“The bodies, all right?” Breathing hard, I hissed, “The non-survivors. Unless you’ve forgotten, seven of us landed here and only four of us live on this beach.”
Pippa pulled her legs up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. She didn’t speak but awful comprehension filled her face. I wished she were slightly younger so she didn’t have a clue what I spoke about.
Estelle stiffened.
She had forgotten.
I lowered my voice. “It’s best to deal with them now...” Before they start decomposing.
Her eyes flittered to Pippa, tears welling.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I hopped over to her. My lips grazed her ear. “If we’re here for much longer, the kids will stumble onto their parents eventually. Do you want them to find them like that? Decomposing? Rotting in the—”
She jerked away. “I get it. Okay? I don’t need to hear any more.”
“No, you don’t. You also don’t need to go in there on your own. Someone needs to deal with it, and it isn’t you or Conner.”
She stared at the ground, her face turning slightly green. “You can’t do it on your own. I’ll help you.”
I grabbed her elbow. “Listen to me and listen good. There is no way you want to deal with a bloated body.”
She tried to shake me off, but I didn’t let her go.
My voice turned to a growl. “You’re not helping me. Got it? You’ve helped enough.”
She sucked in a breath.
I had no right to be angry with her, but I didn’t want her scarred for life. Once you’d dealt with something like that, you couldn’t delete it. I’d seen my mother. I’d seen another corpse after. And both times, the remains hadn’t been exposed to high humidity or sunshine. It hadn’t stopped the white-blue skin and dead eyes from haunting my dreams, though.
I sighed heavily. “Promise me, you’ll obey.”
“Obey you?” Her face pinched with rebellion.
“Yes. Promise me.”
“We need those pieces of fuselage.”
My teeth ground together. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“They’re already dead. We’re not. If returning to the helicopter ensures we stay that way, then I’ll do whatever needs to be done—decomposing corpses or not.” For her brave talk, her body trembled with horror.
Once again, we were in a stalemate.
I let her go. “Fine. I won’t stop you from going to the chopper. Get what you can and come back. Immediately.”
She sniffed. “In return for what?”
“You don’t take another one of my tasks away from me. That’s my job and mine alone.”
Her shoulders tensed, but finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
Conner appeared in the treeline, frowning at the way we stood huddled together.
Estelle exhaled as tears faded from her eyes. “I agree. As much as I want to keep you resting, I don’t have the strength to deal with a burial.” Her gaze softened. “Thank you for wanting to protect me. I hate the thought of you doing it alone—I don’t even know how you’ll manage—but I promise I won’t try to do it myself.”
A certain kind of relief filled my chest. “Thank you.”
We shared a smile.
My heart coughed.
I wished we’d had a different topic to discuss.
I wished I didn’t have a date tonight with a fuselage-spade and three graves.
I stepped back. “If you’re not back in an hour, I’m coming after you. Broken limb or not.”
Chapter Twenty-One
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E S T E L L E
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I’m loneliness personified. I’m without a map or directions.
I want to wallow.
I don’t want to wallow.
I’m breathing exemplified. I’m a girl who’s finally found her path.
Taken from the notepad of E.E.
...
“THIS IS TAKING forever.”
“Quit your moaning.” I stuck my tongue out at Conner, even though it took every last reserve I had to joke. The past few hours had really hit me. The constant hunger switched my common sense to scattered thoughts, strength to weak muscles, and the unbearable desire for food to madness.
I’d never been so hungry.
Never been so eager to eat.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
It’s death.
I’d kept my oath to Galloway and ensured Conner obeyed, too.
We didn’t go around the front of the helicopter where Akin’s corpse lay.
However...just because we couldn’t see him didn’t mean we didn’t know he was there.
Only a few feet away.
There.
Dead.
It didn’t stop the smell.
The gut-wrenching, nose-melting, soul-destroying smell.
We’d retched a few times as the island breeze wafted a particularly strong odour in our direction.
Galloway was right. The bodies needed dealing with.
But for now, we worked in stench and did our best not to focus on the cause.