Chapter 14

C HAPTER 14

Naomi and Brooke return from the forest, and in the commotion of them seeing my stitches for the first time, Winston wakes up. Henry helps the guard move farther inland.

Brooke shudders. "I had no idea your cut was that bad."

Naomi puts on a bright smile. "It actually looks better than I expected!"

"Don't lie. I know it's awful," I say with a glance at my puckered skin. I'm so emotionally numb that I can't muster a single feeling about it.

"They'll fix the stitches when we're rescued," Naomi insists. "You won't even be able to tell it happened."

"Speaking of rescue…" I let my unspoken question hang in the air.

"I'm not worried yet," Naomi says.

Brooke's pensive gaze tracks from the gray sky to the empty horizon, where the last pieces of plane wreckage have disappeared in the distance. "They won't ever find us if Reggie doesn't get a signal fire started. I'll bring him the kindling and show him how to do it. At this rate, he's going to run out of lighter fluid before doing anything useful." She walks away, cradling an armful of sticks, and part of me stings with jealousy that she has something to do.

My gut screams at me to Do something! Fix this, find a way out, make a plan. But for the first time in my life, I'm utterly paralyzed. There's nothing to be done but sit and wait to be rescued.

"Am I in a nightmare?" I ask. The pain feels real, but it's the only thing that does.

"Not unless I dreamed it too," Naomi says.

"Our plane fell out of the sky, and we hit the water." Nope. Saying it out loud doesn't sound any more believable.

"Our private plane filled with royals."

"Maybe we're dead."

She groans. "Before I got to go to college? The ultimate tragedy. Can you imagine?"

I don't want to, but now that she's sent my mind down this path, I can't help it. "What if no one finds us?"

She sighs heavily. "Do you want a real answer, or do you want me to make you laugh?" Her eyes light up hopefully, and it's obvious she'd rather not talk about the worst-case scenario.

" Please make me laugh," I beg.

She immediately brightens. "If we don't get rescued, then you'll have plenty of time to get in good with Victoria."

"Why would I care about that?"

"Because if she likes you, and Theo likes you, maybe the Firm won't give you such a hard time when we get to London."

"Victoria does not like me."

"Not yet. "

"If we don't get rescued, my relationship with Theo is a nonissue."

She raises her eyebrows. "If we don't get rescued, we'll need to start a new civilization, and your relationship with Theo will be one of the only things that matters." She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. "Almost everyone else here is related; repopulation will be your responsibility."

Pain shoots through every muscle in my body as I laugh.

"Imagine if they rescue us in ten years after you've made a bunch of royal babies who all call you ‘Mum.' The Firm would have to accept you after that."

I laugh harder, too deliriously tired for this conversation. "I am not going to baby-trap the king of England!"

"Say that again when we've been here for a year without condoms or birth control," she says before devolving into a fit of giggles.

"Stop! Laughing hurts too much!" I gasp. "It doesn't matter whether Victoria likes me, because nothing is ever going to happen between Theo and me."

"He married you, Wren, and then he strong-armed the Firm into bringing you to London. He obviously plans to Stockholm-syndrome you into being his queen."

"He really doesn't." There's a difference between being in love with me (present tense) and not wanting me to drown. Maybe he did love me (past tense), but in the light of day, when the world isn't falling apart around him, I'm barely a blip on his royal radar. His intentions were made crystal clear in the hotel hallway last night. In his mind, I am just a girl, and after this small detour in my life is over, I will be going back to Chicago.

"Speak of the devil," Naomi says as Theo approaches us. His lips are blue and he's shaking violently, but he's never looked happier.

I scramble to my feet in anticipation of good news. "What'd you find?"

He grins slowly, and I swear he's drawing out the moment just to torture me.

"Tell me."

"Or what?"

"I'll push you off the cliff, Your Highness."

He has the audacity to laugh. "I found a phone."

My jaw falls open. "With service?"

"One bar."

"What are we waiting for?"

"The battery is low. We might only get one chance at this. Do you want to be there when we try?"

Naomi shrieks and throws her arms around Theo before running toward the group. Theo sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks on his feet. "You ready to be rescued, Wheeler?"

I'm overwhelmed with a rush of hope. It's euphoric. My body hums with a surge of adrenaline, and unlike Naomi, I have no way to channel it. I can't casually hug him like she did. Nothing between us has ever been casual—not since the very first day.

