Page 32 of Totally Wrecked
“No. The emergency beacon in the raft will have started automatically when it deployed, though.”
“But we’re not with the raft,” Harvey pants.
“Yeah.”
We all look at the tiny dot of orange raft on the horizon. Wherever the rescue services track that raft to, it won’t be anywhere near where we are.
“Nothing to do but let the current take us where it will,” I say.
“The others are in the same current,” Killian says. “Brooke and Leander will look after Keyara.—maybe we’ll see them.”
“Yeah, at least we’ll all be heading in the same direction.”
The flame-engulfed ship is just a speck on the horizon now. I’m aware of how low the sun is in the sky as well. Night is falling and we are floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no land in sight.
???
Hours pass, and Killian and I take turns keeping Gray’s head clear of the water. Harvey doesn’t say anything at all.
The moon gives a soft light, so we can still see a little. But all I see is that I’ve lost my people—again.
DAISY
Now the sun has completely disappeared, I look around me, but there is nothing to see except miles of inky sky and dark ocean. I can’t believe how much my head is pounding. The beat of my heart sounds in my head, as though each beat is someone banging the inside of my skull with a mallet.
I blink a thousand times, and then look between Keyara and Leander.
It’s quiet. Considering the disaster we’re in, it is so quiet. I’ve never been in a real catastrophe before, but I’d always imagined cries and booms, crashes and yelling. I guess we had that earlier, but now it’s just silence.
I had no idea how quiet it could be, out in the middle of the ocean. The noise of the sea comes from crashing on a shore. It takes an unmovable mass to make the ocean noisy, and Keyara, Leander, and I are most definitely not an unmovable mass. We are at the will of the current.
A while ago Leander had started coughing, then speaking deliriously he’d called out for Rex.
“REX, MY FEET! MY FEET!”
Then Leander passed out again, but at least now his breathing isn’t so shallow. Keyara floats in a life-ring. The other is around Leander’s body, so his neck is resting on the hard plastic. I’ve tied their rope to my wrist, just in case I fall asleep or something. I’m really trying not to fall asleep.
“Brooke?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Is Uncle Rex dead?” Keyara speaks for the first time in hours.
“There was plenty of time for him and the others to get off the boat and into the life raft. They will have signaled for help. I imagine they are now drifting like us, waiting for the rescuers to come.”
“Why can’t we see them then?”
“I guess they’re too small to spot. Or the current took them in a different direction.”
“Brooke?”
“Yes, honey?”
“I'm scared I’ll fall asleep and drown.”
I move my grip on the ring so our hands are touching. “You’re tied to the ring, just like me. Get on your back like Leander, then rest. I’ll keep close watch.”
She does as I suggest, and soon her eyes are closed. My mind drifts to my family. If they were with me, Dad would have probably made a sail and rudder by now. He’d be snapping out orders. Brooke would be swimming hard, pulling the rest of us with her sheer strength. Mom? She’d be sitting quietly, waiting for her next orders. Mom was a very good foot soldier in Dad’s army. And me?
