He backhanded me.
I fell.
He dragged me across the sand, toward the rocks…
Toward the chains.
I started to fight. To kick and yell.
“Keep fighting, honey,” he drawled. “Those assholes love a challenge.”
I went limp. Revulsion rippled through me.
He slammed me up against the rocks and proceeded to clamp one of the chain cuffs around my wrist.
I struggled and kicked, swinging my free fist around and connecting with his cheek.
He stopped and looked at me. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Why are you doing this, Duke? I liked you.”
Regret shined in his eyes. Some of the determined craziness seeped away. He pushed his hands through his tangled hair, tucking it behind his ears.
“Do you know what it’s like?” he murmured. “To be trapped here, day after day, week after week. Alone. Knowing that no one will come for you?”
“I think I might have an idea.”
“You have no idea,” he growled.
“Then tell me,” I implored, tucking my free hand behind my back between the rock and me. I prayed he would forget one arm was still loose.
“They attacked my boat. They came out of nowhere, speeding right up alongside me. At first I thought they were just sailors passing through. It became apparent they weren’t the closer they drew. My little boat was no match for their bigger engine,” he said, lost in memory, his eyes looking far away. “I don’t know why they would waste their time on such a small boat. Why they would bother with a guy like me. I barely had any money. I didn’t want any trouble. I gave them everything and told them I would jump overboard. That I would likely drown on the way home. I wish I had drowned.”
“What happened to you, Duke?” I whispered, gazing at the scar in his eyebrow, remembering the scar I saw on his back.
“They kidnapped me. They forced me here to this island. I became their whipping boy. Their servant, their pet.”
He yanked off his shirt and threw it into the sand.
He turned, showing me the many crisscrossing scars that covered his back. Some were newer than others; some were raised and puckered.
Emotion clogged my throat. I knew then that these chains, the bloodstains on this rock, were likely his. I suddenly felt terribly sorry for him. “Oh, Duke.”
“They forced me to rob boats for them.” He continued, still showing me his back. I wanted to shut my eyes to the horrible sight, but I didn’t. “I don’t look like a criminal. I don’t look like a dirty pirate. They would use me to get close to boaters. I would pretend to need help and the owners would invite me onto their ship. And the pirates would converge. They would take over the boat. They would kill men and rape women.”
“All for money.” I choked.
“And then they would beat me. They would taunt me and say I would never go home.”
“But why would you do this to me? You know Nash and I… we wanted to help you. We meant it when we said we would take you home.”
He laughed. A hollow sound. “You’re not getting off this island. There is no getting away.”
“We will.” I insisted.
“They knew you were here the minute that plane crashed,” he went on. “They came to investigate immediately. Nothing happens on this island that they don’t know about. At first they thought you were dead. They saw your bodies and figured you hadn’t survived. It was only later when I saw you that I knew you’d survived.”
“You were nice to us. You showed us food.”
“You catch more bees with honey.”
“You pretended to like me…” I trailed away, my head spinning, trying to make sense of what he was saying. I felt stupid. Utterly idiotic for falling for his longing looks, his smiles, his teasing. He was trying to tempt me away from Nash this entire time.
Only I would never be tempted away from someone like him.
“I realized fast that wasn’t going to work. He was getting in the way.”
“Did you set that trap?” I glanced back at the forest. Things were too quiet.
“I had to get him out of the way. They only want you. They don’t want him.”
My anxiety spiked and I tried to get away. I strained against the chain that held me. I had to get to Nash. I couldn’t let him die. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore so long as he was safe.
The distant sound of a plane shocked me back from panic. “Help!” I screamed. “Help us!”
I knew they couldn’t hear me. I knew they couldn’t see me. But I couldn’t stop screaming. I screamed and screamed.
Duke just stared at me like I was stupid for trying.
“Do you hear that?” I said. “It’s a plane. They saw the flare. We can escape. You can come with us.”
I could see his mind churning. “You would let me come?”
“Yes!” I lied. “This is our chance to be free! Please, unchain me!”
He pulled the key from his pocket and pondered it in his palm.
A gunshot cut through the wind and the dwindling rain.
I started to sob. I yelled Nash’s name over and over until my voice was hoarse. Oh my God, if he was dead I might as well die too.
And then a plane flew overhead.
I started jumping, waving my arm, screaming anew. “Help us! Get their attention!” I cried at Duke. “Please!”
He shot into action, running below the plane and waving his arms, jumping up and down. It drew closer and I realized it wasn’t a plane, but a helicopter. It was red.
The Coast Guard.
Dear God, the Coast Guard had found us.
Movement at the edge of the sand drew my attention. Nash burst forward, running like the wind. His chest was splattered with red and I screamed his name.
His head snapped to me and he changed course, rushing toward the rocks as several scurvy pirates followed.
“Help!” I screamed again into the sky.
The helicopter was lowering, the wind battering the little aircraft, and yet it still came closer. “Please don’t leave,” I pleaded.
