Page 67 of Dance Practice, Marooned: Part 2

Adrian nods and keeps going. “Can anyone hear me? Please. Can anyone hear me?”

Over and over he repeats it, twisting the dials a quarter turn at a time, jiggling the connection where the foil is wedged in, then starting over.

“Can anyone hear—”

The static breaks. A voice comes back, louder now, still warped by bursts of noise. “I can hear you.”

“Oh my god,” Aggie screams, so loudly we all flinch. “Oh my god.”

Adrian stays calm, but I can see his hands shaking as he leans into the mouthpiece. “We are stranded with an injured person on board. We need help.”

“Say again your vessel name.”

“I don’t know. We have been stranded on an island and have been picked up by this ship.”

Static. Then, “Copy. How many souls on board?”

“Nine,” Adrian says. “Nine of us.”

“Who is injured, and how?”

“A young woman, impaled by wood. We are doing everything we can, we need medical help, urgently.”

Silence.

Strong, broken silence.

The crackle thins out to nothing—just a flat hiss, like the radio has gone dead.

“Are they gone?” Kaylee gasps. “Did we lose them?”

Adrian slaps the side of the unit. Twists the dial back and forth through the same range he just worked for ten minutes.

“Come on,” Zeke says under his breath. “Come on, come on.”

Nothing.

“They’re gone,” Kaylee says again, softer this time.

Ace reaches past Adrian and raps his knuckles against the panel, once, hard.

The static surges back—loud, wrong—and then clears like someone wiped a window.

“What is your location?” The voice is back.

Definitely male.

“We don’t know,” Adrian goes on. “We have no idea where we are. We were stranded for a while.”

“How long is a long while?”

Adrian looks around at us. Nobody answers him.

“Months, maybe. We lost count.”

A long moment passes.

I forget how to breathe.