“I’ll stay beside both of you,” Jack assured her.
“So will I,” Mike said.
“Thank you,” Charlie murmured.
Jack cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back to David, “We’ll swim!”
“I’m going to see if I can get a little closer!” David yelled back. He lifted the boat radio and spoke into it before replacing it and steering the boat toward shore.
“Make sure you stay by Jack and Mike,” she said to Dylan.
“I’m a good swimmer,” he said.
“I know, but I need to know you’ll be safe.”
He slid his hand into hers and squeezed it. “I will. You stay safe too.”
She hated that he worried about her so much. Even before they came to the island, the idea of something happening to her terrified him. When he was five, he went through a stage where he would climb out of bed and sneak into her room. She would sometimes wake to find his tiny hands running over her face while he reassured himself she was alive.
Trying not to cry, she would drag him into bed to sleep with her and reassure him that he wouldn’t lose her. Eventually, he outgrew his need to make sure she was alive, but he never completely rid himself of the fear she would die; her becoming an immortal hadn’t changed that for him.
“I’ll stay safe,” she promised him.
Charlie glanced nervously around the beach as David crept closer to the shore. If any surviving Savages were nearby, the hum of the motor would draw their attention. Goose bumps broke out on her skin, and she rubbed her arms to ease the chill building in her bones.
“I don’t like this,” she murmured.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.
“If there are any Savages nearby, they’ll hear the boat.”
“We can’t do anything about that.”
She knew he was right, but she couldn’t ease the knot of anxiety growing in her belly as her instincts screamed at her something terrible was coming. In the distance another speed boat came into view; it skimmed the water as it raced toward David. Behind it, a larger, slower moving vessel appeared.
“Liam and Ethan are piloting the other boats,” Mike said. “Liam’s on the speed boat, and Ethan has the cabin cruiser.”
Liam pulled his boat to a stop thirty feet behind David’s while the cabin cruiser steadily closed the distance.
“This is as close as I can get!” David called as he stopped the boat thirty feet away from shore.
“It’s time to go,” Jack said and squeezed her shoulder.“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”he whispered into her mind.
Now that the pathway between their minds had opened once, she found it much easier to navigate.“Yes.”Though she couldn’t stop glaring at the ocean like it was her nemesis.
Jack felt Charlie’s apprehension through their bond, but she kept her shoulders back and her chin thrust forward.“It will be okay,”he assured her.
“I know.”
Charlie took a deep breath and plastered a big smile on her face for Dylan. “Are you ready?” she asked him and then realized that smiling at him like a clown on crack was probably not the most reassuring thing to do.
“Yes. Are you?” he asked.
She tried to make herself stop smiling, but her cheeks remained in the awkward position. “Absolutely.”
She felt like a woman on her way to the electric chair, but she couldn’t stop grinning. If she could help it, she would never go swimming again after this.
She was almost to the water when something splashed into the sea. She wanted to believe it was a dolphin or a shark, but she knew the truth. The boats had drawn the surviving Savages, and those Savages were desperate to escape the island.
