“I wouldn’t put it past you,” she snarled, her anger at me and the situation obvious now. She glared up at me.
I wondered why she suddenly decided to get so feisty. Insanely, it was making my dick hard, which wasn’t going to help my case at all. I needed her to realize how serious this was, and I wasn’t sure she was going to buy into it with my cock pointing at her and practically jumping up and down at the thought of maybe getting her naked.
I really had to stop thinking like that.
“Look, Raine,” I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “You really do have to get out of the suit. I’m not just fucking around. Salt exposure is as bad as sunburn, and we can’t risk anything like that happening to us. We’re too low on water for any risks. You might be a little…embarrassed, but that beats dead.”
“I’m not going to die of chafing,” she scoffed.
“At home, you never run out of water, either. The rules are different here.”
She looked over to me, and I watched her resolve start to crumble in her eyes. It was replaced by frustration first and then something that looked like a cross between collapse and absolute terror.
“Raine,” I said, trying to keep my voice soft. An idea sprang to mind. “Look, my shirt and boxers are cotton, which is a lot better than your suit. The boxers will be big on you, but it will give you the airflow you need for the rash to heal. I’ll even wash them out for you. I can go with just my cargo shorts. Would that be all right?”
She looked up at me and her eyes danced all over my face. I figured she was probably trying to figure out if I was trying to deceive her in some way. Finally, she dropped her eyes down to the floor and nodded.
I didn’t have a lot of modesty, so I just went ahead and stripped, noticing Raine turning away and hiding her eyes. I chuckled and pulled my shorts back on. It wasn’t the most comfortable attire without underwear, but I’d live. I’d also go naked before I let myself start chafing. I washed out both the boxers and my shirt as best I could with sea water. I wasn’t sure if it made a whole lot of difference or not, but it seemed like a good peace of mind thing to do. I squeezed out the material so it would dry faster and handed them over to her.
“Make sure the shorts are totally dry before you put them on,” I said. “Now get the suit off before it gets any worse. I’m just going to take a little nap, okay?”
I dropped down on my back and tossed one of the towels over my face. It was hot and uncomfortable, but she had to get out of those clothes or she was going to be shit deep in trouble. I breathed slowly and steadily, making sure everything but my rising and falling chest was still. After several minutes, I heard her shuffling around, but she still wasn’t changing her clothes.
“Damnit, Raine!”
She squeaked again. I fucking hated that. I sat up and glared at her.
“Just take the fucking suit off, or so help me God, I will tear it off of you.”
“Fine!” she yelled back at me, her eyes darkening at me.
“Do it now!”
“Not when you’re looking!” she screamed, her voice raising in pitch and sounding like she was going to break down again.
“I won’t fucking look,” I snarled back, “but I’m giving you about ten seconds to get that shit off.”
I silently counted to ten and then started towards her. She squealed and moved to the back of the raft, her back pressed against the canopy.
“I’ll do it!” she screeched. I stopped my forward movement and sat back on my heels, staring at her.
“Why are you doing this?” Raine asked, her voice dropping down in volume. There were tears in her eyes, but I wasn’t going to let that sway me on this one.
“I told you.” I glared at her. “It’s fucking dangerous.”
“What difference does it make to you if I survive?”
I felt the anger welling up inside of me, but there was something else there as well. I’d watched people die – lots of people. Some of them asked for it. Some of them deserved it. Most of them were just playing the game for the money, just like I did, but there were some I watched that didn’t have to die. Some shouldn’t have died, and I wasn’t going to let that happen to her. Determination I probably hadn’t felt in years slipped down and coated my insides like that pink shit Alejandro used to try to give me for hangovers. It completely engulfed me, my reasoning became crystal clear, and I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I reached over and grabbed her face between my palms. I brought her up close to me so I could stare right into her eyes. I was almost touching her forehead with my own, and I could feel her breath coming out of her barely opened mouth and brushing over my lower lip and chin. I didn’t want there to be any kind of miscommunication on this one, so I spoke slowly and carefully.
“Raine, I couldn’t save your father, but no matter what we run into, no matter how long we’re out here, no matter what God or Satan or whoever the fuck else throws at us, I’m going to save you.”
I guess I didn’t need all that apathy after all.
Chapter 8 – Kiss
It had been a day and a half since the water ran out.
The gutter system caught a bit of dew from the air, and I gave it all to Raine. It wasn’t enough, though. It wasn’t near enough to keep her going. Every time I glanced over at her, I wondered what her eyes were going to look like when she was so dehydrated she couldn’t lift her head anymore. She had lost weight, and she had already been too small. She had to roll the hem of my boxers and tuck them in some elaborate, almost-in-a-knot way to get them to stay on her hips. The shirt nearly dropped to her knees, covering the boxers anyway.
It had gotten to the point where she wasn’t even completely coherent any longer. She talked about her dad sometimes as well as her friend Lindsay and other people she knew in school. She also had started asking the same questions more than once, which frustrated the hell out of me. I wasn’t a lot better off, though I was still with it enough to know how much she had deteriorated over the past few hours. I was used to extreme circumstances – I’d lived and killed in them. I was also a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than she was to begin with, so there was simply more water inside my body. I still felt like shit, and my head was starting to get dizzy when I moved around too fast. My arms and legs itched like a motherfucker, too.
