her you want her, not just for now, but for all of time after this.
I swallow the words down before I have a chance to say them.
Not yet.
A drop of water splashes on Daisy’s forehead.
“Please tell me that wasn’t bird poop.” She winces. “I’ve had enough bad luck lately.”
“It was water. And bird poop is good luck.”
“For who, the bird?”
A drop now falls on my head.
I look up.
It’s spitting with rain.
“I think the storm is here,” I tell her.
“Already?”
As if on cue, the sky darkens, opens up, and dumps a deluge of rain on us.
“Ahhhh!” Daisy cries out.
We are soaked to the bone in seconds flat. The noise of the rain is deafening, every drop ricocheting off the leaves.
I grab her hand. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”
But she seems rooted in place. Not moving.
I give her a quizzical look.
“How are we going to get through this?” she asks, her voice quiet against the roar of the downpour, the rain running into her eyes, her mouth. “Not just this storm, but all the days ahead of us?”
“One sunrise at a time,” I tell her. “One sunrise at a time, and with me by your side. Okay?”
I squeeze her hand.
She squeezes mine back.
“Okay.”
The storm is a fucking monster, maybe even worse than the one that wrecked us.
It comes down on the Plumeria Atoll like it’s out for revenge.
Perhaps it is.
Maybe it didn’t like how lucky we got last time.
But it won’t get us this time either.
When Daisy and I got back from the jungle, the storm was already blowing something fierce. The conditions on the island changed in a second, from hot and sunny, to windy and wet, the pressure in the air heavy, alive, and crackling.
Fred was already halfway across the lagoon with Lacey and Richard, though I knew they’d come back for us. So Daisy and I went around collecting what we could for the journey over. The storm would probably last a day, two at the most, depending on how big it is.
We worked quickly, silently. Daisy was no longer panicking, she was handling things really well, considering.
Then Fred came back. By then the lagoon’s waves were whipped up and I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride. It didn’t help when some of the water started splashing up into the boat, and then Fred mentioned the sharks.
Oh, you could see the sharks alright, dark shapes right beneath the surface, in a frenzy because of the currents and the weather.
I thought Daisy was going to freak out, but to my surprise, she was calm. She looked more curious about the sharks than anything. Perhaps she’d be a great marine biologist after all.
Finally, we made it to Fred’s camp, and quickly got ourselves inside, where we are right now, in the mess hall.
Or at least, that’s what Fred calls it.
It’s really just a concrete building with a small, basic kitchen in the corner and a long metal table in the middle. For whatever reason there’s a faded poster of The Avengers on one wall. All of us are sitting around the table in folding chairs, sipping coffee. Our wet clothes are piled in the corner to be dealt with later, and we’re all in dry clothing, which is a small comfort, but still a comfort.
Outside, the rain and wind whistles and shakes, the concrete giving us extra protection from the elements. I only had a brief look at the camp before we hustled in here, but it seemed pretty standard with a small block for showers and toilets, five tiny freshly-painted raised bungalows, plus a research office. There’s a small dock where the dinghy is tied up, and the view faces the outer reef, plus the calmer expanse of the east lagoon.
No one is talking.
Lacey is sitting there with her arms crossed in a huff, Richard has his glasses off and is rubbing the bridge of his nose, Daisy is taking dainty sips of her coffee and staring at everyone, and Fred looks especially forlorn.
“Should we start with the airing of grievances?” I ask.
Everyone turns to look at me, confused.
Well, Daisy smiles. She gets it.
“The airing of…grievances?” Richard asks, slipping his glasses back on. That poor fucker, he’s been dealing with having half vision for the last week, plus his missing tooth. He probably needs a hug, a hug that Lacey ain’t giving.
“It’s from Seinfeld,” I tell him. “During Festivus. Never mind. The point of it is, I think we have a lot of things we need