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“I think so,” I yelled back, but it wasn’t true. I wasn’t okay at all. I had no choice though. I had to do this. There was no other option.
Together, we turned our faces to the shore and began to strike out for the beach.
It was about halfway when I knew I wouldn’t make it. I was just too tired, my limbs too bruised, my lungs too exhausted. I had fought for my life once already today, and I couldn’t do it again. I had to keep swimming. I had to keep swimming. But the prickles were back in my arms and legs, the creeping numbness I had felt when Conor had strangled me, and once again my vision was breaking up into shards of light and dark.
I thought about calling out, but Zana was far ahead of me now, forging through the water with a stroke that made this look almost easy. I didn’t blame her for going on ahead—with her fear of the sea, I knew how badly she must want to be out of the water, safely back on dry land. But I knew she was too far off now. She’d never hear me, not with the waves breaking on the shore, and my bruised, broken voice.
When the first wave closed over my head, I fought back. I struggled to the surface, gasping and choking. But when the second wave claimed me, I knew it was all over. I knew that this was how it ended. I knew I was going to die.
CHAPTER 33
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, I was on a beach. Our beach. The white sand was soft and warm under my head, and in the sky I could see the first pink rays of dawn beginning to break.
I rolled over and coughed up what felt like a gallon of seawater, but was probably no more than a teaspoon, mixed with phlegm. My lungs felt raw and scoured, my throat hurt every time I coughed from where Conor had strangled me. But I had never felt more alive.
“Lyla?” I heard, breathlessly, from behind me, and as I tried to turn my head, I saw Zana leaning over me, her face anxious. “Lyla, thank God. No, don’t try to sit up—”
But it was too late. I was pulling myself upright, my head thumping with every movement.
“Where’s Santana?” I managed. “Is she okay?”
“She’s alive. Angel’s with her up at the cabana—and she’s got her insulin. She’s pretty banged up, but she’s talking and lucid. I think she’s going to be okay. We were more worried about you, to be honest. You were out for a long time.”
“I’m okay,” I said, but my throat was so mangled the words came out almost comically hoarse and croaky, and Zana gave a little tremulous laugh. Then she began to cry, and I felt my own tears rise up in sympathy, in spite of the pain each sob was giving me. A few minutes later we were holding each other, my face in Zana’s hair.
“You were so brave,” I was saying. “Did you come back for me?”
“Of course,” she sobbed. “Of course I did. Fuck, you saved me, Lyla. If you hadn’t swum out when you did—”
She stopped, but I shook my head. I hadn’t saved her. She had saved herself. She had saved all of us.
“DO. NOT. MOVE.” It was Angel’s voice, peremptory as always, addressing Santana, who had made the mistake of reaching out for the water bottle. “I am telling you, your head is basically held together by that bandage at the moment.” She waved her hand at the strip of bloodied sarong tied around Santana’s head. “If you want something, you ask me and I get. Okay?”
“Okay,” Santana said meekly, and she subsided back onto her pillow as Angel carefully measured out a cup of water from the big bottle.
Somehow, I still had no idea how, Angel and Zana had managed to guide a dazed, bleeding Santana across from the water villa before I woke, and now all four of us were camped out up at the cabana, our mattresses under the shade of the palm umbrellas, trying to work out what to do.
Out of the four of us, Santana looked unquestionably the worst. My throat still felt like I was swallowing razor blades, and I could feel the bruises coming up under the skin, where Conor had tried to strangle me. But Santana looked like a survivor of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, blood streaking her matted red-blond hair, and a giant purple swelling on the side of her head where Conor had struck her.
But it was Zana who looked the most shell-shocked.
After the first burst of energy—getting me out of the water, rescuing Santana from the water villa, dragging us both up the beach to rest at the cabana—she had sunk into herself, and now she sat, hugging her knees to her chest and staring fixedly out to sea with eyes that were both watchful but strangely unseeing. I didn’t know what she was looking for—a boat, maybe? Or something else. Conor’s shape—cutting through the still choppy waves with his powerful crawl. And I didn’t know whether she was hoping, or fearing, for that outcome.
Angel, however, had woken up fully recharged and ready to fight someone, and she was fussing around us like a mother hen, as if somehow her innate bossiness could make everything okay for us all. It was strangely relaxing to have someone telling us what to do. Well, someone who wasn’t Conor. The memory of him shouting out orders gave me a cold feeling, and I shivered in spite of the heat of the sun.
Now, she topped up my water glass alongside Santana’s.
“Drink it!” she said, and I obeyed, thinking, not for the first time since we had made it back to the safety of dry land, that I would never take fresh water for granted ever again. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. Santana had her eyes closed as if she wanted to savor every ounce of sensation. Only Zana was sipping hers as if she really wasn’t thirsty, though I knew she must be. When the cup was empty, she set it down in the sand and then got up.
“I’m going to see if I can find any fruit,” she said. “We’re really low on food.”
“Shall I come and help you?” Angel asked, but Zana shook her head.
“No, I’m okay. I’d rather you stayed here with Lyla and Santa.”
The meaning was clear—to look after us, to make sure neither of us did anything stupid, though I didn’t really think we would. But I thought the truth behind Zana’s words was different. She wanted to be alone.
We waited until she was out of sight in the trees and then Angel let out a long sigh.
