Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Someone could build here and make it livable, but it feels like a waste.
How do you destroy something so beautiful?
For some unknown reason, Alaric’s blue eyes come to mind. The way he laughs, but his gaze always seems so far away.
Beautiful, but broken.
There’s more to the story there with him.
I can tell, and although I shouldn’t want to hear it, I’m desperate to understand him.
From a distance, a noise startles me. My eyes scan the beach in front of me until I catch Alaric running toward the ocean. His arms are waving in the air, and he’s shouting, but I can’t make out what he’s trying to say.
He looks frantic.
Instantly, I’m on edge and looking around me to what has him scared.
Then I see it. In the distance, a fin. A dark-gray fin peeks ominously out from the choppy waters.
I can’t breathe. It feels like hands are wrapped around my neck, and someone is choking me.
Adrenaline flows through my veins, making my heart ping pong around in my chest.
The horror of the situation has me paralyzed as my limbs fail to get the memo that I need to swim.
“Get out of the water,” I hear him shout, but still, I can’t.
It’s getting closer, and I can’t move.
The sound of Alaric’s screams gets closer and closer, and the next thing I know, his arms wrap around me and are pulling me toward the beach.
We flop onto the sand, our chests both heaving as I glance back to where I was previously swimming.
The fin is there now, circling, but then it pops out more, and a giggle escapes my chest.
“That’s not a shark.” I laugh with the nervous energy that’s pouring out of me. “It’s a dolphin.”
Still in Alaric’s arms, my head turns to face him. The look on his face is scary. His jaw is set tight enough that it could crack. “You were lucky this time,” he mutters through gritted teeth. “Next time you won’t be. Do not go into the ocean alone.” Abruptly, he stands, letting me go and causing me to drop onto the sand. That went well.
26
Alaric
After the incident in the water, we don’t speak. I spend the rest of the day acting like a complete douche, but I couldn’t face her.
When I thought it was a shark and thought she would die, I thought I had failed her too. Even though I haven’t known her long, I feel responsible for her. She might hate me and want me dead, but I can’t let anything happen to her.
I fish and cook for us, and then when we finish eating, we both fall asleep.
Now I’m up, and she’s not, and I am using my time to fish. Again.
As many coconuts as I got, we don’t have enough to chance it. As soon as Phoenix is able to, we need to head back to where she fell and collect more fruit. There are probably other things we can eat here. We just have to look.
With the sun low in the sky, I’m hoping to catch something. I’m happy she’s asleep. I don’t want to leave her when she’s awake to do this.
I’m on the beach with a makeshift net. The sun beats down on my head and shoulders.
As I wait for a fish to swim by, I turn to watch her. She’s really something. All fire and equal measures of bite.
What’s her story?
She’s been hidden for a long time. Michael never even said he had a daughter. Hell, I didn’t even know he had children at all until recently.
I’m interested in finding out, but she’s a nosy one. If I ask, she will want answers of her own. Am I willing to part with my own story to fulfill this crazy desire to know more about hers?
Maybe.
I’m torn.
On the one hand, who knows how long we will be here, so what harm is it?
On the other, I don’t like to let people in.
But would I have to?
I could tell her a little about me without telling her anything her father could use against me … if we ever get out of this mess.
As if she can hear me thinking about her, she moves in her sleep. She inches toward where I was. As if her body is seeking me out.
She would hate to know that she’s doing it. A part of me wants to tease her for it, but another part doesn’t want to do that at all.
That part finds her fascinating.
That part finds her beautiful. The part that wishes things could be easier, and I could lose myself in her body briefly.
I shake my head and realize I haven’t been paying attention to the fish. I need to do that if we are going to eat.
Time has no relevance on this island. But from what I can tell from where the sun sits in the sky, I have been at this for at least an hour, with only one fish to show for it.