Page 107 of Dark Island: Rescue
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TULA
They could only take one person.
The words echoed in Tula's mind, each repetition hammering home the reality she'd known was coming but had desperately hoped for a miracle to prove her wrong. Tony would stay. Tamira would stay. Elias would stay. And she would leave them all behind, taking her child to freedom while condemning them to continued captivity.
"Tula." Areana's voice was gentle. "Say something."
"What is there to say?" Tula's voice came out flat, emotionless. She felt hollowed out, scraped clean of everything except the guilt that was crushing. "I'm leaving. They're staying. That's the reality."
"It's the only option that keeps everyone safe." Areana put her hand on Tula's shoulder. "Including your child."
"I know." Tula did know, but knowing didn't make it hurt any less.
"Tony is going to blame himself. He'll think heshould have seen how desperate I was. Should have known something was wrong. He'll torture himself wondering what he could have done differently."
"Yes." Areana didn't try to deny it. "He will. But maybe his grief will be so believable that we could stage his suicide shortly after yours. Perhaps we won't have to wait years to extract him."
Hope flared in Tula's chest but also panic. "Promise me that you will be there for him, making sure that he doesn't actually kill himself."
Areana smiled indulgently. "We are speaking of Tony here. He will never actually do it, but he will milk the sympathy for all it's worth."
Tula couldn't help the hysterical laugh that bubbled up from her wounded chest. "You're right. I wonder how many of the ladies will invite Tony to their beds to console him." She sobered. "I feel so bad for Tamira and Elias. It's like I'm stealing their chance of freedom. It's so unfair."
"Nothing about this situation is fair," Areana said. "But fairness isn't what we're optimizing for. We're optimizing for survival. For saving who we can save, when we can save them."
Tula looked down at the ocean below, imagining the fall she'd stage in three days. The extraction team waiting in the darkness. The long underwater swim to the submarine. Freedom purchased at the cost of everyone she loved thinking she'd chosen death.
"I don't know if I can do this," she whispered.
"Of course you can." Areana's arm came around her shoulders. "Because you must. Because you deserve to livewithout fear of your child being taken away from you. Because you deserve freedom, even if others can't share it yet."
"Yet." Tula latched on to the word. "Do you really think they'll extract the others eventually?"
Areana was quiet for a long moment. "I think we can make Tony's suicide believable, and it will actually look better if it happens shortly after yours. Regrettably, Tamira and Elias will have to wait a long time."
It was a great comfort to believe that Tony could be extracted soon, but the question was whether the clan would be willing to make such an effort for a random human who couldn't even join their immortal community.
"You can't pin your sanity on the hope that the clan will rescue the others." Areana must have read her mind. "You need to make peace with the possibility that this is it. That you're the only one who gets out."
The honesty was brutal, but Tula appreciated it more than false reassurances.
"How do I live with that?" she asked.
"The same way anyone survives impossible choices." Areana's voice carried the authority born of five thousand years of experience. "You acknowledge the guilt, and you choose to live anyway. You honor their continued sacrifice by making something beautiful out of your freedom. You raise your child with love and teach him about the people who couldn't be saved but deserved to be."
They sat in silence, watching the ocean below. The beauty of it felt wrong somehow. How could the worldbe so lovely when everything inside Tula was breaking apart?
"I keep trying to memorize everything," Tula said after a while. "If I can hold on to the small details about everyone I love, I can carry them with me. But I'm terrified I'll forget, like I forgot so much about my parents, about Gulan, about all the people I knew back home. Years from now, their faces will blur, and I won't remember what they looked like."
"You won't forget this time." Areana sounded certain. "You were a child then. You are an adult now, and you will remember whether you want it or not. The guilt will make sure of that."
"Is that supposed to be comforting?"
"No. It's just true." Areana squeezed her shoulder. "The guilt will be your constant companion. You need to make peace with that. Learn to function while carrying it. Because it's not going away."
"That's bleak."
