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The pain subsided as I closed my eyes and tried to process what she was saying.
Her fingertips caressed my jaw, turning my head to the side with the lightest of touches. “You could use a few stitches—can’t help ya there—but once the swellin’ goes down, ya might be okay.”
A head injury. Memory loss. Was I alive then? Was this place real? Was she?
“Do ya know how ya got here?” Her voice turned icy as she pulled away from me. Sitting back on her heels, she picked at the label of the whiskey bottle in her hands, avoiding my stare.
Dread seeped into my veins as I shook my head slowly.
“You’re in the Russian Navy,” she replied, her voice hard and accusing. “Ya showed up here in a warship disguised as a cruise ship. Then, ya bombed my entire town, my house, my …” Her voice trailed off as she swiped a tear away from her scowling face. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like you care. I just need ya to hurry up and get better so you can get the hell out of my cave.”
Fuck.
The Navy.
The ship.
The shelling.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Images from that night assaulted me rapid-fire, but the only thing I could focus on was a pink welt on the girl’s cheekbone. It was just like the one I’d seen in my dream. Someone had hurt her. Someone was going to die.
Or maybe they already had.
Fuck!
As she turned away and walked back to her side, I wanted to tell her she was wrong. That I did care. That I’d tried to stop it. That I was sorry. That I’d do anything to go back and make it right. But all that came out were grunts and coughs and the word fuck, clear as a bell, just like she’d said it would be.
If she was an imposter created by the Devil to torture me, it was fucking working. I was losing her again, and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t want to drag myself back over there when she’d just finished patching me up from my last dumb attempt to move. I couldn’t speak to her. Could I write?
I looked around and found a full bottle of water and a granola bar that she must have brought over when she’d come to dress my wounds. The sound of quiet crying pierced my soul as I tore the label off the bottle and stared at the blank underside, waiting for letters and words to form in my mind.
“Fuck,” I muttered again, picturing her face buried in her hands on the other side of that boulder while I sat there and did nothing.
Her face. That was it. I could see it in my mind like a photograph. Every line, every freckle. I just needed …
Looking around, I noticed a smear of blood on the shirt she had tied around my waist. Gritting my teeth, I dipped my finger beneath the bandage and exhaled in relief when it came out red.
I didn’t have to speak. I didn’t have to spell. All I had to do was close my eyes, and there she was. My finger swooped across the label with no conscious thought from me. Two closed eyes, brow furrowed in pain. Two full lips, turned down at the corners. Two freckled cheeks—one tearstained and one bruised. A heart-shaped face. A wavy mane of hair, bronze instead of copper.
Wrapping the portrait around a small rock, I said a silent prayer and tossed it across the inlet and into the cluster of boulders she was hiding behind. My injuries screamed in protest over that single motion. When I saw that my gift had landed where I wanted, I dropped my head back against the wall and waited.
I heard the sounds of pebbles rustling, a plastic label being unwrapped, and then nothing.
The girl stopped crying.
And I was back in the silence. Again.
CHAPTER 13
CLOVER
Inever thought the chemical stench of burning plastic would make me so happy.
I’d pulled two lobsters out of the inlet that morning as well as a floating piece of metal sharp enough to butterfly them, but with everything outside being soaked from the rain, I had to find something inside the cave to burn. Which was a problem because the only dry, flammable things in the cave were my books and my clothes, and I was going to have to be a lot closer to death before I lit either of those on fire.
Luckily, a plastic ammunition box had floated in during the night. It took four matches before it finally lit, which was concerning because I’d only had ten to start with, but once it caught, I knew it would burn for hours. Maybe even days. I’d once read an article about a plastic factory that caught fire and burned for almost a week.
