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The jetliner wasn’t supposed to have gone down in the middle of nowhere, with its entirety gutted and deposited along a desert island coast. Right about now, Aubree Townsend should have been floating in the warm, crystal-clear waters of the Coral Sea, the Great Barrier Reef sprawled for miles on end beneath her while she floated on an inner tube. Her father would have been reclined on a deck chair, a newspaper propped in front of him, while her mother downed fruity drinks in her Ralph Lauren mom swimsuit and a floppy brimmed hat, cell phone poised to take as many unnecessary photos of the trip as she felt inclined to take. But, rather than the lazy, peaceful family vacation she had felt rather entitled to when she agreed to schlepp out to Australia five days ago, her life had, in a matter of seconds, become a cataclysm she felt rather undeserving of, regardless of it being her fault she was in this new situation entirely.
Smoke; thick, hazy, suffocating smoke. It was everywhere. Every labored breath she took, floating ash particles tickled her lungs. Noises were muffled, and to her, a distinct high pitched ringing echoed painfully in her ears as she sat limply in her soot-stained seat. Darkness seemed to engulf her surroundings, if not for faint streams of daylight coming vaguely from behind. Her forehead felt warm and wet, but she couldn’t seem to lift her arm to wipe at it with her sleeve. For some time, she sat, dazed and motionless as she drifted in and out of consciousness. As she slowly came to, the sounds became sharper, the smells of burned something and jet fuel turning her stomach. Someone’s voice was faraway, outside, maybe. But how? Why were they on solid ground? Where was she? What the hell had happened, why did everything hurt so damn much? The plush blanket she’d brought for the flight was now damp and soiled with sharp particles, the fabric inhibiting her movement. Tossing it aside with as minimal movement as she could manage, Aubree was very quickly beginning to become self-aware of her surroundings.
The plane, she could recognize, was tilted slightly in a forward slant; hot tropical air was breezing inside and possibly responsible for the cold sweat on her clammy skin. She couldn’t make out the unmoving shape of the passenger beside her, but now that it was dawning on her that the airplane had gone down, Aubree began to tremble. Then, a voice; a man’s voice, from behind. “Hey-“ Aubree had tried croaking, disappointed when her voice failed her and a series of weak, crippling coughs followed. She spat a metallic taste and the warm bile that had risen from her stomach at the floor, bracing herself against the armrest as she made a futile attempt to lift her head again. It was difficult enough to keep her intestines from spewing from her mouth and try to make sense of all the commotion as the outcries of other people on the downed plane rushed to her ears, but when the back of her seat was pummeled by a strong fist and her head shot forward with whiplash, she couldn’t help it. Cradling her throbbing head, she spat swears under her uneasy breaths, her body doubled over her knees. All it took was one inhale of charred flesh to instigate her retching between her feet.
The man behind her was moaning, and shrill screaming came from somewhere else. Aubree couldn’t take another second in this place, and in this state of trauma she could only prioritize on one thing; out. Gripping the armrest, Aubree made a go at lifting herself to her feet, but even that had proved futile. The mental and physical distress had done a number on her body, and no matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t seem to stand up. She realized, the seatbelt was what hindered her from getting too far off her seat in the first place. Blindly groping at her stomach, her manicured fingers met the warm metal clasp of the seatbelt that was bruising her skin. With a headache from hell and an excruciating acute pain along her temple, Aubree shuddered an exhale of anguish as she fussed with the stubborn clasp. Somehow, the fabric of the belt had been wrinkled in the clasp and now proved to be resisting her, and this only heightened Aubree’s panic. “Hey! Hey-!” She turned as best as she could in her seat, her raised voice trembling as she tried to catch a glimpse of the man who had jarred her seat earlier. He had to have been strong enough to get her the hell out of here, right?
She couldn’t get a good look at him, no thanks to the agonizing tenderness in her neck and the threat of passing out that had her turning back around and pressing her palms into her thighs with her eyes closed, just willing the nausea to go away. “Y-you have to help me, my seatbelt, my seatbelt it’s stuck-!“ She began to cry out hysterically, frustratedly yanking at the straps and consequently the rest of her speech becoming incoherent. She hadn’t noticed it, but loud distressed sobs were beginning to come out of her lips, despair and hopelessness settling in fast.
