Page 84 of Adrift

Calvin stares out into the night. “It’s heading away from us,” he calls over to Zane.

In an instant, Zane is by my side. “You’re sure it’s going away from us?”

Now we’re four across, shoulder to shoulder, moving away from our fire. I can’t see the light anymore. Dante is next to us; only Easton hasn’t come out of the raft.

“There,” Zane yells. “Damn, it’s the white aft light. It must be small.” He shakes his head. “It’s too bad. It’s too bad.”

“What, a ship?” The sleep is gone from Easton’s voice as he steps out of the raft. His hair tousled, he stares at the four of us. “Fire the damn gun. Use the flare gun, Calvin!” Easton reaches for Calvin’s arm, but Zane steps in between the two of them.

“No, man. No, we’re not gonna fire the gun. They’ll never see it. They’re heading away from us. Look at the size of thatspeck. Do you see it?” Zane points to where the light had been flickering.

“I don’t see it.”

“Wait for it.” Calvin’s voice is steady. Two more beats, and the white dot appears. But it’s only there for a second. “The seas are rough out there. And they’re heading away from us. There’s no way they’re going to be looking for a flare on their tail. They’re smaller than theRock Candy—a yacht, most likely. Hopefully not pirates. If they hadn’t gone away from us, they might eventually have come back toward us. But not tonight. Not with the coming storm.” The clouds are rolling in, and the moon darts in and out of them. It looks like it might rain.

Dante nods at Easton. “No, they wouldn’t see it if we fired the shot. It would waste one of the few we have.”

Easton glares at Calvin. I can see the uncertainty in his eyes. He wants to use the flare gun as much as I did before Calvin explained it.

Zane puts his hand on Easton’s arm. “They’ll never see it. They’re too small and too far away. To top it off, they’re not looking at us.” Zane says the same thing as Calvin and Dante, but now it’s sinking in.

“But you never know?” Easton mumbles.

We all stare at the spot the light was in, but it doesn’t reappear. None of us move. We watch the dark line of the horizon, the wind blowing the clouds in front of the moon.

Someone throws another log on the fire someone else started. More logs, more fire. “Let’s get the fire shade back over it,” Zane says, looking at the cloudy night sky. “It’s gonna rain.”

Calvin grabs one of the loose side windows from the raft, and Zane helps reposition it over the fire. Then thick, large raindrops start falling from the sky, ones and twos to begin with, but they soon flood together in the sand. We gather as much firewood as we can, putting it underneath the edge of the raft to keep it dry.Calvin gathers his tools, shuffling them under the rain cover. It isn’t much, just a sort of a tripod of long bamboo covered in palm fronds. We’ve been lucky so far, with no rain falling on us.

Zane moves containers around to pick up rainwater. We have the stream, but rainwater is even safer.

Drops turn to a downpour. The rain pelts down, hurting my bare shoulders. I pull my shirt up over my head. We all scurry around, picking things up and tucking them away. The jerky Dante made is in the tackle box hanging from the tree. We’re still not sure what else is out on the island, so we’re keeping food out of the raft as much as possible. No one wants to wake up next to a boar or rat.

We don’t have much, so it doesn’t take long to gather things. I dive into the raft after dusting my feet, getting as much sand off them as best as I can before Easton and Zane follow behind me. We’re all pulling off wet clothing. All the cushions and towels are in the raft. The way the wind shakes the raft cover, there is no way the fire is going to stay lit.

I crawl back over to the door. “Calvin, get in here. There’s no reason to be out there. You’re not going to be able to keep the fire lit.”

“She’s right,” Dante says over my shoulder.

But Calvin shakes his head.

“Come on, Little Bird. You’re letting the rain get in. He’s old enough to decide what he wants to do for himself. There’s no talking sense into him.” Zane lightly touches my shoulder and passes me a towel. “You use it first,” he says. “Then Easton and I will take a turn with it.”

I look around, and there are three towels. But they’ve set up one as a bed with a cushion. I’m a little shook up about seeing the boat, our potential rescue gone. But they’re right. I let my emotions go and get ahold of myself. If there was one boat, there could be more.

“Remember the rule, Calvin,” I say.

He looks at me, water pouring off his hair.

“Don’t drown.” I pull the flap down, closing myself in with Dante, Easton, and Zane.

Chapter 33

Swells

Haley

The rain has me drenched. In the area by the door, I wring out my hair and shake some of the water off. In a flash of lightning, I see Dante’s asleep already. He doesn’t move. He pretended to be okay all day. I imagine the second his skin hit the bottom of the raft, he passed out.

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