Page 19 of Rainse
I looked up at the coconut tree, wondering how on Earth we were going to get those fruit down. One had fallen down, waiting to be opened, but we couldn't wait for them all to slowly drop to the ground. I wasn't much of a climber, and Rainse's webbed feet were not made for it either. Maybe we could shake the tree, together. Or we could-
What was I doing? For a moment, I'd forgotten that this wasn't real. That I was trapped on this island with him, an alien, who'd chosen not to bring me to the island where his brothers were, but instead chosen to isolate us on this islet.
I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about coconuts and teamwork. I was supposed to be finding a way off this rock, not wondering how to make a tropical breakfast with my captor.
Captor. The word felt wrong every time I tried it on. He didn’t act like one. He didn’t lock me up or threaten me. He just… existed beside me. Quiet, watchful, frustratingly calm.
Rainse was crouched at the water’s edge, cleaning something in the shallows. The sun caught the wet gleam of his greenskin, turning the fronds along his ribs and arms translucent. I told myself I was studying him the way I’d study a new marine species—curious, detached, professional. My pulse didn’t get the memo.
He glanced back over his shoulder, eyes catching the light like sea glass. “You should stay in the shade. The sun is strong today.”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically. “I’m British. We only burn on holidays.”
He frowned slightly, probably translating that through whatever alien logic filter he had. “If you burn, I will find waterweed to cool it.”
“That’s… considerate,” I said, and then hated how uncertain it sounded.
He stood, tall and graceful, the movement too fluid to be entirely human. “You are healing. You move easier today.”
“Barely,” I muttered, rubbing at my ribs. “It still feels like I lost a fight with a steel beam.”
“That is what the ocean is,” he said. “A thousand steel beams, moving very fast.”
I smiled despite myself. “I’ll have to remember that for my next research paper.”
His head tilted slightly, a habit of his when he didn’t quite follow the joke but wanted to. “You will write again?”
The question hit harder than expected. I looked away, out toward the endless water. “If I get off this island, sure.”
“You will,” he said simply, as if it were a fact of physics.
I wanted to believe him. The problem was, I also wanted to punch him for sounding so certain.
“Maybe we should focus on coconuts first,” I said, stepping closer to the tree. “Priorities.”
He followed, watching with mild curiosity as I studied the trunk. “They are heavy,” he said. “If one falls, it could crush you.”
“Great pep talk, thanks.” I glanced up at the cluster of fruit swaying against the bright sky. “If I die, at least it’ll be ironic. Death by coconut, the marine biologist who survived both a whale and a shark attack.”
“You will not die.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“I can,” he said, calm as ever. “Because I will not let it happen.”
I stared at him, half irritated, half… something else. “You really don’t do half measures, do you?”
“Half measures sink ships,” he said, and that made me laugh.
The sound startled a flock of small seabirds from the rocks. They wheeled above us, shrieking against the bright blue, and for a heartbeat, everything felt almost normal.
But normal didn’t last long out here. The wind brought a hint of something sour and briny, the kind of smell that meant too many tiny lives drifting close together. Rainse’s expression changed, eyes narrowing as his greenskin rippled with movement.
“Stay here,” he said, already striding toward the shore.
I watched him go, the strange tendrils along his body flaring like warning flags, and a cold prickle of unease ran down my spine. Whatever was in the water, it wasn’t just fish.
"What are you doing?" I asked when he entered the water.