The stuffy heat was smothering; it was that sticky, damp kind that caused the billows of black smoke coming from the front of the plane to settle on her sweaty skin in dark smears. Aubree was having trouble controlling her breathing, and as much as she would have liked to have pinched her nose and refused to inhale fumes from God knows what, her panicked sobs made it all the more impossible to breathe normally, not to mention the shot of adrenaline and fear that had her heart rate sky rocketing. The low moans coming from almost every direction were tormenting to listen to, but just as much as she wanted to get the hell off this plane, there was no chance of it happening with this seatbelt jammed across her stomach that now, under her white cropped (and stained beyond repair) Calvin Klein sweatshirt top, was sporting gnarled bruises of vibrant purples and greens.
The airplane creaked and gave a sighing groan the moment the man behind her stood, his hand on her headrest startling what little she had left in her. “Please-! Don’t leave me here!” Aubree blurted shrilly through bleary tears, a hand reaching out to grab his arm in the trashed aisle way. She still could barely make out his distinctly youthful appearance, with tousled hair and clothes in just as bad of shape as hers. He crouched where he stood and gave her a brief once-over, but for once, Aubree’s hands didn’t fly to tuck her hair behind her ear, or adjust her position to look more flattering. The wreck was getting hotter, and the longer she was immersed in this hell hole, the slimmer she felt her chances were of survival. If falling warped metal pieces didn’t kill her first, the amount of carbon monoxide or a fuel tank explosion would. This wasn’t how she wanted to end her life; she couldn’t die here! Frantically, Aubree motioned and pulled at the strap, aggravated and worried about how the man wasn’t being quick enough about yanking the clasp open.
His attempt to console her and convince her to relax only helped for seconds. To give him a better chance at undoing the buckle without pinching her skin, Aubree pressed her back flush against her seat, sucking in her stomach while the stranger braced himself and tugged hard on the seatbelt. Her seat squeaked in protest as if threatening to come loose and go flying in his direction, but nonetheless, a few quick jerks and she heard the liberating snap of a belt buckle hitting the armrest plastic. With stifled sniffles now, Aubree didn’t wait for him to ask her if she could stand, hopping out of that seat immediately using the head rest in front of her to be steadied. Her ankle twinged with pain if she put too much weight on it, but otherwise, she couldn’t care less about the cuts she currently couldn’t see nor feel in the heat of the moment. Standing up, she had a much more clear perspective of the rest of the plane. Much to her utter horror and dismay, the source of light that had been coming from behind outlined the jagged edges of the gnarled framework, a hazy smoke piping across the opening from the destroyed engine laying several feet away from the wreck.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, Aubree was paralyzed halfway into the aisle. Distorted bodies were everywhere, some motionless while other’s chests heaved with every fighting breath they inhaled. The man who’d pried her free had dug for something under her seat and slung it over his shoulder, but she couldn’t even begin to care about her soiled Louis Vuitton carry on, when so many people seemed to have lost their lives. She wasn’t sure how she had made it out without blood spurting from her body or a horribly disfigured arm, but she wasn’t about to stay and ask. “A-all these people,” Aubree whimpered with swollen green eyes, tearing her aghast gaze away from someone who was attending to another individual crouched in the corner to look to the stranger. Where they just going to leave them all? Her fingers had tightened around the fabric of her top, pulling with distress at the frayed hem until pieces started to unravel. For a moment neither said anything, for she was too stunned with a numbing cold spreading through to her fingertips.