Mostly, she slept, which was good. She talked when she dreamed, but most of it didn’t make any sense to me. Once she said my name. I didn’t know what to think of that and tried to ignore the little flutter of…something inside of me when she said it.
I reached over and ran my hand down Raine’s forearm, careful not to wake her as I pulled lightly at her skin. Normally, skin elasticity would have caused it to jump right back, but hers didn’t anymore. It stayed in a little upright, wrinkled pucker for a few moments before smoothing out again. I thought her heartbeat was a little faster as well.
Your body can survive in amazing situations; you just have to convince your mind to do what you tell it to do.
“Bastian?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it time for more water?”
I sighed and tried to keep myself from jumping down her throat. She had asked the same question an hour ago, and there wasn’t any water then, either.
“I have to find some first, babe.”
“There isn’t any, is there?” she asked after a moment.
“No, Raine,” I said. I moved backwards a little until I was in a good position to lie down on my back next to her. “It’s all gone.”
“Are you going to look for fish again?”
“I just did,” I said. “No signs. Now quit talking and rest.”
“Will you talk to me?”
“What do you want me to say?” I asked. I knew what her answer would be. She always said the same thing.
“Tell me something else about you.”
“Aren’t you tired of hearing about my fucked up life?”
“No,” Raine said. Her voice cracked,
and I could tell it was taking too much effort for her to even talk. “I want to…understand you.”
“You be quiet and I’ll talk, okay?”
“Uh huh.”
I tried to think of something I could tell her that I hadn’t already talked about. I hoped if I just stalled long enough, Raine would fall asleep again.
“Tell me about Jillian,” Raine said.
“No,” I snapped. “I told you before, don’t say that name.”
“I told you about Andrew.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I snapped again. “Don’t say her name.”
“Well, what will you tell me about?” she growled right back at me, her voice suddenly steady again. I supposed I should have seen it as a good sign. She was annoyed, which meant she was more lucid than she had been a while ago. I also knew it was a fluke, and unless I found her water, it wasn’t going to last.
“How about telling me why you started drinking so much?”
“It helps me sleep.”
“Is it hard for you to sleep?”
I sighed and tried to relax the muscles across my shoulders and down my arms. I leaned back on my elbows and looked sideways at her.
“Can’t you just ask me something easy?” I asked. “Like my favorite food or something?”
“Okay, what’s your favorite food?”
“Pizza.”
“Okay, mine’s chocolate cream pie,” Raine said, smiling a little and looking up at me. “Now why do you have to drink in order to sleep?”
I growled and shook my head. She wasn’t going to give up. Stubborn bitch. At least I wasn’t calling her that out loud anymore.
“I have nightmares,” I admitted.
“I know,” Raine said. I looked over to her sharply, and she lifted her shoulders a little and dropped them again. “I could tell.”
It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but I guess I never thought about how it might look to someone else. I hadn’t had anyone with me when I slept for a very long time. I wondered what I had done or maybe even said. I decided I might not want to know.
“What are they about?” she asked. Her voice was soft and somehow warm as well. When I looked over at her, her eyes showed only concern, maybe curiosity, and a deep need for understanding, but no pity. If I had seen pity…well, I don’t know what I would have done.
“A lot of things,” I said quietly. “Sometimes fights, sometimes about stuff I saw in foster care or the group homes, sometimes I dream about being in jail. It kind of made me claustrophobic, being locked up all the time.”
“You were in jail?”
“Juvenile detention, really,” I corrected, “but it’s basically jail. All the same rules, just a little more free time and your record gets wiped when you turn twenty-one.”
“What did you do?”
“I beat up one of the counselors at the group home.”
“Why did you do that?”
“He fucking deserved it,” I heard myself snarl. “If they hadn’t pulled me off him, I would have smashed in his head and skull-fucked him.”
I couldn’t talk about this. I couldn’t. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I still saw it all again.
I turned around, suddenly realizing Theresa had been gone too long. I had lost track of time listening to the guy from the zoo talk about the owls, and she hadn’t come back outside. I looked around quickly, but she definitely wasn’t in the courtyard. I stalked off into the main building and down the hall - towards the girls’ bathrooms. Tony was walking the opposite way, a snarky smile on his face. He tilted his head to one side as he passed me and tossed a single word in my direction.
“Yummy.”
I started running, but I was too late. She was on the floor in a puddle of her own blood.
“One of the counselors,” I heard my voice creep through my lips, almost against my will and definitely against my better judgment. “He had been looking at her, and she told me he was creeping her out. I wasn’t paying attention, and he got to her.”
“Got to her?”
“He fucked her in the girls’ bathroom while I was out in the courtyard,” I blurted out. “I wasn’t there to protect her, so she killed herself. She was supposed to be able to depend on me, but obviously that’s idiotic. I couldn’t stop her from dying, so I figured I’d kill him. I fucked that up, too. If I had known all the ways to kill quickly then, he would have died before they could stop me.”