Duke ran back over, making a beeline for me. But Nash intercepted him, tackling him to the ground and hitting him in the head with the butt of the gun. He sprawled out beneath him and Nash pushed up, rushing over to me.
“He has the key!” I cried, pointing at Duke.
Nash cursed and rushed away. Pirates were closing in as Nash dug through Duke’s pocket and came up with the single key.
Just before he reached me, the pirates caught up to him. He threw the key at me. It landed in the sand at my feet. My hands were shaking so badly that I had a hard time getting the key in the tiny hole.
I gave a frustrated cry and the key slid in.
The gun went off again.
I fell forward when the chain released me. I scrambled up and ran toward Nash, who was wielding the gun as a bleeding pirate lay at his feet. The others were circling him warily as I rushed to his side.
He put his arm around me, draping me in security, as the helicopter hovered above.
“We cannot land,” echoed a loud voice from overhead. “Put down your weapons.”
Surely they could see that people were trying to kill us! “Help!” I screamed.
A very long, very unsteady ladder fell from the helicopter and landed in the sand. “Drop your weapons,” they instructed again.
Nash looked between the gun and the pirates. Between us and the rope ladder offering us safety.
“Get ready to run,” he said to me.
I nodded.
He dropped the gun.
We took off.
Nash took my hand and dragged me behind him, my feet barely touching the sand. Just when the ladder was within reach, a hand closed around my ankle.
I shrieked and fell, rolling over and looking behind me.
One of the dirty pirates had launched at me, managing to take me down. I kicked at him with my free leg. That only seemed to m
ake him try harder.
Nash grabbed me beneath the armpits and pulled, trying to get me away. A strange game of tug-of-war ensued… I was the rope. I was the prize.
Safety or death? Live or Die?
I glanced at Nash. “Just let me go. Save yourself.”
He yelled a cuss word. A very bad one.
And then a gunshot cut through the commotion. The man tugging my leg fell into the sand as a pool of red spread out beneath him. Nash pulled me away, lifting me up and carrying me the rest of the way to the ladder. He stepped on and wrapped it around us.
“Don’t let go of me,” he said.
I looked back. Duke was standing there, blood dripping down the side of his face, wielding a gun.
He helped me.
He helped us.
“Duke!” I screamed. “Hurry!”
He stepped forward, toward us. Pirates clustered around him. He went down. I saw the struggle of the men, a rumble of bodies all moving frantically in the sand. I couldn’t see Duke. I didn’t know what was happening.
Then I saw the suitcase sitting a few feet away, near the table where they played poker. I ripped myself free and ignored Nash’s outraged cry. I grabbed up the suitcase and sprinted back to the ladder where Nash told me I was stupid and then held me tight.
The helicopter began to move. It began to lift us up away from the ground, into the sky.
“Duke!” I screamed one last time.
A final gunshot rang out.
Nash and I stared down as the tangle of pirates separated, leaving a lone body in the sand.
It was Duke.
His chest was saturated in red. He was unmoving.
He was dead.
I turned my face into Nash’s chest. His arm tightened around me as the helicopter swung up into the sky and we dangled between safety and the ocean.
The ladder began to tow upward, and long minutes later, we were both sprawled across the floor of the helicopter.
“Are you Ava and Nash?” one of the rescuers asked.
“Yes!” Nash yelled over the engine. “Our plane crashed on the island.”
“We saw your smoke flare,” the man yelled, passing us thick, heavy blankets. “We had to turn back because of the storm last night.”
I wrapped the blanket around me with trembling fingers. I couldn’t get the image of Duke out of my head. He hadn’t deserved that.
“We flew out this morning before it started to rain again. We were about to head back when we saw the second flare.”
“Thank God you came,” Nash said. I heard him tell the guy about the pirates. I heard the pilot radio to someone that we were found and that assistance was needed on the unnamed island. He gave coordinates that I didn’t understand.
Nash came close, wrapping his blanket around me and then tucking me against his chest. He propped us both up against the wall of the helicopter as we flew away to a nearby island, to a hospital where they apparently were waiting for us.
I tipped my head back, angling it against his chest and looking up at his face.
He kissed me, right on the lips, in front of everyone. “We made it,” he whispered, his lips brushing mine.
“I was so afraid you died.”
“I wasn’t about to die. I have too much to live for.”
I rode the rest of the way wrapped in his arms. The relief I felt was insurmountable.
Finally. We were safe.
THE HOSPITAL…
23
Being back among civilization was startling.
Overwhelming.
Loud.
Sounds pinged around inside my brain and pressed in on me, making me want to slap my hands over my ears and yell. I was used to the soft sound of crashing beach waves, the singing cadence of cicadas, and the rush of a falling waterfall.
But sitting in a hospital, none of those sounds could be heard. Instead, I was thrust into a spinning world of beeping, laughter, and coughing. The strong smell of antiseptic and bleach burned my nose and the air-conditioner made my fingers stiff with cold.
The bright lights overhead seemed more intrusive than the sun, and I wished for a pair of sunglasses to shield my eyes.