A crash and a shout coming from the front end snapped her out of her dazed stupor, and swallowing a thick lump in her throat, Aubree reached for the man’s calloused warm hand. Despite the sharp smell of iron wafting from his body, she refused to let go, relying on him to lead the way out while her other arm covered her nose and mouth. She trusted him; he was the only person there that was currently making her feel even the slightest bit safe and protected. Ash stung her eyes, but already tears silently flowed down her dirty cheeks. He towed her along and they picked through several rows of debris, mostly luggage that had fallen from the overhead compartments and spilled out onto the narrow passageway. Squinting, she stumbled blindly after him towards the gaping exit where the wet air was slightly more breathable. Her mouth was drier than cotton, and her forehead was matted with blood and the wispy strays that had escaped her high blonde ponytail; somehow, the stranger whom she followed was managing a calm facade she couldn’t understand.
Aubree bit down the ugly noises that warbled in the back of her throat. She had always been sheltered by this picture perfect life, one that was comfortable, well in the spotlight, and insured by her father’s security detail that protected the family at times. There had never been a moment when Aubree felt insecure or in a significant amount of danger; not like this. Life had always been taken for granted. What was there to worry about when you could afford the finest medicine or medical treatments that money could buy? Who would really try to hurt someone like her? It had never occurred to her that one day, all of her jet setting and frequent travels could amount to something like this; those movies that dramatized plane crashes had always been something she’d roll her eyes at. Now? She would never fly again. How could she board another death trap like this and not be afraid of being so inconveniently deposited with a load of strangers on what unbeknown to her was some obscure shoreline?
Luckily, being overwhelmed by the amount of dead and the sickening lurches in her stomach that kept threatening to rise kept her preoccupied enough to prevent her from thinking at all about the future. Instead, it was all about getting to that light, to step outside into freedom and what hopefully would be civilization. Surely, help would be on the way soon; they were likely on some beach in Hawaii, conveniently halfway to their destination in LAX. Someone must have seen the plane go down as soon as the first engine blew, right? The air traffic control center, the Navy- someone would see that their airplane had crash landed. Right about now, hundreds of ambulances and firetrucks from inland were on their way after a citizen noticed the wreck spiraling towards the earth. If anything they’d have to wait it out a few hours. She would call 9-1-1 if someone hadn’t already, and by the next morning, they’d be touching down in sunny Los Angeles. Right?
At the edge of the plane, Aubree hesitated, squeezing the man’s hand as she peered down. She was going to be sick. The drop was a few feet, certainly higher than she was tall, and the ground had many shreds of wiring and metal scraps strewn haphazardly about. If she wasn’t mistaken, peeks of white sand were beneath it all, and the distinct lulling of waves crashed nearby. Exhaling through dry lips, Aubree braced herself, sensing just exactly what the man was trying to get at when he put down the duffel he’d grabbed and surveyed the opening. Again, the plane gave no warning as it shifted incrementally in the sand as its unsteady weight was no match for the lenient ground. Aubree had yelped with the irrepressible fear that this whole thing would come down on them, just when they were nearly out, and kill them instantly. Naturally, she’d jumped into the man’s side as if he could magically defend her from an unpredictable falling beam from spearing her, with a tight fistful of his shirt clenched in the hand that wasn’t holding his.
Nobody dared move a muscle until the front end of the plane settled, and the stranger indicated that it was safe again. Looking to him in distress, Aubree’s wide green eyes silently pleaded with him for all of this to be over. If she weren’t so wobbly at the knees and inundated with grief, she might have been able to appreciate the chiseled features of the young gentleman’s face, or his charming scruff, or blue eyes that might have glittered like the sea. However, not even the potential charm of his body could allure her, it only made her feel even queasier. Across his cheeks were light bruises and some cuts from flying glass, some traces of blood from where he’d been hit on their rapid, untimely descent. Just how bad did she look? And was the wetness on her forehead really sweat? The blood she had yet to discover was beginning to cake and crack, darkening to a shade of burgundy with the combined soot and oxygen.
