Page 91 of Austen

Steinbeck, where are you?

He watched as the boat burned, a carcass of flame on the water, the pilothouse falling in on itself, cutting the vessel in half.

And nowhere in the flames did Steinbeck surface.

TheInvictusfinally sank, the flames quenched by the ocean, only debris remaining to flicker like stars on the water, until it, too, died.

He finally dragged himself into the lifeboat, lying on the bottom, his hands to his chest, breathing hard.

And then it was just Declan and his lifeboat and a sky full of stars floating over the great, hungry alone.

* * *

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Those words circled Austen’s brain as she lay in the bottom of the lifeboat, the dawn cresting in through the nylon roof, heating her body.She’d survived, so far, a day, a whole night, and into the next day on the ocean.She was still alive.

At least, in body.

The raft came with a survival pack.A box of nutrition bars and pouches of water.She had enough rations for three weeks if she spaced out the nutrition bars and drank sparingly.

She’d also found the EPIRB and activated it, so hopefully anyone with an AIS-equipped vessel would see her.And maybe the EPIRB had transmitted her location to the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite.

Rescue might be on the way.

Now, to wait.And wait.

And pray.

And try to get the fire out of her head, her heart.

Her soul.

She’d spent most of the night singing hymns to herself—“Amazing Grace,” “How Great Thou Art,” “To God Be the Glory,” and “Amazing Love.”

She hummed that now.“Amazing love!How can it be that you, my God, should die for me?”

But her brain just kept moving back to the moment when she’d seen Declan’s boat explode.

The sound had thundered across the water, her own screams echoing into the darkness as she realized that Steinbeck and Declan were somewhere caught in those flames.She’d watched the boat burn, watched the fire take down the navigation tower and the bridge, and finally, sink the vessel into the dark ocean.

No.

No.

She wept as the night crested overhead, and finally circled into herself and simply sang.Because she didn’t know what else to do, and it felt like if she just kept singing, then itcouldn’tbe true.None of it.

She wasn’t lost at sea, again.

She hadn’t just seen her brother perish.

She hadn’t spoken those terrible words to Declan.

So she lay there on the bottom of the raft with her arms wrapped around herself, curled up as the waves tossed her hither and yon.

Mostly yon.

Somehow, she fell asleep.And Margo sat there beside her.In the raft.It didn’t make sense, but there she was.

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