CHAPTER 17

LARA

She was tired, and she wanted nothing more than to just lie down and close her eyes and go to sleep. But while Lara felt mentally fatigued, West actually looked the part. His face was black and bruised, his temple bearing the stitches from a couple of hours ago. His eyes were glassy, his nose partially broken, and he looked like a hospital patient who had stumbled out of bed after surgery.

“This is a death sentence,” West said as they approached the marina.

He sat up front facing them, with Lara in the back and Danny in the middle. His hands were zip tied in front of him, not that he looked like he was in any shape to fight at the moment.

“You know that, right?” West said.

She didn’t answer.

Danny steered them into the mouth of the inlet, then glided up toward the marina. It had been a while since she left the island, and just stepping into the boat felt terrifying, as if she would never be able to return.

She glanced over at the blackened property to their left. It looked miserably bleak, which, she guessed, was the point. It was the same with the marina. There used to be a garage near the water’s edge, but it, too, had been burned down. The marina itself was still in one piece, since it was a little difficult to burn down an asphalt parking lot. The area around it was nothing but towering fields of grass as far as the eye could see.

“Are you listening to me?” West said.

“I heard you,” she said. “It won’t change anything, so you can stop wasting your breath.”

“You’re a doctor, for God’s sake.”

Third-year medical student, actually.

“I gave you every chance in the world,” she said. “This is all your doing.”

“Keep telling yourself that, and maybe one day you’ll believe it.”

She should have let Maddie come instead. Or any of the others. But she hadn’t passed off the responsibility to them, because she needed to do this, because it was her responsibility.

I made the decision. Now I have to stare it in the face.

Danny eased up on the boat, then angled it toward one of the boat ramps. The front of the boat slid gently up the sloping concrete, until it came to a rough, grinding stop.

“This is where you get off, Kemosabe,” Danny said, pulling back on the throttle.

West stood up and sought out her eyes. She wanted desperately to look away, but Lara forced herself to stare right back at him.

“Look, I’m sorry about this afternoon,” West said. “About everything. But this isn’t right. You know this isn’t right. I’m going to die out here. I don’t stand a chance.”

“You’ll stand a chance if you’re smart,” she said.

“You know that’s not true. You know it.”

She ignored his plea and said, “Danny.”

Danny drew his cross-knife. “Hands.”

West held out his zip tied hands and Danny cut them free. West towered over Danny, but at the moment she had never seen such a tall man look so small. At first she thought it was an act, an attempt to garner sympathy.

But no. This was the real thing. West was terrified.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

That seemed to utterly deflate him, stripping him of whatever last vestige of hope he had been clinging to that she would change her mind.

“Turn around,” Danny said.

West obeyed. “Please…”

“And don’t forget the battery.”

West picked up a car battery at his feet, then clumsily climbed over the side of the boat. He stumbled most of the way, trying to fight the slight rocking of the boat while clinging to the heavy burden in his hands.

“Try not to get it wet,” Danny said.

West barely made it to the angled ramp, sacrificing his pant legs as they dipped into the cold water of Beaufont Lake. He scrambled, fighting against the sloping concrete, and finally pulled himself up onto the dry parking lot with a lot of effort. He dumped the battery on the ground and immediately—desperately—searched out her eyes again.

“Please, Lara. You can’t do this. You know this isn’t right. Whatever I did, I don’t deserve this. You know that. Please.”

She stared back at him.

This is where I change my mind. This is where I let the squishy woman in me take over and allow him back on the island. This is where I prove to him that I have no killer instinct.

This is where he’s wrong.

She picked up a gym bag and threw it onto the marina ten feet from where he stood. The bag was stuffed with his rifle and a shotgun, knives and ammo, canned goods and bottled water. All the supplies he would need to survive—for a while, anyway. It was everything she thought she owed him and nothing more.

“Don’t touch the bag until we’re out of sight,” Lara said. “Danny will shoot you if you do. Trust me, he’s a better shot than you are.”

“Catch,” Danny said, and tossed West a key. “The blue Tacoma. There should be some gas left. Not a lot, mind you, but we took it out a week ago, and there might be half a tank if you’re lucky. Swap in the battery and you’re good to go. Well, goodish, anyway.”