“Lower me down?” She balked, incredulous that he’d dare make such an imposition of her. “It’s too far, I’ll break my ankle. Isn’t there a ladder, o-or something?” She tried to reason with him frantically, hardly reassured by any of the lies that were spewing from his mouth. Her conviction didn’t last long; the next moment she was on her knees with her backside to the opening, her hands firmly planted on the warm and gritty surface of the cabin floor. “Please don’t make me do this,” she had squeaked one last time in hopes that he’d have another idea, but he could only look at her with those mesmerizing blue eyes that she was beginning to rely so much on to keep her sane. Quaking at the elbows, Aubree lowered one foot off the edge, then another, with the man holding tightly to her arms so she didn’t fall. Her palms were perspiring and threatened to slip; this would be the end, this would be how she died. A countdown from three ensued, and at one, Aubree sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, allowing herself to slide off the edge of the airplane.
She couldn’t help it; she had to scream. Now she dangled a few feet above the ground, her fingers closed around the stranger’s wrist. There was no way in hell she was letting go; she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Gravity pulled at her weight, threatened to bring the man down on top of her as well. Aubree had made the mistake of looking down, and immediately she regretted just how dizzying it became to see herself floating. “Dammit,” she breathed, “shit!” Her clammy fingers were sliding out of his, and Aubree ignored the searing pain in her neck and forced herself to look back up at him in one last final plea.
It’s okay. You can let go. Pressing her trembling lips in a line, Aubree let the hot, frustrated tears trickle down her cheek and fall below, silently swinging in the soft breeze like a pendulum before she willed herself to release. Falling was a terrible sensation, even more so when she landed on her feet and fell into the debris pile. “Ow!” A distinct stinging on her knee as the familiar sensation of freshly raw skin had her hissing sharply and clutching her knee, her leg held tenderly as she curled into a fetal position. Solid earth beneath her more or less; she’d never been so happy to lay her body on the ground. The man’s voice shouted from up above, something that sounded like move was audible from his figure outlined in smoke. Obliging, Aubree crawled and limped across the ground into a soft patch of grass that had relatively escaped a the nasty singe of the jetliner wreck, just a few feet to the right of where she had landed. All she wanted was to close her eyes now and go to sleep, wake up from this terrible nightmare. The duffel was tossed down first, then, the man maneuvered adeptly over the edge of the airplane and had far less difficulty landing with a grunt beside her.
But Aubree hadn’t been looking to see if he’d landed safe. Her eyes were transfixed on the flora and fauna around them, to which the gory scene had spilled out onto. “Erm…. Where the hell are we-?” She swallowed, unable to recognize any sign of buildings or lifeguard towers or the like that she was so familiar with seeing along coastlines. “Where are we-!” She repeated, this time louder, and brimming on the edge of mad hysteria. So perplexed was she, that she couldn’t find the strength to get to her feet, her eyes wild with alarm.
(view spoiler)
(That is entirely up to you, I feel like she could still have it in her pocket? It would probably be fried though or no signal. So whatever suits)
Aubree’s wide eyed gaping was rudely interrupted by the stranger’s booming voice suddenly in her ear, his strong fingers curling round her upper arm and yanking her to her feet. What now? Yelping at the brute force in which he felt it necessary to manhandle her with, she struggled to gain her footing as he started off sprinting in the hot, sinking white sands. “Wait!” She shrieked, breathless and lagging considerably behind him as he darted and vaulted over luggage and bodies alike. She tried looking over her shoulder as she stumbled along to see just what he was so frantic about, why so suddenly, they were trying to get away from something. Towards the trees, he had said, but what were they running from? And why the trees? The hot sand weighed down her white sneakers, but she didn’t have time to cringe at how gritty the spaces between her toes and socks were becoming. His long strides were no match for her shorter ones, and despite every attempt she made at keeping up, Aubree was near collapsing with defeated tears each time she tripped and fell forward on her scathed knees and torn leggings, the fine white sand powdering the bloodied skin of her palms.
