Charlie waved her hand absently in the air, but she didn’t tear her attention away from Dylan. “I had a vision that kept Mike from walking into a trap and becoming a dartboard for stakes.”
“That’s good,” Jack said. “No one wants to be a dartboard.”
“Very true,” Mike agreed.
“So, he knows you’re different,” Jack said to Charlie.
She lifted her head and blinked at him. “Well… obviously.”
Mike released a bark of laughter, and Jack scowled at him.
“What’s so funny?” Jack demanded.
Mike smiled innocently at him. “I’m so happy to see you getting everything you deserve.”
Jack gave him the finger before turning his attention to Charlie and Dylan.
“Hopefully every one of the bastards on this island roasts in this fire,” Charlie muttered as she surveyed the cliffs.
“I killed their best hunter,” Mike said. “Beat him to death.”
“Good,” Jack said. “Was he the one who killed Doug?”
Jack swallowed the lump in his throat after he asked this question. He knew Doug was dead, but he didn’t know the details, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know how one of his best friends died.
“No,” Mike said. “I don’t know who shot him.”
The color drained from Jack’s face as he recalled firing down on the Savages attacking Mike and the others. He’d been careful to keep his gun aimed away from them, but what if something had gone wrong?
“It wasn’t… could it have been…me?” he made himself ask. He didn’t want to know the answer, but hehadto hear it.
“No,” Mike said. “It happened after the two of you left.”
When Jack closed his eyes and inhaled a shuddery breath, Charlie rested a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Dylan stirred, and Jack pulled his wrist away. Charlie clasped her son’s cheeks and turned his face to her. She rested her forehead against his as she listened to his rhythmic breathing before turning and flinging her arms around Jack.
“Shh,” he said as he ran his hand down what remained of her hair. “He’s going to be fine, and we’re getting off this island.”
Charlie pulled away from him and turned back to her son. Dylan’s eyes were open as he watched the two of them.
“Mates,” Dylan said and smiled.
* * *
Jack carriedDylan on his back as they walked along the beach. No burn marks marred Dylan’s face and body anymore. Not only had Jack’s blood warmed him, but it also healed him. Charlie couldn’t stop herself from touching them as they walked; she had to keep reassuring herself they were there. The hallucinations she experienced while drowning had left her questioning reality.
Was she really here? Were they here? Or was this some trick her mind was playing on her. They were solid beneath her palms and warm against her freezing skin.
Dylan rested his hand over hers and smiled at her. “We’re real, Mom.”
“I know,” she muttered and looked to Jack who clasped her hand and squeezed it.
Above them, the raging inferno lit the night while the smoke from it obscured the stars. The flames cast dancing, ominous shadows across the sand. Occasionally, fiery pieces of debris would shoot up and fall to the sand before flaming out on the beach. Charlie kept a wary eye on the cliffs and any possible tunnels that could shelter Savages as they searched for Mike’s boats.
Having gotten turned around in the fire, and with all landmarks eradicated by the flames, Mike had no idea where those boats were anymore. As they walked, Mike filled them in on everything that happened to him while he was on the island and since he left.
Charlie assessed the damage done to her by the fire while she listened to Mike. Only pink patches marred her skin where blisters had formed before. The last five inches of her hair was gone, and the ends of it were charred. The fire had burnt away the bottom of her boots and socks so that grains of sand slipped between her toes. Holes marred her clothes, but they remained mostly intact.
“Mollie stayed in the hotel with her sister, Willow, and Julian while we returned here,” Mike finished.