I fall into stride next to him. "You're lucky I'm too excited to give you an ego check." I nudge him with my uninjured shoulder.

He nudges me back, and for a second, it feels just like three months ago, before the weight of the future smothered whatever we had. Back then our circumstances were even more impossible, but at least we both wanted to try. Now, I force myself to remember what I overheard in the hotel, and step away from Theo, allowing the distance between us to grow.

The phone rests flat in Victoria's palm; all six of us gather around her and stare at it like it's the Holy Grail. Naomi's nails dig into my skin as she squeezes my hand in excitement.

"That's mine." Henry pretends to shrug modestly. "You may direct your thanks toward me. I'm accepting cash, compliments, phone numbers…"

Theo's expression turns stormy. "It might be your phone, but I found it," he grumbles. "It was on the rocks underneath the luggage. If you weren't such a wanker, you'd have remembered to check your trouser pockets before climbing the cliff."

"How much battery is left?" Winston asks from his spot on the ground. We were all relieved to see him aware and talking after his short nap.

"Twelve percent," Victoria says.

"Is it in airplane mode?" Brooke asks.

"Was it supposed to be?" Henry asks sheepishly.

Naomi's eyes widen. "Phones can interfere with airplane signals!"

All eyes snap to Henry. He shakes his curls out of his eyes like a guilty puppy.

"Bloody hell." Theo lifts his gaze to the sky.

Reggie frowns. "It wasn't the phone, it was the storm."

"Whatever it was, we should conserve the battery while we decide who to ring," Theo says.

I grimace. "I hate to be the one to point this out, but now there's no service."

Reggie grabs the phone and starts pushing buttons. He holds the phone up to his ear, shaking his head when the call doesn't go through.

"Don't drain the battery!" Theo reaches for the phone.

Reggie jerks away from him and pushes a few more buttons before dropping the phone back into Victoria's outstretched hand. "Now it's on airplane mode," the pilot says.

"And ten percent battery. Well done." Victoria takes the words right out of my mouth.

"Why would you try to make a call with no service?" I ask, and I'm not even being sarcastic. Genuinely, why would he do that?

"To prove that this is a waste of time," Reggie says defensively. "We're better off working on a fire so the planes know exactly where to find us."

"We're better off not wasting our battery on calls that won't go through," I mutter under my breath.

"We'd have a fire by now if you'd listened to me," Brooke tells Reggie, and suddenly everyone is arguing, and the phone is being yanked from hand to hand.

"You're not going to find a signal—"

"We wouldn't be here if—"

"Stop yelling—"

"Help is coming—"

"What if it doesn't—"

"Stop!" I scream. Shockingly, the group falls silent. My need to do something is stronger than ever. "We need to find a signal." I pluck the phone out of Theo's grasp. The sudden motion of skin tugging against stitches hurts like hell. I breathe slowly through my nose. "Where were you when the phone had service?"

Theo points to the coastline. "I'll go with you," he says in a rush.

My eyes fly to his and quickly away. It's probably best for me if I'm not alone with him right now. "Anyone else want to come?"

"Theo and I can go alone," Victoria says, then freezes. Her eyes dart back and forth, a confused expression crossing her brow. "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Henry asks.

She shakes her head. "Never mind."

Theo and Henry exchange concerned glances. "You need to stay here and rest," Theo says. "Wren and I will look for the signal on our own. When we find one, we'll make the call."

"Everyone else should be looking for firewood and a freshwater source. Don't go far and be back here before sundown," Reggie says.

"Are we going to have to sleep here?" Naomi asks. Tension is heavy in the air as we glance uneasily at each other.

"Let's hope not," Reggie says.

I miss his confidence from earlier.

"Shall we?" Theo asks me. My stomach flips with foreboding.

I quickly survey the group. On the ground, Winston's face is screwed up in pain. Naomi is putting on a brave face, but I know she's terrified. And every ten seconds, Theo glances at Victoria as if she's made of glass. I don't know how long we've been here, but the "what if" voice in my head is growing louder as the pain in my arm grows worse.

My heart kicks into high gear as I tightly grip our dying lifeline. If we can't find a phone signal, I don't want to think about how much trouble we'll be in.

"Lead the way," I tell Theo.