Chapter 17

C HAPTER 17

Naomi pulls me to my feet while the others argue and Brooke slips Winston the last of the airplane booze.

"Where are you going?" Reggie demands, looking up from the campfire.

"Be back soon!" Naomi calls over her shoulder. She leads me down the coast in the opposite direction Theo and I came from. We're both barefoot, stumbling wearily across the mossy rocks in the dying light, with Comet hot on our heels. "The royals are intense. Do you think Theo really hid the alcohol?"

"I—"

"Henry was being a total jerk. I don't blame him for being upset, obviously, but he shouldn't have yelled at Theo like that. Major ick."

"Actually—"

"We're all hungry, tired, and scared, but that's no reason to be rude." Naomi stops to peer over the edge of the cliff. "This is the spot! We're climbing down."

"Nay." I clutch her forearm. "I need a minute." My hand is shaking.

She wraps her arms around me in a tight hug and lets me sob on her shoulder until we're both covered in salt water and snot. "I'm so scared," I say when I can finally choke the words out.

"Don't tell anyone else, but me too." She laughs at herself as she wipes tears off her cheeks. "I'm trying to stay optimistic, but… you know."

"I know," I say. I reach down to stroke Comet's head. He immediately twists himself between my legs and nudges me with the stick he must have stolen from the firewood pile. I cock my arm back and give it a ride. He tears off in a frenzy.

Naomi and I both turn our eyes to the water. The cloud cover has finally broken and the sun sits on the edge of the horizon; the ocean is stained a vibrant orange that ripples gently in the breeze. It looks like a scene from a movie, a romantic one, where there's not a plane crash and no one needs emergency medical attention. Once upon a time, I would have wanted to take a picture of Naomi with the wind in her hair. Now, I wish I could close my eyes and forget this ever happened.

"I made the call to Henry's ex-girlfriend," I confess as Comet drops his stick at my feet and waits for praise. I scratch him behind the ear and throw it again. "It wasn't Theo. It was me, and if anyone dies before rescue arrives, it's my fault." I picture Winston gritting his teeth against the pain of his broken leg and Victoria's pale face as she insists she's fine. I'll never forgive myself if anything happens to either of them.

"A plane will see our fire tonight. I think we're going to be rescued," Naomi says, and I'm grateful for the lie. She takes a deep breath. "This was my plan. Cliff jumping in the sunset." She gestures (with jazz hands!) to a slope of climbable rocks leading to a large flat one that juts out over the water's edge. "Also, I have to pee."

We quickly shed our pants and Naomi helps me undo the buttons on my ripped blouse because my arm is too sore to do it myself. She clasps my hand and then my best friend and I scream "Cannonball!" on three and jump into the salt water under a twilight sky. Comet leaps down the rocky path to the shore, splashing in behind us. Naomi and I are both shaking and shivering and laughing when we come up for air, and I feel alive again. I'd almost forgotten what that was like.

I float on my back while Comet paddles circles around me and we wait for Naomi to do her business. Soon my teeth are chattering, and Comet has pulled himself out of the water. It's fully dark now and the breeze has picked up. "Hurry up!"

"I'm coming back."

I climb onto the flat rock in my bra and underwear, and I'm reaching my hand out to help her up when she screams.

My heart spasms. "What's wrong?"

"Something stung me!" she gasps.

I grasp her with my right hand and haul her onto the rocks. Blue tentacles are wrapped around her foot, and she's writhing in pain. Without thinking, I reach out to pull the creature off her, but she grabs my hand to stop me.

"Don't! It will sting you too!"

I pick up a rock. Naomi and I both scream as I try to nudge the squishy creature off her leg.

"Why are you screaming?" she yells.

"Because it's gross!" My body shudders involuntarily.

She presses her forehead into the rock. "Get it off me!"

I use the rock to scrape it off her. We both scurry away as it lands with a squelch.

Theo crashes quickly over the edge of the cliff, nearly colliding into me. "What's happening? I heard screams."

"Careful!" I grab his biceps and pull him out of the way before he steps on the blob. "That thing stung her."

"Is it a jellyfish?" she gasps, eyes screwed tightly shut against the pain.

Theo bends to inspect the creature in the dark and swears loudly. "It's a man o' war. The ‘floating terror.'"

"Is it deadly?" Naomi cries.

"No," I insist, before throwing a questioning look at Theo.

