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“Probably a good idea. One hand on the balustrade, one hand for each other. Okay?”
“Okay,” Joel said. He pushed at his glasses again and held out his hand. When I took it, his hand was bony and surprisingly strong, his grip hard. It felt comfortingly secure. “Shall I go first?”
I shrugged. I didn’t think it would make much difference.
“Okay, but let’s be as quick as we can.”
Joel nodded, took a deep breath as he waited for the trough of a wave, and then as the sea pulled out, revealing the wooden planks, he set foot on the gangway.
He had only taken a couple of steps when the wave came back and hit him. It flung him against the rope balustrade with a force that cracked one of the wooden supports, and in an instant, faster than I can possibly describe, he was being pulled out to sea, hanging on for dear life to the balustrade rope with one hand, and my wrist with the other.
I think I screamed. I know I grabbed hold of one of the veranda posts with my free hand. The pull of the wave, trying to tear Joel away from me and suck him into the sea, was impossibly strong. I could hear Joel yelling over the roar of the wind, feel his fingers desperately digging into my wrist, and I could see the far end of the balustrade rope trailing out to sea, totally untethered. There was nothing holding Joel, apart from the end of the rope fastened to the villa, and my grip.
“Hang on!” I yelled. I got one arm wound around the veranda post and shut my eyes with the effort of holding Joel’s weight.
Above the noise of the wind and waves, I could hear Joel screaming something. He was half submerged, choking on seawater. And then the force of the waves changed direction, tossing him back towards shore, and I pulled with all my might, yanking him towards me. This was our only chance. I couldn’t hold on against another buffet like that.
“Now, Joel!” I shouted, and in a desperate, scrambling rush, he let go of the rope, just as the sea twisted it from the last remaining balustrade post, and I grabbed hold of him and pulled him back up onto the veranda.
He was shaking and soaked from head to foot. Miraculously his glasses were still on, though I doubted he could see much. My arm felt like it had been twisted almost from its socket, and I was fairly sure I’d pulled something in my back—but that was the least of my worries at the moment. As we stood, gasping and holding on to the veranda posts, the wave sucked back out, and we saw that half of the walkway had gone, the planks ripped from their posts. We were stranded.
“Oh my God,” Joel said at last. He was still panting and shaking with cold. He pushed his wet fringe back from his face, his teeth chattering. “You s-saved my life.”
“Maybe.” I was still staring at the place where they gangway had been. “But I don’t know how much good that’s going to do either of us. We’re stuck.”
Joel turned, and we both looked at the long, wild stretch of water between us and the rest of the island, now completely uninterrupted by any signs of the walkway except when the waves pulled out to their farthest extent, and the bare struts were faintly visible, sticking out of the sand.
We were still standing there, gazing at the island, only a few dozen yards away, though it might as well have been a mile of shark-infested water, when there was a far-off sound, like a crash of thunder, and then another.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Thunder?”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head doubtfully. “I didn’t see any lightning.”
“Must have been a palm tree blowing down,” Joel said. He had wiped his glasses and was now staring into the darkness, trying to make out the shape of the island through the rain. “Fuck, I hope Romi’s okay. Our villa was right in among the trees.”
“That’s maybe safer?” I said doubtfully. “I mean, I guess the trees will protect each other to an extent? I’d imagine it’s the outlying palms that are the most vulnerable.”
“I hope you’re right.” We were both still standing there, staring into the rain-drenched night, when another enormous wave broke over the side of the veranda and crashed into us, sending me staggering backwards, and bringing me to a fresh realization of our position.
“Look,” I said, making up my mind, “we need to get inside. There’s no way we can get to the island now, we’ll just have to hope we can ride out the storm.”
Joel nodded, and together we went back inside the villa, bolted the French doors, and did our best to push the heavy bed up against them to reinforce them. Then we turned to look at each other—dripping and shivering with cold. All our bags were back on the mainland, and the clothes we’d worn the night before were damp with spray, but they were better than our soaked robes. We changed hastily, teeth chattering, and climbed into the still-damp bed to wait out what promised to be one of the worst nights of my life. How long the storm would last, I had no idea—nor did I know whether the villa could take the increasing violence of the waves.
I only knew that we had no choice but to sit it out, wait, and hope.
It was as I wrapped the damp sheet around myself, as some scant protection from the cold, that it occurred to me to wonder how Nico was faring. Was he lying belowdecks, green with sea sickness, the big yacht scudding before the wind? Or had they made it to the rendezvous before the storm broke, and he was sitting it out in some concrete airstrip, waiting for the wind to die down so his helicopter ride would come and collect him? I didn’t know. I could only pray that he was safe—and that we both made it to morning.
CHAPTER 12
I DON’T KNOW when I fell asleep, but it must have been some time shortly before dawn, because I opened bleary eyes to find pink rays of sunshine illuminating the ceiling, and Joel leaning over me, gently shaking my shoulder.
“Lyla?” he was whispering. “Lyla, are you awake?”
“I am now,” I said a little grumpily. I had no idea how many hours sleep I’d managed, but it couldn’t have been more than two or three. As I struggled upright, raking the hair out of my eyes, I saw that the wind had dropped, the clouds had broken, and apart from the fact that there was seawater all over the floor and the patio furniture had all been swept away, the Ever After Villa was miraculously unharmed. We’d made it.
“I’m sorry,” Joel said penitently, “I didn’t want to wake you, but I didn’t want to just disappear without telling you.”
