There were still two liters of water left on the raft, which would be enough to get us through a day or even two easily if we were careful.
We were on land, and our chances of survival were now exponentially higher than they were an hour ago.
There were trees, which meant shelter and hopefully a source of water as well.
The sun was setting, and our immediate need for shelter would be delayed until the sun rose again.
There were probably edible plants in the area, and fishing would be easy with the reef on the other side of the beach.
There was a cliff, which also meant a high probability of a water source, as well as a place for a signal fire.
We were going to make it. I could make this place work. I could save her.
I vaguely registered my body hitting the sand before I passed out.
*
“Does it hurt? Huh? Huh? Does it?”
Maniacal laughter filled the room. Gunter held up a long serrated knife dripping with blood, and showed it to the last of them…the sixteenth one. The last one was older and nearly calm, or maybe his brain had just shut down at this point. Gunter’s previous victim was still twitching a little, but I didn’t think he was still alive. I hoped he wasn’t. Landon’s grip on my arm tightened.
“One last show, Gunter!” Franks laughed. “It’s almost time for the salad course. We don’t wish to be late for dinner.”
“Turn him around.”
I started to move forward, but an owl landed on my shoulder. When I looked at it, it wasn’t an owl any longer. It was Landon.
“Don’t move, Bastian, for fuck’s sake. You think he’d hesitate to kill you, too?”
Disorientation met me when I woke. The light was all wrong, and the familiar feeling of riding on waves was curiously absent. The texture of the surface where I lay was also wrong, though Raine's familiar and comforting weight was on my chest, and that was completely and totally right.
I had definitely been awakened by a nightmare, but I thankfully couldn’t remember many details. I thought it was about Theresa since I remembered something about an owl. I swallowed hard a couple of times, noting how dry my throat was. I opened my eyes and looked up at clear sky and bright stars. I was lying on the beach in uncomfortable, damp shorts.
Land.
Despite Raine's weight on my torso and the nightmare, I felt lighter. Here I could survive and keep her safe. We would be able to find everything we needed. I took a deep breath and raised my head to evaluate our surroundings. There were drag marks near my feet, and I surmised Raine had tried to pull me farther up the beach but hadn’t been very successful. I must have passed out hard. We were far enough up the beach to stay out of the rising tide's path anyway, and the raft, still secured to my right wrist, was not in danger of floating off. I loosened the rope from my wrist and felt the blood flow a little better before I lay my head back down against the damp sand, wrapped my arms around Raine, and slept.
I woke to Raine's fingers gently brushing sand from my stomach. There was light in the sky but not much. The cliff behind us would block the sunrise for another hour at least. I tightened my grip around her waist, holding her to me for a moment before relaxing again.
"We'll be okay now, won't we?" she said.
"Yeah," I replied. "We should be. I need to look around when it gets a little brighter.”
“Is this from the rope?” Raine asked, her fingers gliding an inch below my navel where an ugly red streak marred my skin. It looked a lot worse than it felt.
“Guess so,” I said.
“You scared me,” Raine said, tucking her forehead between my neck and shoulder. “When you passed out, I couldn’t wake you up. I didn’t know if the tide would come in or not, but I couldn’t move you.”
“Look down the beach,” I said. Raine’s eyes followed my outstretched arm. “See the line of debris? That’s the high tide line.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You just might learn a lot in the next day or two.” I smiled when she looked up at me. “We have a lot of work to do today.”
“We do?” Raine questioned, tilting her head to the side. “What, exactly?”
“First, we need to make a shelter,” I said. I pointed up to a group of palm trees and the coconuts at the very top. “Then we start collecting those.”
“Coconuts?”
“Yes,” I said. “Food and water all at once.”
“There are a bunch of them on the ground,” Raine noticed.
“Yeah, but they’re dry. We need the green ones for the water. There may be water up the cliff, but there’s definitely water in the coconuts. Go with the sure thing. We can make a solar still this morning and then look for a better source of water later.”
“A what?”
“I’ll show you.”
“You’re the boss,” Raine said with a shrug.
“Am I now?” I raised my eyebrows at her, rather liking the idea of being the boss when it came to her. I considered the long list of things I might ask her to do.
“Don’t get carried away!” Raine laughed.