He shakes his head. "Rarely."

My stomach drops. Rarely isn't never. I needed the answer to be never.

He continues. "The stings are excruciatingly painful, though. One of my mates at school said it was the worst pain he'd ever experienced."

"I could've told you that," Naomi says through clenched teeth.

"How do we help her?"

"I don't know."

"Someone just pee on me already!" Naomi shouts.

Theo and I stare at each other in horror, and that's the moment I register that I'm soaking wet and barely dressed. His eyes fall to my breasts before he immediately catches himself, wrenching his gaze all the way up to the sky.

"Not it," he says quickly.

"Baruch HaShem," Naomi says. "No offense, Your Majesty, I'm a big fan of yours, I don't think I've told you that yet. I defended you when Wren called you spoiled and outdated and—"

"Keep it moving, Nay," I tell her.

"Right. Anyway, you seem great, but I'll never live it down if you, you know—"

Theo looks at me with wide, panicked eyes. "I'll get help." He climbs back up the rocks and out of sight. I send Comet with him.

"I don't know if the pee thing is true," I say to Naomi.

She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. "I'm willing to risk it."

"But—"

"If you're my best friend, you will pull down your silk princess underwear and pee on my damn foot!"

"Fine! But we're never talking about this again, understand?"

Brooke's head appears over the cliffside. "Keep your princess underwear on, Wren. Don't pee on her."

"Why not?" Naomi demands.

"It's a myth and it won't help. Bring her up here. Winston says we need hot water and we're heating some over the fire now. C'mon, give me your hand, Naomi."

We quickly get dressed, and then I walk behind Naomi as she crawls up the rocks. At the top, Brooke and I each take one of her arms and sling it over our shoulders so we can support her weight between us. Henry meets us on our way back to camp and takes over, giving my throbbing arm some relief.

The group moves to make room for Naomi as he sets her next to the glowing fire. Theo looks stressed. "I could have done that."

"Well, you didn't," Henry barks in response.

Naomi presses her face to my shoulder with a whimper. Winston twists his torso to inspect the sole of Naomi's foot. "Nasty one, innit?"

"It feels like…" She pauses to pant for breath. "Like bolts of electricity… are shooting into my body. It won't stop."

"Is she going to be okay?" I ask.

"Why were you in the ocean after dark?" Reggie demands. The veins in his neck are bulging.

"Where's the hot water?" Winston asks.

Theo uses a stick to knock the bottle away from the fire and rolls it to Winston, who covers his hand with a spare piece of clothing before twisting the bottle open. "Don't want it to burn ya, but it should be as hot as you can handle, understand?"

"Will she be okay?" I ask again, Theo's rarely still echoing in my brain.

Winston tests the temperature of the water on the inside of his wrist before gently pouring it over the long, stringy red welts on Naomi's skin.

Naomi sucks in a breath through her teeth. "It still hurts… but it's helping."

"I need something hard and flat, like a credit card, to scrape the nematocysts out of her skin," Winston continues.

"On it," Theo says. He runs off before Henry can offer to do it.

"The nema— What?" Naomi's voice is frenzied. She quickly pushes herself up and tries to look at her foot.

"The stingers. Those little buggers hurt like a bitch. We need to remove them."

Theo returns, handing a rock to Winston. "Try this."

"Brilliant. A rock," Henry deadpans.

"It's flat and sharp. It'll work," Theo snaps.

"I need a distraction," Naomi hisses as Winston gently scrapes the rock across her skin.

"If you weren't out there in the dark, this wouldn't have happened," Reggie says. Between this and the "don't prioritize the dog" comment, I'm starting to hate him.

Brooke kneels next to Naomi. "During my freshman year at Northwestern, I was in this biology class—"

"What? No! Biology is boring. Next?" Naomi waves Brooke away with her free hand before draping it over her eyes. The pain must be bad bad if not even school is enough to distract her.

I rack my brain to think of something that will. "The weather—"

"No! Next?"

"Oh! Henry, come here!" I say, avoiding eye contact with Theo. I know he's still annoyed with his brother, but Theo won't give Naomi the royal tea she needs to take her mind off the pain. "Tell her about the book you were reading on the plane."

" Sceptre, Throne, and Crown ?"

"Yes!" Naomi cries. "Tell me every sordid historical detail. Don't leave out a single illegitimate baby."