She had never been a very athletically coordinated girl, but she dabbled in yoga and in whatever brutal workout regimens her personal trainer put her through. This whole running-for-her-life thing? Not her style. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dampened the back of her shirt, the sun beat down mercilessly on them from above the cloudless sky. How had this all happened to her? Why had her world suddenly gone bad? In a constant state of frenzied agitation, Aubree pushed out whatever strength she had left in her searing legs, her shriveled lungs clear out of oxygen as she beelined for the trees the way the stranger had gone. In a fit of wheezing coughs, she staggered over a few fallen branches just under a palm’s shade and dropped to her fours, dry heaving weakly. Her arms trembled as she clenched fistfuls of sand, gasping desperately for air. Then, a deafening crash, the rumble of the ground and a few shrill shouts drowned by the sound of the rolling waves. With her face contorted in anguish, Aubree sank back on her knees, turning around to see what the commotion was. Following the man’s gaze, she saw that the airplane had disintegrated into a heap, hardly distinguishable without its upturned wing or its distinctive shape.
There had been people in that airplane. Mothers, nurses, grandparents, someone’s fourth grade teacher. People that were now trapped, dead, fighting to get their last few breaths while they lay trapped by the metal framework of the airplane. Silent tears, carved paths down Aubree’s dirty face, her shoulders still rising and falling rapidly while she regained her breath. It was so surreal to her to have such a close brush with death. Had this man not been there to wrench her seatbelt free, she would have been one of those people, one of those innocent victims. She just about could pass out on the cool sand and never wake up. Her skin was feverish while the shade chilled the sweat on her skin, making for an unkind combination that made her nauseous. No person should ever have had to experience what she just had. She’d seen too much. Neither spoke a word, absorbing the shock that they had been too adrenaline-shot to process.
It hadn't paid to be petty. She had taken off without saying goodbye to her parents, had given them no warning or indication as to where she was going, and now she was missing. When the news reached them, surely it would devastate her father, and her poor mother! Her heart ached with longing for their familiar faces, the love and comfort that their open arms could be to her right then. Homesick and guilty, Aubree was beginning to start spiraling into thinking about how unlucky she was, how stupid she had been to leave in a huff and how this crisis could have been averted, how she could have been oblivious to this airplane crash in the Pacific Ocean and continued living her blissful life. Now, never again would she be able to trust flights, go overseas and visit the many places she loved. No; fear would forever be her companion, she could never be happy again.
Rolling to sit so her back was to the ruins, Aubree’s soft sniffling had turned to grim silence and mourning. The two of them were a pitiful pair, hardly the people they might have been just hours ago. Aubree’s blue eyes dazedly trailed up to the sound of the man’s voice, defeat illustrated all over her features. He didn't seem to like saying things that would make her feel better, but he had confirmed exactly what she’d been thinking. They weren’t in LA. And if they weren't in LA, and there were no tourists in sight to have it be considered as Hawaii, what remote island in the boondocks were they on? Just when she had started to calm down, he had to go on and say more to cripple the faltering optimism she had had that they would get out of this. He had a point, that not a single siren sounded, and no whirring blades of a helicopter chopping whirred overhead. The beach was quiet, seemingly untouched by humans without a single road sign or discarded bottle. Aubree sat up a little straighter, on the verge of another outburst of sobs as she pressed her trembling lips together.
Aubree jumped at his suggestion, surprised that that hadn’t been her first idea and that instead, she had automatically assumed they were goners. Of course. Fumbling for the device she’d forgotten in the thigh pocket of her leggings, she pressed the power button thinking nothing of it. She would call the police, then Google Maps her location, maybe send her parents a text to apologize for what she’d done, then send snapchats to her friends back home of the haunting scene. But, nothing. No bars; the dreaded No Service in the top left corner froze her blood in their veins. “No,” Aubree murmured to herself in denial, flipping to the settings section of her cell phone. There was no connection. What kind of place didn’t have-
With a slow, sinking realization, Aubree sat herself down in the sand again, her eyes faraway. “I don’t have service,” she whispered quietly, tucking the useless device into her waistband. It made sense; there was no sign of human habitation, no buildings that peeked through the skyline, no overhead power lines that snaked into the mountains, no ports, no boats, no buoys, no oil drills- nothing. “We’re gonna die out here, aren’t we?” Aubree began to whimper, feeling no larger than a helpless child. “I want to go home, I don’t want to stay here until someone notices theres’s been an accident-!” She had seen enough news stories to hear about people stranded on boats and islands for days, months even. This couldn’t be it.
