Page 43 of Every Chance to Stay

It was that simple.

23

Lucky

Lucky was sitting in the campus library when Jack ambushed him with a panicked look. Black hair was a mess of frizz and his normally curated style looked haphazard as best, giving the impression Jack had come straight from home to crash into Lucky’s study time. He was holding his phone like it was going to bite.

“What’s going on?” Lucky asked, half standing. Concern sat heavy on his shoulders. He wasn’t sure he could handle another emergency this month, but whatever had Jack frazzled was enough to scare him.

His answer was the phone being shoved into his chest. On the screen was a video from some social media site. It spun across beautiful, familiar beaches and dove under the waves to show off Sirena Reef. He’d know that pristine rainbow coral anywhere. Lucky sucked in a breath, fingers tapping the screen to freeze it. In the blurry blue abyss on screen was the unmistakable shape of the Paradise Leatherback.

“They’ve never been that close to Tesoro, right?” Jack smiled wide.

“You didn’t come all this way to show me this…” Lucky tore his eyes away to look at Jack skeptically.

Jack looked tense even with the smile. The corners of his eyes were pinched in a way they only ever were when Jack was trying to hide something. “Keep watching.”

Dread filled him. There were a million things that could go wrong in videos like this. Someone touching wildlife they shouldn’t was common. But the video just moved to an even more familiar beach… with a decidedly unfamiliar pair of bulldozers parked along the dunes.

Bulldozers.

At Playa del Tesoro.

Ahead of a potential sale they claimed wasn’t set in stone.

Jack scrambled to catch the phone as it slipped from Lucky’s fingers. And then he had to try and catch Lucky when his knees went out from him. Right there on the library floor, with a smattering of students suddenly turning eyes to them, Lucky felt like a great white had just blindsided him.

“They’re clearing the land. For the sale. They…” His vision tunneled.

Warm hands settled on his cheeks. Jack pulled him close, drowning him in his familiar cinnamon scent like he could drive the horror from Lucky by sheer force of will.

It worked. It worked because with Jack’s comfort, Lucky pushed past the grief and sank swiftly into a snarling rage. “They are going to sell the land no matter what!” He glared at the library carpet.

“We can’t let this go through, Lucky.” Jack squeezed his arms.

“We won’t.” He agreed, sitting up to look at Jack properly, “You’ve got the turtle group chat still, right?”

“Of course?” It came out like a question, before his brother caught on. “I’ll get everyone to meet us in the quad.” Jack might have opted out of university, but he spent enough time with Lucky to know all the best meeting spots.

Lucky gathered his books and his laptop, haphazardly dumping them into his bag. His mind was racing. While waiting for the follow-up town hall, he hadn’t even considered they might forge ahead. This was right out of the Lyrica Beach playbook. Push, push, push. Until they couldn’t roll it back, until there was no way to stop it.

They were out of time.

He chewed the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Every second spent waiting for his friends to filter in was a second lost. But when they were all gathered, he found himself helpless. Words rose and died on his tongue.

“What’s on your mind, Lucky? Not a plan, just… what do you want to do?” It was Aurora, with her steady hands roughed from years working with machines and engine grease under her nails, that dragged him out of his head. “We’re here for you.”

Serena caught his other hand, squeezing until he thought his fingers would break. He held on just as tight with tears burning his eyes.

“They aren’t going to listen to words.” He started, “I don’t have proof of nesting turtles, I don’t have precedence for environmental protection of the beach. I think even if I did, they’d find some loopholes to still justify development of the surrounding area.” Noise would drive the turtles away; they would win either way… “We need to stop them.”

“How?” Jack asked, “I agree, but how? Because right now all I want to do is throw bricks through their windows.”

Lucky laughed wetly, “Not that far, no.”

“But close?” Serena raised a brow, concern twisting her painted pink lips.

“Close.” Lucky agreed, “A protest and…” He brought Serena and Aurora’s hands to his face, holding them to his cheeks, “How about a little civil disobedience?”