Henry jerks his head back and I can't help but laugh. For all of Naomi's practicality, she's always had stars in her eyes where the royals are concerned.

"Stingers are out," Winston announces. "Next up, antibiotic ointment, I'll wrap your foot in a bandage, and Bob's your uncle!"

Once the guard finishes wrapping Naomi's foot, she pushes herself into a sitting position and moves closer to the fire.

I sit next to her. "How are you feeling?"

"Relieved that you didn't pee on me, and jealous that I've never had a scepter."

I exhale in relief. "So, you're okay?"

"I think so." She nods. "It still hurts, but my brain doesn't feel like it's being shoved in an outlet."

"We'll take another look at it in the morning," Winston says. "You might have some welts that will make it difficult to walk."

"I'll fill the water bottles. The rest of you stay here. I'm responsible for you, and from now on, you don't move without my permission," Reggie says. He looks each of us in the eye before stalking toward the dark tree line.

"Calm down, my guy," Victoria mutters under her breath, without much bite. It's the first thing she's said in ages, and even though she doesn't want me to, I can't help but worry about her.

Henry arches his brows at Theo. "You shouldn't let him speak to you like that."

I scoff. "You're one to talk."

Theo's lips twitch as his eyes sweep over my face. Firelight throws shadows across his bare chest and stormy eyes, but then he blinks, and his expression is so carefully blank that I can't read anything in it.

Tension grows and stretches between the two brothers, and quiet settles over the group until the only sounds are the pounding surf and the popping of damp sticks in the fire.

The adrenaline that has been driving me drains away, leaving only a smoldering ember in my gut. I feel restless and antsy, so I tell the others that I'll help Reggie get water and jog toward him. Theo catches up to my side in seconds.

Reggie looks over his shoulder with a scowl. "I told you not to move. That was a close call with your friend back there."

"How many more close calls can we survive?"

"There won't be another one if you kids would just stay put until we're rescued," Reggie says.

"For how long?" Theo asks.

"Until. We're. Rescued." Reggie enunciates each word insultingly slowly.

"And what if that doesn't happen tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day? We can't just sit and wait," Theo argues.

Reggie shakes his head. "That's exactly what we'll do. We're safest right here."

Theo's jaw tics, and I can feel the frustration radiating off him. Despite his earlier protests to the contrary, he wants to be making the decisions right now. I don't blame him, even if the prospect sounds ridiculously, exhaustingly overwhelming. (Even worse than choosing a major and a future and a whole life path, which is saying something.)

"Do you have any idea where we are?" I ask Reggie.

"We're on an island off the coast of Portugal."

"Which one?" Theo asks. "Madeira? S?o Miguel? Flores?"

"Yes," Reggie says tightly.

"That's not an answer," I point out.

"Flores."

Theo blinks in surprise. "People live on Flores."

"There's a settlement on the east side." Reggie drops this bomb like it's nothing, and I can't help but wonder why we're not doing anything more to find help. Not that I want to be in charge again, because I don't. But still, it wouldn't hurt to do something to give fate a nudge in the right direction.

Theo squints into the dark, appraising the mountain at the center of the island. "How long would it take us to get there?"

"We're not leaving the west side," Reggie snaps.

Theo draws himself to his full height. "Why not?"

"Because this is where the plane went down, and staying out of the trees gives us our best shot at being spotted from the air."

"But that could take days," I say, although I'm starting to worry it'll take even longer than that.

"Victoria doesn't have that kind of time. She needs food and insulin immediately." Theo sounds more stressed than ever.

Reggie doesn't flinch. "We have no supplies. We have no food. It is not wise to use our energy stores traipsing all over this bloody island where anything could happen to you."

Theo grabs the pilot's shoulder and stops him in his tracks. "I don't care about me. Victoria needs our help."

Reggie ducks his head. "I am in service to the Crown. Keeping you safe is my number one priority."

Theo blinks at Reggie in shock. "Don't you care that she could die?"

"I do. But respectfully, sir, you are the monarch. Your life is worth more than hers."

My hands fly to my mouth. I've never heard anything so callous.

Theo stares the pilot down, silent fury radiating off him in waves. "Respectfully, Reggie, you can fuck off." He stalks into the trees.

I snatch the water bottles out of Reggie's hands. "Don't come after us," I warn, before following Theo into the dark.