When she finished, his hand was still on her wrist. His thumb moved, the barest brush over her skin.
“Emma…” Just her name, but the way he said it carried weight—gratitude and something else, something she didn’t have time to examine.
She sat beside him, slumped against the rock, and covered his hand with hers, squeezing once. Her fingers rested on his weak pulse for reassurance. “Rest. Save your strength.”
Zach's eyes drifted closed, his grip loosened.
His pulse jumped—then hammered under her fingers. Too fast. Too hard.
The skin visible around her makeshift bandage flushed red.
He gasped, back arching, before he collapsed back down, out cold.
Oh, God—what had she done?
Chapter 37
Crashing Waves
She waited.Checked his breathing. Rain and wind howled around her.
Checked him again. Zach didn’t seem to be getting worse, but he wasn’t improving either. Not like the fisherman had.
Doubt gnawed at her.
What if it wasn’t lionfish venom? What if the assassin used something else? What if I used the wrong berries, or the wrong leaves?
“No.” The word came out fierce, directed at herself as much as the storm. She wouldn’t think like that. Couldn’t afford to.
But the truth remained: he needed more help than she could provide alone, stranded on the side of a cliff in a hurricane with nothing but intuition and half-remembered folk medicine.
Emma pulled out her phone, already knowing what she’d find. No signal. Just the black screen reflecting her own rain-soaked face, and through it, Zach’s too-still form.
She had to reach Nick and David. Zach needed real medical help. But the storm showed no signs of abating.
Think.There had to be something.
The Windstone pulsed against her hip again, stronger this time. She pulled it from her pocket, staring at the swirling silver-blue depths. It had given her light in the dark. Helped her carry Zach when physics said she shouldn’t be able to. Now it seemed to pulse with urgency, the light within it pointing… up?
Emma squinted up through the rain in the direction the light pointed. The cliff face rose above them, treacherous in the storm but the faint path appeared intact. And at the top—higher elevations meant a potential cell signal. It also meant more of those bushes might grow, more berries to harvest for the poultice.
Stronger winds.
She needed more herbs. She’d only had enough for a thin layer over the cut.
She studied the path up the cliff face, despair curling in her stomach. She could never get his weight up that precarious trail in a hurricane, even with the Windstone’s help. But that meant leaving him…
Did she stay with Zach or try to climb up?
Emma gazed back at Zach, measuring the risk. He sat in the only shelter available, protected from the worst of the wind and rain by the rock alcove. If she moved fast, if the climb took only minutes like she hoped, she could be back before?—
Before what? Before the poison spread further? Before his system shut down completely?
Her jaw set. She couldn’t think like that. This wasn’t optimism; it was necessity. Shewouldget a signal. Shewouldfind more berries. Shewouldreturn to him in time.
The decision crystallized with brutal clarity. She had to go up. Had to try. Staying here, watching Zach fade, wasn’t an option.
Emma crouched beside him, her hand on his shoulder. His chest still rose and fell, shallow but steady. “I have to go higher,” she told him, though she doubted he heard. “For a signal, for more medicine. I’ll be fast. You just... hold on. Please, Zach. Hold on.”
