Page 19 of A Not-So Holiday Paradise

“Bad,” I say immediately. “Look at the clouds.”

“Cumulonimbus. Pretty dark,” she agrees.

What’s with this girl? Does she study clouds in her spare time? Andhowdoes she still sound so calm?

“And getting darker. And look at the waves.” I have to force myself not to worry about the remaining speed boat; all I can do is cover it with the tarp and hope for the best. “Let me just…” I trail off, already running to the boat. I climb in and dig around until I find the tarp, securing it in record time before jumping out and moving back to Molly.

Molly points at the boat when I reach her. “And we shouldn’t just head back to the main island in that. Right?”

“Correct,” I say. “The waves are too rough, there’s lightning, I’m not a particularly skilled sailor or whatever—”

“Right,” she says, cutting off my rambling. “No boat. In that case,” she says, “you need to decide. We can go up to the research facility and break a window. That’s the safest shelter, but we risk not being able to break in, and you might get in trouble. Or we can go to your hut thingy, but we risk not being completely safe. I think we should nix the cave idea; better to stick to definites.”

“Yes. Okay.” When she lays it out like that, the solution is clear. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

And maybe it’s a weird time to notice this, but it hits me all at once howsmartthis woman is. It’s not just evident in her random intellectual facts, either. I see it more right now than I have thus far as she stands here thinking, her face twisted into an expression of concentration—eyes narrowed on the horizon, brow furrowed. There’s something captivating about watching her mind work.

I nod. “Let’s go break a window.”

“They’re not barred? Or reinforced glass or anything?”

“It is tempered glass,” I admit. “But I can try to break it.”

“Tempered glass is roughly four times stronger than regular glass,” she says, biting her lip.

I huff impatiently. “If not, we can still use the building as a wind break.”

Just then a particularly loud roll of thunder vibrates through the air around us, and out over the water, a web of lightning crackles down. Molly winces at the sight, or maybe at the noise, turning her back to the ocean. It’s the first time I’ve seen any hint of distress on her pale face.

“Sorry,” she says quickly. “The lightning. I shouldn’t look at flashing lights.”

It takes me a second to work through what she means, but it’s not until I see her fiddling with the silicone bracelet around her wrist that a vague memory resurfaces, prompted by the tiny medical alert symbol I spot—the one with the snake curling around the staff.

“Oh, you have—you have seizures, right?” I say, casting her a questioning look. I think that’s what she’s talking about.

She nods. “They’ve never been triggered by lights before, but…well.” She shrugs. “It feels stupid to test it out now.”

“Agreed,” I say, a new sense of urgency overcoming me even as I realize that no matter where on the island we go, there will still be lightning. Crap. “Let’s get moving.”

One thing at a time. All I can do is one thing at a time, and that’s all I have the mental capacity to worry about. So instead of letting myself spiral into my worries, I shove everything out of my head except for the path to the research facility. The boat, Molly’s seizures, the cruise ship she needs to be on when it departs this evening—I get rid of them all, dumping them behind a door in my brain that I won’t open until Molly and I are out of immediate danger.

“One thing at a time,” she says to me, and I blink at her, startled to hear her echo what I’m thinking. “Just focus on one thing at a time.”

“Yeah,” I say faintly. I don’t really like relying on other people; I don’t like letting them too far into my life. But at this exact moment, it seems I don’t have any choice. So I guess all I can do is suck it up. “Let’s go.” Then I grab her hand and tug, and together we disappear into the trees.

Seven

Molly

Beckett Donovan is not a talker.

He’s not a talker, and Iama talker, and this presents some very obvious logistical problems.

And to be fair, I get why he’s not exactly feeling chatty at the moment. I wish I weren’t feeling chatty either. It’s just a sort of nervous habit I have; I’m scared and tense and so I’m talking his ear off, babbling on and on.

About fish.

Which I can tell he’s really thrilled about.

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