marriage certificate to the tabloids.”
“You did what?” Theo rasps. He lifts his head and stares at me in disbelief.
“Shut up!” Victoria snaps.
“I don’t know why I said it! I shouldn’t have.”
“I said, be quiet!” she shrieks. “Do you hear that?” She looks up.
“What?”
“An airplane.” She leaps to her feet, tugging me up with her. I stumble, but then I hear it. The unmistakable drone of an airplane; the sound of hope.
We all scream in unison.
The plane comes into view, thousands and thousands of feet up. Still, we have to try.
“HELP!!!” We scream and jump and wave our arms in the air, mine and Victoria’s cuffed wrists frantically slamming into each other.
“HELP!” I scream the word over and over until my throat is raw, but it’s no use. The plane disappears into a cloud, leaving nothing but a contrail and utter devastation in its wake.
Brooke and Henry join us, their eyes wide with hope, but Victoria fills them in on the bad news. Except in her words, it’s not so bad. “It’s going to turn around,” she says confidently.
Brooke and I exchange an uneasy glance. The plane was so high up, and was going so fast, that I’m not confident of anything.
We sit on the rocky side of the volcano in shocked silence. Now that we’re out of the forest, the mist has burned away. The sun beats hard on the back of my neck, and the only sound that breaks the silence is the continuous swatting of mosquitoes against skin. If things were bad before, they feel worse now. It’s hard not to think of that plane as our last hope, and now that it’s gone, it feels more and more like we’ll be on this island for longer than any of us thought. And with each passing hour, Victoria is getting sicker. Not to mention Winston’s broken leg and Naomi’s blistered foot. I drop my head into my hands.
Victoria stands up suddenly. “Look for a boat,” she says. But when I look at the ocean, it melts into the horizon on all sides, making it feel like we’re the last people on earth. Something about the view nags at the back of my mind—it’s wrong, somehow, but I’m too tired and hungry to figure out why.
“There’s no one out there,” I tell her.