But I had nothing here with me. Except for the suitcase containing Kiki. Everything that survived the crash was left behind on that island.
I wondered what would become of those pirates. The authorities were called. The Coast Guard was notified. There might not be much law out at sea, but I knew those men would pay for their crimes. Maybe not all of them, but at least for what they did to Duke.
Duke.
He pretended to be our friend. He got close to me with the intention of trading me in for his own safety—his own life. It was so dishonorable that it made me sick.
Yet, I couldn’t hate him for it.
He was tortured, abused, robbed of every comfort he’d ever known at the hands of those pirates. He was a victim too. He was only doing what he’d been brainwashed to do, what he thought would get him freedom.
I hoped in death he found the freedom he desperately wanted.
Yes, he was robbed of life, but perhaps being at peace would help make up for that.
It started as a way to survive… but then I realized I couldn’t live with myself if you died.
It was his way of apologizing or telling me he knew what he did was wrong. Perhaps in his effort to tempt me away from Nash, he found himself being the one who was tempted. Maybe we reminded him of the life he used to have. Maybe all the talk of us getting home together gave him a spark of hope he thought he lost.
I would never know for sure.
A doctor in a pair of green scrubs and a stethoscope around his neck entered my little room. He gave me a smile and I did my best to return it. “I hear you’ve had quite an adventure,” he said.
“Is Nash okay?” I asked, not wanting to even act like what we experienced was something out of a movie. It wasn’t.
“The man who was brought in with you?”
I nodded.
“He’s fine. He’s being looked at by another doctor as we speak.”
A little bit of the stiffness in my body lessened. I could handle this place if I knew he was okay.
“I’m just going to take a look at those stitches,” the doctor said, snapping on a pair of white gloves.
His fingers probed through my hair and I gritted my teeth. His touch wasn’t the touch I was used to. It wasn’t familiar; it didn’t feel good. I didn’t really want a stranger to touch me, but I tilted my head down and let the doctor do what he needed to do.
“That’s a nasty gash,” he said. “You’re lucky you’re friend was able to close it up. He even saved your hair.”
I glanced up. “My hair?”
The doctor pulled his hands away and reached for a tray filled with instruments (instruments = torture). “Yes, if you would have come here with that head wound, we would have shaved the hair around it before we stitched it.”
My eyes widened. “Are you going to do that now?”
He laughed. “No need. It’s already healed. I am going to take the stitches out and make sure there are no signs of infection.”
When I didn’t say anything, he picked up a pair of scissors. “You might feel a slight tugging sensation.”
He removed my stitches and then examined the wound. Then he assessed the rest of me, asking me a hundred questions. By the time he was done, I was annoyed and exhausted.
The doctor promised to get my discharge papers and then left the room. I was only too happy to see him go.
Before the door swung closed, Nash slipped inside.
“How’s the head?” he asked, coming up to the table I was sitting on.
“Good as new,” I replied. Suddenly, the noise and the chaos of the hospital didn’t seem so bad.
Gently, he turned my head so he could see the area he stitched. These were the hands I was used too. When he was done looking, he dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “Looks good.”
&nb
sp; “Did they say you could go too?”
He nodded.
“Thank goodness. This place is loud.”
He chuckled. “It’s going to get louder,” he warned.
“What do you mean?”
The door opened and my mother and father burst into the room. “Ava! Oh my God, we thought you were dead,” my mother cried.
I sat there in shock. They’d flown all the way from Miami to this hospital in Bermuda?
Nash stepped out of the way just in time to avoid her arms as she crushed me in a bear hug. “Hi, Mom,” I squeaked, returning her hug while struggling to breathe.
“We were so worried for you! What you must have gone through! All alone on that island.”
“I wasn’t completely alone,” I said, pulling away and glancing at Nash.
That earned him a crushing hug. “Oh, are you the one who saved my Ava?”
Dad gave me an apologetic look and then offered me a hug of his own. “Glad to have you back, pumpkin,” he whispered in my ear.
Tears pricked my eyes. “Glad to be back.” I breathed in the familiar scent of him.
“Young man,” my father said to Nash, holding out his hand. Nash took it and they shook.
“Dad, this is Nash. Nash, this is my dad.”
“You the pilot?” my dad asked, eyeing him.
“Yes, sir.”
He made a harrumphing sound and I rolled my eyes. “Dad, Nash kept me alive. He stitched up my head,” I explained, poking at the scar I now sported.
“Stitches!” my mother wailed.
She was dramatic.
She should be on soap operas.
“Yes, Mom. But the doctor says I’m fine.” I gave Nash a look, trying to tell him that I wasn’t about to tell them what else happened on that island.
My mother could do a one-woman show with all that drama.
He seemed to understand and nodded perceptively.
“How did you know we were here?” I asked my father.
“We’ve been in contact with the search and rescue and the Coast Guard from the beginning. When they first saw the smoke flare, they contacted us and we flew out immediately.”
“How did you know it was us?”
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