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Once inside, I made her sit in the shower stall—sit because I was worried about her slipping if the pain got too bad—and stick out her wounded leg. Then I stabbed the tip of the ball point pen into the bottom corner of the big water carrier, aimed the thin jet at the long wound running down Santana’s thigh, and squeezed as hard as I could.
It wasn’t perfect—a proper squeezy bottle would have been better, but at least this was sterile, and it came out with surprising force, blasting away the fragments of rust and dirt sticking to the wound. The jet was so strong in fact that for a moment I stopped squeezing, worried that I was going to disturb the clotted blood and set the wound gushing again, but when the water had drained away, it didn’t seem to be bleeding any more than it was before I started.
Santana spoke, her voice ragged.
“For Christ sake, keep going, I want to get this over with.”
I nodded and squeezed again, and this time she groaned as the jet hit her thigh, but she didn’t move, only bowed her head with her teeth gritted against the pain. I kept sluicing, watching as the pieces of metal and clots of blood disappeared down the drain, until the water ran clear with only a pinkish hint of blood. At last the pressure began to fail, and I stuck the bottle upside down in the sink to save the rest of the water, and helped Santana stand up.
The towels in the bathroom were still clean, and between us, Dan and I dabbed gently at the uncut part of Santana’s leg until her skin was as dry as we could make it. Then, I unwound the catering paper until we got to an untouched part of the roll, tore off a long strip, and wadded it into a makeshift dressing. Pressing the sides of the wound together, I laid the blue wad on top, protecting the broken section of skin, and then taped the whole thing up with duct tape, trying to keep the pressure up as I did, to give the wound the best chance of knitting.
When I was finished, I sat back and examined my handiwork. I had no idea if what I’d done was right, but it would at least stop dirt from getting in the cut, and it would probably do until help arrived. Santana was sweating worse than she had been when we started, but she looked less gray, and she gave me a watery smile.
“Thanks. You’re amazing, Doc.”
“For the last time, I’m not a fucking doctor,” I said, but I was grinning too—more out of relief that it was done, and I hadn’t nicked an artery or anything. “Look, will you be okay? I should go and check on the others—and then I have to get back to Joel.”
“Joel?” Santana was hobbling back to the bed, and now she sank into the pillows with a barely disguised sigh of relief. “What happened to him?”
“Not him.” I glanced at Dan, unsure how to say this. “Romi. She— I mean… she’s—”
“She’s dead, Santa,” Dan said. He said it, not casually, but without preamble, and I realized that it was the only way. There was no way to soften this news, no way to make it less than what it was—a horrific, inescapable truth.
Santana gave a gasp like she’d been punched.
“You’re kidding? How?”
“A massive tree came down over their villa,” I said. “She was crushed. I don’t think she would have known anything. And…” I swallowed, hesitating, but it was probably better to get this all over with at once. “And that’s not all. I found the body of one of the crew—one of the producers, I don’t know her name. She’s down by the staff quarters. She’s—” I stopped, there was no point in inflicting what I’d seen on the others. “Well, she’s dead. Very dead.”
“Oh God.” Santana shut her eyes. Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying, whether it was a prayer or just some kind of denial of the situation we were in. “Go,” she said aloud at last. “You should go, and Dan, go with her.”
“Santa—” he began, but she broke in.
“Go! I’m fine. There’s probably others who need you a lot more. I’ve got the rest of the cookies, and water.” She gestured at the quarter-full bottle upturned in the sink. “So go. Do what you need to do.”
I nodded.
“Okay. We’ll be back soon. I promise.”
It was what I had said to Joel. I just hoped we weren’t going to find anything worse.
Today is Thursday, 15 February, and I have decided to write a diary—my head is so full of everything that’s happened since the storm last night, and I needed some way to make sense of it all.
We are all reeling—from the storm, which seems to have blown our boat off course, but also from the terrible shock of poor Romi’s death—she was killed when a palm tree came down on her villa, crushing it to bits.
It’s hit all of us, but Joel the worst. He’s destroyed. He found her early this morning, and I will never forget his cries. Conor was trying to persuade him to come away so he and Bayer could pull the debris off Romi’s body. I remember him cradling Joel and saying over and over, “I’ve got you, brother. I’ve got you.”
The only comfort is that Lyla says she didn’t suffer, that it must have been instant. And there is a kind of comfort in that, although I don’t think poor Joel is ready to see it yet.
Romi wasn’t the only casualty from the storm. One of the producers was killed—we don’t even know her name. Santana was hit by some flying metal and got a horrible gash in her leg.
And Bayer’s shoulder was dislocated—but Conor managed to pull it back into place. I keep replaying the sound it made inside my head, that sickening crack. I thought I might throw up. Bayer went green with pain, but he looked better afterwards. He’ll have to keep it strapped up, but thank God Conor knew what to do. I have no idea how he knew all of that.
Eight of us. Just eight. And two injured. It feels more vital than ever that we take care of each other until the boat gets back for us. How long will it take to get here? Two days? Not more, surely.
We can do this. I know we can. We just have to stay strong.
CHAPTER 13
