“Dane—”
“It’s turning, Char. It’s turning toward us.”
I stop moving. My arms fall back to my sides, and something inside my chest turns unsteady—not just relief, not just excitement. Something sharper than that. Harder to hold onto.
“They see us.”
Dane’s hand settles against the middle of my back. “Yeah, they do.”
We stand there together watching the ship grow larger against the horizon. It takes longer than it should. The ocean distorts distance, keeping things suspended at the edge of certainty for too long. I know that, and it still feels unbearable waiting through it.
Little by little, the shape sharpens into something real.
A fishing boat.
I can make out movement on the deck now. People.
This should feel uncomplicated. Pure relief. Pure excitement.
It doesn’t.
It feels like something opening and ending at the same time.
This is what we’ve been waiting for all these years, whether either of us admitted it out loud or not. The possibility that one day something would finally pass close enough to see us.
And now it’s happening.
And all I can think is: this changes everything.
Everything we built here. The routines. The isolation. The strange complete little world that slowly narrowed until it was only the two of us inside it.
My entire life exists on this island, and whatever comes next is going to take it away.
Dane stays focused on the boat, tracking its movement toward shore, already thinking ahead to things I can’t even process yet. I watch him for a second instead, the full weight of everything we’ve built here settling heavily inside me all at once.
Then a smaller boat drops from the side of the vessel.
It hits the water hard and immediately starts toward us.
“What if—” I stop, trying to force the thought into words. “What if they’re like the ones from the yacht?”
He doesn’t look away from the approaching boat. “They might be.”
No hesitation. No false reassurance.
My chest tightens hard enough to hurt. “Then what do we do?”
“We find out.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
The boat’s close enough now that I can start making out details. The shapes of the people inside it. The way they move.
“They could hurt us.”
That makes him turn toward me. “I’ll kill them before I let them touch you.”
