Page 340 of Eight of Swords, Part One

The body of the man… oh, God.

The bottom half is bobbing like a cork.

The top half is gone.

Lachlan swims, fast and nimble.

He’s never felt so afraid in his entire life.

It’s barely ten yards until his feet are on sand, and he drags himself out of the water, almost irrationally terrified to look back, but he must, he must.

When he looks at the water, the other half is gone too.

The waves wash in and out, faintly pink, or maybe that’s the sunrise bloodily birthing a new day above.

The urge to vomit comes and goes. The opportunity he’s been desperate for has presented itself in the final moments, at the worst possible time.

He’s kitten-weak, disoriented, dehydrated.

‘Just stay awake,’ he tells himself, voice kind, if shaky. ‘Stay awake.’

Lachlan is twenty-six years old.

He doesn’t feel it.

For once, he feels young.

Childlike.

Stripped.

He lets himself feel it, lets it all in.

The desperate, childish wanting for Danya, for Blaire, for anyone who might take care of him for just a minute. He wraps his arms around himself, pretending it’s someone else.

Tears cut tracks of warmth through the salty cold.

His insides contort to grieve. Trauma is a bruise, a break.

The horror rises up.

Lachlan claps a hand over his mouth and screams as loud as he can.

His own ears ring with it.

Then he unwraps, loosens to take a slow, deep breath and focuses on the only things that matter.

✴

Lachlan surveys the place from the vantage points of the surrounding foliage which provides a full and unimpeded view. If he had a weapon, he could take out many from here, endless sightlines providing opportunity, but both guns were lost to the sea.

The sunlight overhead casts glare.

The trees are slanted to his advantage.

Everything that worried him before is now on his side.

He pulls back and silently raids the outer staff lodgings from behind. The commandos have been sleeping here. Quiet like a snake, Lachlan sticks to the edges but there’s no one inside.