The sea breeze carried the scent of melting plastic and burnt rubber up from the wreckage to where the two of them remained beneath the shade of the trees. Johnny was on his feet again, too restless to remain sat down but too shaken to contemplate doing much else. He resigned himself to standing squarely on the sand and grass, arms folded across his chest and head bowed as if in silent prayer. There weren’t any prayers here though, the last sermon he’d heard had been from the minister in juvie and years had past since then. His family had never been particularly religious either, his late mother the only member of the Mulroney family to venture close to a church. Johnny couldn’t recall a single word of the verses she used to recite. Thoughts of her only served to make the gravity of the situation more painful, his mother’s loss had been devastating but with Eliza gone it was taking everything Johnny had not to sink to his knees and fall apart.
Johnny cleared his throat, his eyes burning again as he glanced down the beach. The air was still a haze of thick black smoke, a dirty cloud drifting down the stretch of white sand towards a rocky outcrop in the distance. Nothing on the horizon indicated they were anywhere close to being rescued, no sirens or recovery vehicles, no airborne medics to help carry away the injured. Part of Johnny was still hanging onto the notion that someone was coming, but a nagging doubt in the back of his mind was beginning to make him think otherwise. They should have been here by now…if there was anyone to even come. His eyes drifted skyward, that last shred of hope hanging onto the notion that something might just come flying overhead. He was only greeted by stretching blue skies and the rising smoke from the plane. With a grunt he lowered his gaze and looked to his blonde companion.
She was still sat on the ground nearby, silent - at least until Johnny suggested they try and call someone. He hadn’t been counting on her still having a cell phone and seeing the device there in her hands caused his heart to leap into a gallop. Johnny knelt down beside her, as the girl fired up the device, his eyes on the screen as it came to life. “Is it working?” he asked, his voice shaking. The phone looked relatively unscathed, protected from the dust and debris where had been tucked into her pocket. “Come on, come on, come on,” Johnny murmured in quick succession, watching as the home screen flashed up and the phone looked for a network to connect to. His un-injured hand drummed impatiently against his thigh as the icons at the top screen flashed, until finally…
“Shit-“ Johnny cursed as the no service message appeared at the top of the screen. “Damn it!” He sank back in the sand and then buried his hands in his hair, the cut on his palm smearing blood into the already blackened strands. Clenching his hair for a mere second Johnny let out an exasperated sigh and then dropped his arms by his side once again. “Okay,” he said after a moment. Trying to keep his breathing even. Maintaining a level of calm was becoming more difficult by the second. “Okay, it’s okay. No service. That happens all the time. Maybe we just need to get closer to a cell tower?” Johnny suggested, though the sinking feeling in his stomach made him certain that wouldn’t fix their problems.
“We can take a walk down the beach, see if you pick anything up?” It wasn’t much of a plan, it wasn’t any plan at all. But taking a walk might just give them both something to focus on, something more than how utterly hopeless the whole situation was. Johnny glanced across at the girl as she sniffled once again, more tears carving streaks down her dirt-stained skin. Crying girls had never been his forte, especially not when he himself was torn apart himself. He wondered if she’d lost anyone in the crash, Eliza’s loss was only making him feel numb, the adrenaline was wearing off now and he just felt…empty. Johnny wiped at the sweat on his forehead and let out a shaky breath. The girl’s words sent a shard of ice lancing through his chest but Johnny forced the sensation away as quickly as it had come. “No,” he replied, his voice not carrying near as much strength as he’d intended. “No,” Johnny repeated, firmer this time as he shuffled around to kneel in front of her.
“Look at me,” Johnny said, gently holding the tops of her arms. “Look! What-what’s your name? We’re not going to die here, okay?” His blue eyed gaze met hers with a fierce intensity - a determination to survive and wait it out long enough for rescue. “I’ll bet they’re already looking for the plane right now. There’s systems that track flight paths and - and GPS. They’ll be on their way, it’s probably only a matter of hours - if that.” He almost smiled then, but that nagging doubt hadn’t quite left his train of conscious thought. Rising to his feet before the girl could notice anything amiss, Johnny took a backwards step towards the beach. “Come on, let’s see if we can get any bars on that phone of yours,” he said gruffly.
