Page 60 of Wrecked
In the last twenty-four hours, we’ve swam several miles while fighting the strong ocean current, hiked a mile through the jungle, put together a shelter, weaved baskets, sharpened spears, and spent the night exhausting more energy than we had to give. We are working on fumes today. Our leisurely pace is betraying the urgency our situation requires.
“What’s on the agenda today, Gilligan?” Ellie asks after draining a bamboo shoot filled with rainwater. The humor of her statement doesn’t match her tone. My girl is spent. Weak. I can feel it within myself as well. The act of surrender claws at my muscles, begging me to yield. Every move I make is less determined than the last, constantly reminding me that my resilience is fading.
I can almost feel the reaper at my heels, waiting, biding his time like the invisible vulture he is. What he doesn’t understand is that I have something more powerful than his promise of death.
I have a reason to live.
After eight years of warfare, she’s finally mine again. The hand of death can scavenge somewhere else. He has nothing to gain here. So long as Ellie is breathing, I’ll be breathing right beside her.
“If you’re Ginger, then I’m putting in my formal request to be acknowledged as the Professor from now on,” I quip. Gilligan doesn’t win Ginger in the end, and there is no way in hell I’ll allow that to happen.
Ellie blocks the sun from her eyes as she looks up at me. She gives me a wide smile and nods her head in agreement. My heart stutters in my chest. The brightly shining innocence of that smile, the almost childlike display of giddiness, is so much like the girl I fell in love with nine years ago. The one who looked at me like I was not only her savior, but her future.
I watch her as she steps out into the ocean. She uses the remainder of the yucca leaves to wash her body, cupping the salty water in her small hands as she rinses off. I can’t help but stare at her ethereal beauty. Nine years since we met in that library, and she still takes my breath away.
Loving this girl is as easy as breathing.
She looks back at me and gives me that wide, innocent smile. The one she’d give me early in the morning, right before she had to sneak out of my house. The one she’d give me right before she fell asleep in my arms.
She’s what forever looks like.
I would give her all of my mornings. All of my sunsets. All of mymoments. Just to see her smile at me like that for the rest of our lives. Like I’m her reason.
Because God knows she’s mine.
She’s not just my reason to live. She’s my reason for everything. For every choice I’ve made. Every sacrifice. Every step I took to get us to this point, even the ones I’m not proud of.
Before I met her, I was going to escape. I was going to leave for school, and nothing was going to hold me back. No connections. No real relationships. I was going to get the hell out from under Nathaniel’s thumb. I was going to be free from his taunts, his fists, his threats.
Then I fell in love with the beautiful girl sitting across the library.
My tutor became my everything.
I’ll never regret it, though. Falling for Ellie was the best thing I ever did, but it also gave Nathaniel a secret weapon. He used the person I loved most to control me, and once Ellie broke free of her family, hekeptusing the people I loved to get what he wanted.
Until I finally beat him at his own game.
He wanted me to be just like him. He just never expected me to bebetterthan him. I never felt greater satisfaction than I didwhen he finally realizedIwas going to win. His life, his career, and chances of political advancement? They were all going to go under with him.
He was too busy digging up dirt on everyone else that he never bothered to properly bury his own.
He created a protégé just like he wanted, but he made a fatal mistake. He turned me into a monster. One he never tried to tame. So, he lost the upper hand. His pupil became the teacher. The monster that was suppressed deep within my soul only had one enemy…and I let it loose.
On the one who created it.
It took me years to unleash myself. To collect the kind of ammo that would ensure my victory. To get everything in order so that I could get Ellie back. So that I could let Katie go. Enough ammo to keep everyone I loved safe.
Somewhere along the way I must have pissed off the fates, because once everything was finally in place, our damn plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
It doesn’t matter. The fates could throw me smack dab in the middle of Antarctica; nothing would prevent me from being with Ellie. Nothing will prevent me from living the life with her we should have had all along. She’s mine now, and nothing is going to change that. Not a bribe. Not a threat. Not a fucking plane crash. I’ll live the rest of my life on this goddamn island as long as I have Ellie beside me.
“Okay, Professor.” She flutters her eyelashes dramatically, lowering her voice into a sultry tone. “What’s on the agenda today?” Her blatant attempt at flirting causes a pretty pink blush to creep up her pale, gaunt cheeks, reminding me how desperately I need to get food and firewood.
“Food, first. Then fire. I need to get you fed and warm.” She raises her brow as she looks down at the sweat dripping between the valley of her breasts.
I roll my eyes. “For tonight, Pip. Direct my eyes there again,and we aren’t getting shit done today.” I smirk, glancing back at those generous mounds that I can’t wait to wrap my mouth around.
She laughs. “What would we be doing instead, Professor?”
