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A week. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that amount of time now. I was the type of person who always had a long-term plan, a backup plan, and a fantasy just-in-case-I-find-a-portal-to-the-otherworld plan, but now, all I had was the present moment.
And a mute, murderous roommate who hadn’t looked at me all day.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye while I cooked the shellfish over the open flame—inhaling enough plastic fumes to shave years off whatever life I had left. When I’d woken up that morning, I’d found him sitting over by the tunnel, slumped against the wall and staring out at the sea. I was happy to see him upright and moving around a bit, but he’d had his back to me all day, and I hated how much that bothered me.
I’d managed to follow my rule about not looking him in the eye for four days now, and it had definitely helped me feel less crazy. Only allowing myself to look at his legs, his wounds, his bare and bloodstained torso … his abs. God. I knew fellas in the military were fit, but he looked like he’d been chiseled straight from the cave wall. It shouldn’t have affected me as much as it did, but with his shirt off, it was easier to forget who I was talking to. Who I was touching. Who was drawing portraits of me in his own blood to comfort me. With no gray eyes to remind me of my insanity and no Russian patches to remind me of his reality, we were just two lonely, broken people in a desperate situation, and honestly, that was the most dangerous illusion of all.
An illusion that was getting harder and harder to recognize with him staring out at the island like that. How many hours had I spent doing the exact same thing after Ma died? It had been thirteen years, and I still found myself searching the sea for something I’d never get back.
We aren’t that different, my mind whispered.
He was hurting too. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe …
I tore my eyes away and stared down at the stiff woolen jacket I was using to hold the piping hot lobster tails. I was hoping a patch might be visible, maybe a medal—some Russian insignia that would snap me out of my commiseration. But all I found was a bullet hole.
Which had quite the opposite effect.
Carrying our lunch over to the tunnel, I walked past the collection of water bottles and bars I’d brought him over the past few days. All sat untouched, where I’d left them.
That wasn’t good.
My hands were full of shellfish, so I bent over and picked up a water bottle with my forearms along the way.
“Hey,” I said, squatting down next to him.
I didn’t want to sit because sitting felt like we were having lunch together, and that was something friends did, not mortal enemies. I faced the water, like him, and from there, I could see that he was really staring at the ship—or what was left of it.
I hadn’t even thought about all the people he must have lost on that boat. I’d lost three people I cared about the night of the attack—he might have lost hundreds.
I held one of the lobsters out to him while keeping my gaze safely on the horizon. I expected it to vanish from my hand, but instead, I found my arm being gently pushed back toward my body.
Glancing down at the bloodstained fingers wrapped around my forearm, I felt my cheeks flush. I wasn’t sure if it was in response to his touch or in anger over him rejecting my offer. Maybe both.
“Eat,” I snapped, extending the lobster toward him again. “Ya haven’t had a bite of food since ya got here, and the only water you’ve had is what I poured down your throat.”
His breathing became heavier. Then, he swallowed audibly and cleared his throat. He was trying to speak again and still struggling. I immediately regretted my tone.
With a frustrated sigh, he pushed my arm away from him again, this time guiding my hand up until the lobster grazed my parted lips.
“Ya want me to eat it?”
He released my arm with a single nod before leaning his head against the cave wall again.
For a moment, I assumed he must be too proud to take charity or too hateful to accept help from the Irish, but that couldn’t be it. The man had given me the shirt and jacket off his back. And he’d let me bandage him. He’d accepted my help in other ways. This was specifically about the food and water.
Then, it occurred to me.
“You don’t think I have enough.”
He shook his head, and I sat down immediately, practically collapsing under the weight of what he’d just communicated.
He was choosing not to eat or drink, willfully risking his own life, so that I would have more.
“There’s plenty,” I assured him, my voice rough with emotion. “See those ropes lyin’ on the cave floor? Each one is attached to a lobster trap. This inlet’s full of ’em, so we’re not gonna starve. And I’ve been collecting rainwater outside, so there’s plenty to drink.”
Cracking one of the butterflied lobster tails open even wider, I pulled out a tender piece of meat and quickly glanced at the side of his face. His eyes were closed, so I relaxed and held the morsel up to his dry, parted lips.
“Eat,” I whispered. “Please. If ya don’t, you’re gonna die, and then I’ll be stuck in here with your smelly corpse because you’re too heavy for me to push into the inlet. I already tried.”
