Page 67 of No One Aboard
What? Tia got up and plopped down beside him. “What do you mean?”
He recounted, haltingly, his conversation with their father as Tia stared at him, panic rising. Francis hadn’t meant they wouldn’t be going to Florida soon. He meant they wouldn’t be going... ever? How could he do that?Whywould he do that?
And what the hell made him think he could bring them all along?
“So we are being kidnapped.” She twisted fistfuls of Rylan’s sheets in her hands. “We’ve got to stop him, Ry, we have to turn around or... or...”
Of course Francis Cameron would thwart Tia’s plans to run away by running away himself. The thought both amused and infuriated her.
Rylan snapped the limp thread from the pillowcase and let it fall. It drifted to the floor and coiled like a noose.
“Listen,” she said carefully. “Whatever is going on, we shouldn’t have any part in. He’s maybe trying to protect us, but he’s also dragging us along without consent. You saw the island, right? In the middle of absolute nowhere?”
Rylan’s voice crawled up an octave. “So we’re going to be trapped? That place can’t have airports. Or other boats. Or people. What do we do, then?”
“Then we’ll stealThe Old Eileen,” Tia said without thinking. She paused to consider the option. Nico wouldn’t want to be trapped on some godforsaken island. He’d help them escape. He’d come with them. Hell, maybe he’d travel the seas alongside them and teach Tia how to properly sail. She felt giddy at the idea, her twin brother, a trusty cat, and her... crush? All of them could desert the world and ride waves until the end of time. Tia could be content with a life like that. They’d be pirates! Or outlaws! The whole world would endeavor to find them, but no one ever would.
“We’ll steal the boat,” Tia repeated, trying not to get toofar ahead of herself. “With Nico, the three of us can sail wherever we want to go.”
“How? Dad, Nico, and Alejandro are barely handling the watch rotation without MJ.”
Tia remembered her father’s words when he was arguing with Lila, the night before they left.This ship can be manned by one good sailor alone, Lil. And we’ve got two and a half.
Tia’s mind raced, but she felt hopeful. She could still make her plans work. She scooped up the sketchbook and turned to a blank page at the end. She uncapped the nearest pen. “Listen to me. We have options. And right here, right now, we’ll make a backup plan that nobody beside us will know about, okay?”
“A plan...” Rylan watched the pen that Tia hovered over the page.
“We’ll have a signal. A distress signal. If anyone else sees it, they’ll think we’re playing around. And it’ll mean...” Tia thought aboutThe Old Eileen. She thought about all the different safety aspects built into the ship. Life jackets, life preservers, inflatable survival suits. All of those were mere bandages if they were on their own, though. They needed a boat.
“The life raft,” she said. “If one of us gives the signal, we’ll inflate one of the life rafts and run before we get stuck on the island.”Or if whoever’s hunting Dad catches up to us...
“We’d be sitting ducks,” Rylan protested. “We’d just float there and starve.”
“The life rafts come with survival kits. Food, water. And flares. We would be rescued and back home before we knew it. And in a worst-case scenario, Dad stashed paddles in ours. We could row to... I don’t know. Somewhere.”
Tia was becoming more and more fond of the idea. They would figure it out as they went along. That was how adventures worked.
Rylan lay back, pillow held to his chest. “We’d have to be close to another ship. Or to land. Land that isn’t Dad’s island.”
Tia was nodding. “We’re getting close. And there are a bunch of islands in the area. I can figure out the closest inhabited one, and we can slip away the night of our birthday when everyone’s asleep. That gives us a few more days.”
They would be long gone by the time anyone woke up. They could do it when Nico was on watch. He’d cover for them. Maybe he’d come with them.
Rylan looked doubtful. “What would the signal even be for all this? Some boat-distress thing like theTitanicpeople used?”
Tia snapped her fingers and began to write. “That’s exactly what we’ll use, Ry. And when we see this signal the night after our birthday... if we say it, write it, mouth it, sign it... it means it’s time to leave. Get out now.”
Rylan licked his dry lips and nodded, grim. “Abandon ship.”
Yes.She knew he would get behind her eventually! This was the push he needed to realize their father did not have their best interests at heart. So Francis Cameron had something to run from. What he didn’t get was that they had something to run from too. Him.
Tia held out her pinkie and twisted hers with Rylan’s in a promise. “Together.”
He hesitated then looked her in the eye for the first time since she’d woken up. “Together.”
Tia closed the sketchbook so that anyone who passed through the twins’ room wouldn’t see the black letters emblazoned on the page, their signal in case of the absolute worst.
SOS.
