Knockdown (29 page)

“Wow!” I said softly. I gawked
at what had been lying beneath all the supplies. A giant bag of dog food sprawled across the bed. It was large kibble, the pieces too big for Boots, but we could break them up. The bag would keep Boots fed for a year.

“Wh
o found the dog food?” I asked.

Zoë
answered from behind the closed door of their cabin. “Dylan did… Ouch! Well, you did.”

I chuckled and
searched for a place to stow it.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Freezing, Four Days to Go

Takumi, Jervis, and I stayed on deck for over five hours that night. The fire made it easier, but I was chilled and exhausted when I finally went below.

It
had snowed again, hard. I hung my frozen coat and gloves in the shower. Nick and Makala slept soundly next to Angelina. I didn’t see or hear Boots, but knew he was under the covers somewhere.

I tried to be quiet wh
en I roused Nick for his shift. Angelina woke up anyhow.

“How are you feeling?” I whispered.

“Fine,” she replied, but then moaned with pain.

“You don’t sound fine. Do you want another pain pill?”

Boots stuck his head out of the blankets. I covered both he and a sleeping Makala back up.

“Do you think I should?” Angelina said. “Don’t people get addicted to those?”

“If you need one, you should take one. It will help you sleep and heal faster. Besides, there aren’t enough on
board to support any type of habit.”

“Okay then, if you’re sure. But can you help me to the bathroom first?”

I held onto her from her good side. Any movement to her shoulder hurt. Without warning, the boat tipped way over. I grabbed an overhead railing with one hand and tried to hold Angelina with the other. She swung around me and slammed against the wall. Angelina groaned and closed her eyes. I don’t know how she kept from screaming.

When the boat righted, I managed to get her to the bathroom and back to bed without
damaging her further. I panicked when I saw her dressing had started to bleed through.

I called for
Zoë to get up and check Angelina’s bandage. She had a knack for wrapping it so it stayed on tight. Something I didn’t seem able to do.

While I waited for
Zoë, I helped Angelina drink a glass of water.

Zoë
and Dylan stepped out of their berth. I showed her Angelina’s bleeding bandage. She calmly nodded and opened up some fresh bandage material. I was so grateful for Zoë’s extra medical supplies. What we had on board would already have been used up.

I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t really damaged Angelina. Zoë didn’t think the bleeding was serious. I started breathing again.

Zoë went to the sink and washed the blood off her hands. She shoved her hair under a stocking hat, glanced up the steps, and shuddered. “Is it still snowing?”

Jervis
passed by and shook his coat. Ice droplets flew in the air. Zoë squealed.

I shushed her.
“It snowed lots. We stayed up five hours so you could get some sleep. We’d appreciate the same.”

Zoë
sighed and opened the canvas flap to the outside. Cold air poured down at us.

“Close the flap! Close the flap
,” Jervis and I whispered.

Takumi came down and peered over my shoulder. “You look good in the galley.” He nuzzled my neck and pulled me close.

I yelped. “You’re freezing.” His coat was covered in snow and his hands were icy.

“You’re no fun!” He grinned and headed to the bathroom to shed his gear.

Jervis climbed over the mattress to check on Angelina. She grimaced as he put an extra pillow under her head.

“
Zoë just changed her bandage. She bumped the wall on the way to the bathroom and reopened her wound.”

For the next three days
, Makala and Boots snuggled with Angelina in the main cabin. Angelina needed someone to hold her in place when the boat rocked from side to side. Nick and Jervis took turns lying beside her. After a while it didn’t seem strange at all.

Makala
managed to sleep while rolling back and forth with the rhythm of the boat. Boots snored.

I had a bedroom all to myself. At firs
t I was thrilled, but it was cold. I missed Makala and Boots’ warm little bodies next to mine.

After one long and extremely cold shift, Tak
umi stood in my bedroom doorway shivering. “Can I come in? I’ll leave the door open.”

His manners made me smile. He climbed on the bed and wrapped one of my blankets around himself
.

“
Look what I found.” He showed me a deck of playing cards.

“Cards?”

“Do you play?” he asked.

“Sure,”
I giggled. So much for romance.

We propped up on pillows and
played Go Fish and then poker. I always seemed to lose. For some reason, I found that terribly funny.

“Hush,” Jervis came to the door. “You’re waking Makala and Boots.” He closed the bedroom door behind him.

Takumi and I gazed into each other’s eyes. My face burned. He pulled me close, and gently kissed my forehead, my nose, and then my lips. My arms wrapped tight around his neck. I held him close and kissed him back. Our bodies pressed together. Our kisses grew deeper. Soon we were gasping for breath.

Takumi rolled over on his back, taking me with him. “I should go
.”

“No, don’
t.” I whispered. “But… I can’t, not here…”

“I know. I’ll
hold you.” Takumi pushed a strand of my hair aside. “I just want to be with you.”

“Then
I think we should try and get some sleep.” I kissed his cheek and rested my head on his chest. His heart was beating fast. “We only have a couple of hours before we have to go back out there.”

He sighed and stroked my hair. I tu
cked the covers in around us and curled up beside him. It took a long time for our breathing to slow down.

And then m
y bedroom door crashed open.

Dylan stormed into the room, still wearing his ice
covered jacket. “What the hell! Takumi, you’re a dead man.”

Takumi and I bolted up from the bed. Dylan’s face was purple with rage.

“Dylan, stop! Nothing happened,” I cried.