“Drive north as fast as you can,” Lara said. “You don’t have a lot of time.”

West blinked nervously up at the sun.

“Do yourself a favor,” Danny said. “Don’t be here when we come back. I see you, I’m shooting first, and it’s never mind the questions.”

Lara didn’t wait for West to respond. “Let’s go, Danny.”

Danny made a U-turn, and when he had the boat facing the lake again, he stepped aside for her to take over the steering wheel. Danny unslung his M4A1 and looked back at West in case he went for the bag.

“Do us both a favor,” Danny shouted. “Go for the bag. Pretty please?”

West didn’t go for the bag.

“You’re no fun,” Danny said.

She guided the boat out of the inlet and back onto the lake. It was like driving a car, only each slight jerk of the steering wheel was more dramatic. She could almost feel West’s eyes on her back, but she never turned around.

“You did the right thing,” Danny said behind her. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. If Will was here, West would never have survived the woods. The idiot doesn’t know it, but he’s lucky he got to deal with you instead.”

“Thanks, Danny,” she said quietly.

* * **

Once they were back on the island, she waited for Danny to return to the Tower to relieve Maddie before calling him on her radio. It was the longest, most excruciating ten minutes of her life.

“Anything from Will?”

“Nothing, sorry,” he said.

Dammit, Will, where are you?

“Get some sleep, Lara. I’ll send Carly to bang on your door when Willie boy calls. And he will. Have faith.”

Faith.

Yeah, I’m finding a shortage of that lately, Danny.

She ate dinner with everyone in the dining room, trying her best to engage in their conversation. Sarah was in the Infirmary with Blaine and had been since Lara left them a few hours ago. Sarah would probably be there all night, since Mae, Bonnie, and Gwen had taken over the kitchen. The food, a bit spicier than Sarah’s, was still delicious, though about halfway through Lara realized she was more tired than hungry.

After dinner, she took her half-empty dishes into the kitchen, where Bonnie was pouring Coke from a two-liter plastic bottle into a dozen tall glasses on a tray. Each glass was topped with ice, and by the time Bonnie finished pouring, there was more ice than Coke in each glass.

“Got enough ice there?” Lara smiled.

Bonnie laughed. “When you’ve been drinking warm soda for as long as we have, you can never get enough ice.”

Bonnie handed her one of the glasses and Lara took it gratefully. “Mae said you were a model before all of this.”

Bonnie looked embarrassed. “Talk about a useless career, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking about opening an island magazine, call it Island Breeze, or something like that.”

“Are you saying you’re looking for a model?”

“That depends. Are you expensive?”

“I had a pretty lucrative career. Did you used to read a lot of fashion magazines before all this?”

“Did the New England Journal of Medicine ever put out a fashion issue?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say no?”

“Figures. My roommate used to buy stacks of them, though.”

“Is she…?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what happened to her.”

Bonnie nodded. Lara didn’t have to say anything else. They all knew people who either didn’t make it or were unaccounted for.

“I guess I was lucky,” Bonnie said. “With Jo, I mean. So many people have lost so much, and somehow we still have each other. You were lucky, too.”

“I was?”

“You found Will. Treasure that, Lara. This kind of thing was a rarity back when the world made sense, but now, it’s a miracle.”

Lara nodded. “I guess you’re right. It’s good to be reminded of that every now and then. Thanks.”

“Glad to do it.”

“Anyway,” Lara said, brightening up. “How much would it cost to book you for a fashion shoot?”

Bonnie laughed. “Since I know you, I’ll cut you in for a discount. Give me your cell and I’ll get my people to call your people and we’ll work something out.”

They talked for a bit longer, before Bonnie finally had to take the drinks out before the ice melted.

Lara walked through Hallway A by herself. Her joints ached and she had difficultly trying to keep her mind focused on one thing. By the time she reached her room, her body was already half asleep.

Seconds after lying down on the bed and closing her eyes, she didn’t even remember if she had closed the door behind her. She realized she didn’t really care either, and went to sleep, her last jumbled thoughts of Will.