“One of the counselors raped Theresa?”
“Yeah.”
“Bastian, I’m so sorry…” Raine reached out, and her fingers grazed over my leg. I pushed her hand away.
“I should have killed him,” I grumbled. “He didn’t even get charged. He told them I beat him up after he caught us in the bathroom together. I got fifteen months for assaulting him and the statutory rape of Theresa, posthumously.”
“Oh my God.” Raine’s hand reached up and covered her mouth. “Didn’t you tell them what had happened?”
“Of course I did!” I was angry now. Maybe at her, maybe at the world, but she was the only one there, so she was destined to get the brunt of it. “Who do you think they believed – the counselor or the delinquent? Yeah, it’s an interesting system we got, huh?”
“You dream about that, don’t you? About finding her, I mean.”
It wasn’t really a question, and it made me wonder again just what I had maybe said or done in my sleep. I tried to rein in my anger a little and nodded in response but didn’t look at her. I reached my hands up to my head and twisted my fingers through my hair, tugging at it and closing my eyes against the slight pain in my scalp.
“She found her own way out,” Raine said. “It was her choice and not your fault.”
“She wouldn’t have done it if I had been there for her.”
“Maybe not,” Raine said. “Maybe it would have just been on a different day.”
“I still fucked up,” I insisted. “Her only mistake was thinking she could rely on me.”
“You aren’t all bad, Bastian.”
“Yeah, I’m a fucking philanthropist.”
Raine started to push herself on to her elbows like she was going to get up and move towards me, but her hand went to her head and she started to slump to one side almost immediately. I moved over to her, fighting my own dizziness, and caught her before she fell back to the floor of the raft. I slowly lowered her onto her back again.
“Stop that shit,” I told her. “Just stay where you are.”
“See?” she said with a sly smile. “You aren’t so bad, are you?”
“Whatever.”
“My hero,” she giggled, which turned into coughing. For a minute I thought she was going to gag up bile, but I got her rolled onto her side and her coughing quieted.
“Go back to sleep, Raine,” I said. “You need to rest.”
“I don’t want…”
She was out before she finished the sentence. I decided to try fishing again.
* * * * *
My head swam as I pulled myself out of the water and fumbled with the tether around my waist. I was empty-handed again, but at least Raine hadn’t been disturbed by either my fishing expedition or my subsequent return to the raft, so she wasn’t going to notice. She was still asleep, as she had been for the last few hours.
There hadn’t even been any dew on the canopy this morning.
Raine’s pale, dry cheeks puffed out a moment as she seemed to sigh in her sleep and roll slightly to one side. Her darkened, hollow eyes opened for a moment, searched around the raft, and closed again without any signs of recognition. I dried myself off, pulled my shorts on, and crawled over to her side. The last two times she woke up she had been pretty incoherent. I needed to know if she was still the same or getting worse.
“Raine?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you awake?”
“I’m not sure,” she said after a moment. “I thought I was, but everything is so red.”
“Red?”
&n
bsp; “Yes, red,” she repeated. “Like clown hair. It’s so soft. Your hair is soft. I want to touch it.”
“You’re being silly,” I told her.
“Maybe,” she said. “It is soft though. Can I have some more water now?”
“Not yet, babe.”
“We still don’t have any, do we?”
“Not right now.”
“It’s been too long, though – hasn’t it?”
“Hush, Raine,” I finally growled. “Your questions drive me nuts.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said quietly.
“It’s not you,” I said. “I’m just a moody asshole, remember?”
Her dry lips curved up just a little before falling back into place. I watched her tongue come out and trace over them, but there wasn’t any moisture to leave behind.
“I’m dizzy,” Raine said.
“I know,” I replied. “Just stay where you are. Don’t try to move around so much.”
I lay down on my back, staring up at the dark canopy of the raft. As much as I didn’t want to think about it, my overactive mind figured she might have as many as six hours left but not much more than that. I was starting to shake and itch again, and I seriously doubted I would have the strength or muscle control to pull myself back onto the raft another time, so no more fishing. I wouldn’t be far behind her – a half day, maybe. A half day lying here with her body. I didn’t think I’d be able to just toss her overboard, not unless I went with her.
“Bastian?” I heard her soft voice struggle to get enough volume to reach my ears. I leaned a little closer and saw her hollow eyes looking deep into mine. “Bastian, I’m scared.”
I rolled and reached around her torso with one arm, slipping the other one under her shoulders so I could pull her close to me. I held her head against my chest and wrapped my arms around her tiny, gaunt frame.
“Don’t be scared, Raine.” I closed my eyes and hugged her to me. My eyes squeezed shut, and my lips pressed into her hair. “I’ve got you.”
I could feel her body slump into mine, and I had to listen close to her breathing to make sure it remained steady as she drifted off to sleep. I tried to take a deep breath myself, feeling the dark unconsciousness of deprivation overcoming my mind and body.