“She’s only sixteen. Sixteen!” Dylan bellowed.

“We didn’t do anything,” Takumi yelled back.

I crawled across the bed until I was close to
Dylan. “Look at us. I’m wearing two pairs of sweats and three pairs of socks. Do we look like we just had sex?”

He shov
ed me aside, his eyes glued on Takumi.

“Stop it
, Dylan.” I grabbed a handful of cards and started flicking them at him. “We,” flick, “were playing cards,” flick, “and fell asleep,” flick.

He batted the cards away. “Knock it off.” He was calming down.

“I left the door open. Jervis closed it,” Takumi said.

Dylan glared at
me and then Takumi. “If you go near her again, I’ll….” Dylan held his fist in the air.

“Dylan!” I yelled.

Takumi stood directly in front of Dylan. “Look. I care about Toni. I know this isn’t the time or place to risk, to risk, you know...”

I was relieved
. Takumi understood.

Dylan
closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped and he turned and walked away. I didn’t know what to think.

For the next few days Takumi and I played
cards, read, and kept each other warm. The door was always open. Dylan clearly didn’t like it, but never said another word.

We were making good time.
Dylan insisted we stay far out from shore. It meant we couldn’t see the coastline and we didn’t know exactly where we were. He guessed we were around the middle of the Oregon Coast.

It was so cold at night we
could only stand three-hour shifts. During the day, however, we could handle six hours at a time. None of us got enough sleep, but without the barbecue fire, we couldn’t have done it at all.

As least once a day
we dropped our sails to pick up supplies of wood. I often started the engine so we could charge the batteries. I only left the engine on for fifteen minutes at a time, but we were able to turn on the furnace for those few minutes. Jervis made sure some of the dirty laundry was washed and hung the pieces over the heat vents to dry.

We took turns charging our phones
when the engine was on, too. Fifteen minutes wasn’t much, but if we kept them mostly off it was enough. Dylan and I had our own chargers. Everyone else had to share Mom’s universal charger. Somehow Zoë’s was always the first one being charged.

Since Angelina was
out of it, I started monitoring the radio whenever we had power. The first thing I did was to call the channel Angelina had called for the Coast Guard Commander. I hoped maybe they’d help us. But no one was monitoring, or at least responding to it anymore.

T
he first week, the President’s message was the same one we’d heard after the tsunamis. The second week, the President announced that some cell towers were up, Mexico had closed its borders, and refugee camps were being erected in the southern parts of the U.S. and along the border.

Americans were being shot sneaking in to Mex
ico. Scientists disagreed on how long the sun would be blocked. The northern states were becoming a frozen wasteland. The cold was spreading south.

The
only good news was that some cell towers were up. I wished she’d mentioned where.

T
akumi brought out fishing poles and we all tried fishing. Makala loved to fish, although all she caught was seaweed. Takumi praised her and saved the seaweed to add to his meals.

On
the second day, Takumi hooked a couple of small cod. We cooked them over the barbecue that evening. It was the best meal we’d had since we’d shut off the fridge.

Angelina grew stronger every day.
“I think it’s time Makala and I went back to our cabin. We’re in the way here on the floor.”

I
had to smile and nod in agreement. But, inside, I was devastated. I loved the alone time with Takumi. I loved sleeping wrapped in his arms. Who knew when we’d find a place to be alone again.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ice, Three Days to Island

The seas grew rougher and rougher. I ordered Makala to stay below. Boots had to be leashed or held. We attached long ropes from our life vests to the lifelines. Sea spray covered the deck and froze. Icy snow blew in our faces, making it hard to see.

Every once in a whi
le we got a glimpse of land. Steep, high cliffs poked through the dark mists.

Dylan drove us
out, further away from the mainland. Angelina and Makala moved back into my bedroom. I stayed on deck a lot.

I’d
come off shift feeling like a Popsicle. My body wouldn’t stop shaking. I climbed in bed with the girls and tried to coax Boots into snuggling with me. He wanted none of it and ran around the bed, staying just out of my icy reach.

Makala had gone back
to dressing him in the scarves Zoë had given her and was pretend-reading picture books to him.

Angelina slept through all the activity
. I realized she’d been sleeping most of the day. In the dim light, her cheeks looked flushed. I reached over, felt her forehead, and flew out of bed.

“Angelina has a
fever,” I whispered to Jervis, who huddled in his sleeping bag.

“
A fever?” Fear flashed across his face.

We stared at
each other. My heart thumped in my chest. I found the thermometer in the first aid kit. Angelina had a temperature of a hundred and two. She had an infection. She needed an antibiotic. She needed a doctor.

I glanced at
Zoë and Dylan’s closed cabin door. “Zoë has to have something in that bag of drugs that can help Angelina. I’m going to see what kind of medicines she has in there.”

Jervis
rolled out the sleeping bag, dampened a washcloth, and hurried to Angelina.

The boat listed. I hung on tight to the overhead hand rail. Hand over hand
I made my way through the main cabin to the v-berth that was Zoë and Dylan’s bedroom.

I was surprised how clean and organized
their room was. The bed was even made. I began opening cupboards and closets. Finally, in an overhead storage bin, I found the pillowcase of pills.

I dumped t
he bag out on the bed. There was container after container of prescription drugs. I picked up one and read the label. ‘
Xanax
.’ I recalled seeing TV commercials about it but still had no clue what it was for. I was about to read another label when I felt a presence.