Her pessimism wasn’t being helped any as soon as the man started to shout at her, raise his voice in swears that she didn’t think she deserved to be attacked with. It only made her feel worse, and the hot tears welled up under her thick eyelashes. His idea to walk down the beach and find signal was one that was lost on her. Once she had committed her mind to a particular idea, it wasn’t likely that anyone could persuade her out of it. They were going to die. On this island. There wasn’t a lick of service out here, and what good would it do if they walked some more? Aubree was torn between curling up on the sand and hiding her face in her knees while this whole thing blew over, vomiting in the bushes, or kicking and screaming at this beautiful boy because there was simply no one else here to take out her frustrations on. The shock was still preventing her from seeing any of this situation clearly, but she supposed that she had a right to be as upset as she was.
The sun was hot, the weather was sweltering and sticky, the brightness was making her migraine worse. To top it, she was bleeding. And, oh yeah- she was stranded in the middle of the big blue ocean on some tropical island sure to be ridden with savages and palm-sized insects. Trembling senselessly, Aubree was having a difficult time controlling her shaky breaths. The more she thought about it the more real their demise seemed, and the scarier this big island got. It didn’t matter that she was here with a hunk of a guy with incredible blue eyes; for once in her superficial life she was concerned with something other than boys and designer handbags. It didn’t matter that her bank account was exploding with disposable funds from her father, or that her manicure had chipped on the ends of her index fingernail. This was real- this was life or death.
The hard-headed bastard he was, the man refused to acknowledge that what she said was true. He dropped in the sand in front of her and shook her by the arms with such vigor that she was temporarily startled out of her sniveling. Wide eyed and terrified out of her mind, Aubree couldn’t stop the waterworks as they trickled down her streaked, unrecognizable face and onto the leggings that adhered to her thighs. He had brought up a valid point that she had hardly considered earlier, and that shut her and the woe-is-me comment she had had ready on the tip of her tongue. Somebody would notice, right? If the movies were accurate, the control tower at the nearest airport had to be going bezerk. A fishing boat crew would see them on the shore, alert the navy. They would be okay soon, right…? There was some sort of high percentage chance that someway, they would be boarding a boat and be wrapped in those emergency blankets, taken back to the states where they’d be celebrated on the news for being so brave…?
Before she could decide whether or not this was so, the man was pulling her to her unsteady feet and insisting that they try again with the phone. Poisoned by false hopes, Aubree nodded meekly and rubbed at her eyes with her dirty sleeve. The two set off wordlessly away from the wreck and down the sandy beach, shying close to the shade for a few hundred feet until Aubree decided she wanted to at least dip her feet in the clear ocean water. “I want to walk by the water, it’s hot and I feel dirty,” she huffed poutily, sliding her unresponsive cell phone back in her pocket. Without the stranger boy’s consent she grasped his hand and veered them away from the trees, the sand becoming progressively firmly packed as they began to step onto damp sand. She stopped, steadying herself with a hand placed on his arm and she struggled to untie a white, sand filled sneaker while standing.
The walk and the picturesque view of the untouched portion of the island was calming her down. With all the carnage and twisted metal behind her, it was becoming a little easier to help her forget their predicament. Eventually, she got both shoes off and let her toes sink into the darker sand. It was therapeutic, almost; it nearly reminded her of her trip last summer to the Bahamas. With the otherwise peaceful and innocent seeming lull of the tide flirting with the sand, Aubree couldn’t resist. Peeling off her cropped, torn sweatshirt and tossing it and her phone in the sand, she turned around with a glittering hope in her eyes that he wouldn’t be the kind of buzzkill she half expected him to be. “Let’s go for a swim, just to cool off? Ple-ease, it’s hot and my ankle hurts, and we walked all the way over here,” she wheedled, using her famous pout and tilt of her head to try to get what she wanted. And who could say no when she was half undressed, right…?
(view spoiler)
