Another half hour and we’ve stripped out most of what might actually keep us alive.
Ryan steps out onto the deck, the machete hanging loose in his hand, and looks toward the jungle.
Tomorrow, we’ll be going in there.
He nods toward the trees like it’s already decided. “We’ll start inland in the morning. There’s got to be fresh water somewhere.”
Up close, the jungle looks different—darker and thicker—like it’s closing in on itself.
Ryan doesn’t hesitate. I nod like I don’t either. But the thought of walking into that tomorrow sits heavy in my gut.
I just don’t say it out loud.
Chapter 25
Charlotte Gallagher
The plane hums beneath us.Grandad and Christina sit across from us, quiet, waiting. Dane picks up where I left off, carrying the rest.
“Jameson didn’t last long. A few weeks,” he says.
Grandad’s voice is low, almost to himself. “God… what an awful way for a child to die.”
“He went to sleep and didn’t wake up. He didn’t seem to suffer.”
It doesn’t make it hurt less, but there’s comfort in that.
Grandad exhales, more breath than sound. “Jesus… poor kid.”
Christina’s eyes stay fixed on Dane, waiting for the answer she’s afraid to hear.
“What about Ryan?”
Dane is quiet for a second.
“He survived seven years after we were stranded.”
“How did it happen?”
“He cut his hand cleaning fish. It got infected and wouldn’t heal. Then he got sick.”
Dane leaves it there. It’s enough.
Ryan’s death wasn’t as gentle as Jameson’s. Some truths don’t need to be spoken aloud.
The infection set in fast—fever, swelling, the kind that spreads through your whole body before you can stop it. No need for his mum to hear that.
Christina doesn’t react right away. Then something in her shifts. “My poor boy.”
I turn toward the window. Watching a mother take in that kind of loss feels like stepping into something that isn’t mine.
“Ryan took care of us—especially in the beginning. He kept us alive when we didn’t know what we were doing,” Dane says. “You would’ve been proud of him.”
“That was my Ryan,” she says after a moment, pulling herself back together. “He was always like that. An old soul. You’d say something to him, and he’d answer as if he’d already lived twice as long. Of course he stepped up. That’s exactly who he was.”
She’ll never fully know who he became out there. The weight he carried. The way he kept everything from falling apart.
This is all she has. I can see it in the way she goes quiet again.
