Romance: The Billionaires Collection (Watched By A Billionaire, Stranded With A Billionaire, Caught By A Billionaire, Billionaire Stepbrother) (17 page)

Two days pass, and I hardly have time in the day to get
everything done. I split my time between tending to Flint, trying to
finish the raft, trying to weave makeshift buckets and bottles to
store water, fishing for food to eat and keep for our voyage.

It's almost too much, and I have no time to take a break
or even think. And suddenly, after spending months here in such
leisure, hardly noticing the days go by, I'm working to a deadline
that I might never meet, and one that isn't even clear.

I wash Flint's wound regularly, bringing fresh howls of
pain from his lips, but still it grows clear that infection is
setting in. And for all his innate knowledge about survival, neither
of us have any true medical knowledge to help us, beyond basic first
aid.

So, I wash his leg and hope for the best, hardly
sleeping as I tend to him and spending each day under the scorching
sun, fishing, weaving, crafting the raft.

After almost a week, I can't wait any longer. Flint's
condition is quickly worsening, and soon he's in an almost perpetual
state of incoherence, his body beginning to lose its ability to
function.

He lies in the shade of the hot and humid shack, his
wound festering, his body covered from head to toe in sweat. And as I
tend to him at night, I begin to think that all I'm doing is watching
him die.

So I make a decision. Without sufficient provisions for
a journey lasting any longer than a week, and with the raft hardly
even seaworthy, I decide to cast off and leave this island for good.

This island that has been both a paradise and a prison,
that's kept us alive but wouldn't let us leave. I know, when I float
off on that raft, that it will be bittersweet, but I also know that
now, my hand has been forced.

If I don't leave now, Flint will definitely die here.
So, I have no choice.

It's morning, and dawn has only just cracked through the
horizon, the sky turning a strange color of purple. Flint stirs in
the shack as I go to the raft and pull it, inch by inch, down the
beach. It's a struggle, alone, but I manage it eventually.

The wooden logs hit the water, and the raft floats
confidently above the rippling waves. Through the glass window that
was once part of our plane, I see fish glide effortlessly about,
mocking me from their own world. I fasten the raft to a rock in the
sand, and load it with the rations and provisions I've managed to
gather.

Then I go to the shack, and see Flint lying on the sand,
delirious, his fever overcoming him fast.

Don't give up on me Flint...

I try to rouse him, try to get him to stand, but he's
not with it. I pull him by the arm, trying to drag him out of the
shack, but I hardly make any progress. He's on his last legs, and I'm
sure he's going to die soon.

The thought cuts into me, and I pull harder and harder.
And as I do, I hear a distinct crackle of thunder behind me. I turn,
twisting on my heels, and look out onto the ocean. My heart sinks at
the sight of dark clouds quickly forming in the distance. A flash of
light rips down from above, and moments later a rumble of thunder
vibrates through the island.

I keep pulling on Flint, frantically trying to wake him,
to get him to move.

“
We have to go now! Now!”

I shout, but my voice is drowned out by a sudden
downpour of rain. And that's when I see it. I turn, look out to the
ocean, and see the raft drifting away on the wind, broken free from
its leash.

I drop Flint's arm and start running toward the sea,
diving in as it begins to rage. But it's no use.

The raft is gone.

And I know then that Flint will die in a matter of days.
And once he has, I'll voluntarily follow...

Chapter Five

That day I fall into the deepest despair.

The storm grows more forceful and more violent, the
black clouds quickly swirling into a ferocious monsoon that seems to
grow louder and more aggressive with each passing hour.

Rain clatters down onto the roof of our shelter,
pummeling through the canopy of palm tree leaves above. The deluge
pounds harder and harder, and it seems as if the entire island might
be engulfed in water. As if we'll both drown on dry land from the
sheer volume of rain.

I lie down next to Flint, the island shaking with a new
rumble of thunder every few minutes, the sky growing so dark it seems
like it's night. Intermittent flashes of thunder light up the opening
of our shack, and the thunder follows so quickly that I know we're
right in the middle of it.

It all comes so fast I'm hardly able to think. If I'd
have managed to get us onto the raft only half an hour before, we'd
have been immediately swallowed up by the ocean as it begun to rage
and froth.

But still...we're going to die here anyway. Maybe it
would have been worse to just get it all over with. Not suffer the
long, drawn out death that is going to inch its way toward us.

Flint still lies in the throes of his fever, unable to
communicate as his body fights the infection. He groans and mumbles,
his forehead beading with sweat, crinkled in pain and suffering.

The sight brings tears to my eyes, seeing him die in
front of me and knowing that I'll soon follow. That I won't want to
live here alone, without him, with nothing to hope for and nothing to
look forward to.

I start to wish that I had been killed in that plane
crash. That I'd never woken up on this beach, my life sparred by
fate, only to have to suffer this sort of end instead.

I think of Benjy, who never would have seen his own
death coming. Who hit his head on the window pane and never woke up.
A quick death, not the protracted torture I'm going through.

His eyes would have closed like mine, but he didn't wake
and I did. I wish, now, that I could have just joined him in that
final journey into death. That I didn't have to see it coming, day by
day, slowly moving toward me like a stalking lion.

The day wears on, and I can do nothing but lie here,
next to Flint, wiping the sweat from his head. He continues to stir
and twist and turn, his body in turmoil, trying to battle against
death, trying to preserve his mortality.

All I can think of is how tough he is, how hard he's
fighting. How weaker men would have succumbed by now, their lights
extinguished. But not Flint. He keeps on resisting to the end, a war
against a force he can't hope to beat.

Gradually, the storm starts to fade, and the sky starts
to clear. The powerful bashing of the rain on the roof of the shack
weakens, and soon there's nothing but a light trickle that eventually
turns silent.

I step out onto the sodden beach, the sand soaked
through and dark, and see the blackness of the storm retreat into the
distance, ready to torment another island. Above, the blue sky comes
out one last time, and I realize how late it is when I see the
position of the sun, arching its path down over the horizon.

The light fades, and I watch as the moon takes the sun's
position in the sky, and the stars come out one by one. I look up at
them like I did when I first came here, marveling at their brightness
and concentration.

There are thousands of them, millions. Too many to
count. Every inch of clear sky seems to be filled, the unpolluted
skies offering no mask or veil for the celestial lights above.

They shine down gloriously in the aftermath of the
storm, and I wonder if there's a more beautiful sight in the world.
And I think that maybe, just maybe, dying won't be so bad if I get to
go closer to them. If I get to transfer my soul to a higher plane
where there's only beauty and joy and none of the suffering of this
world.

I sit under the night sky for a while, already feeling
like the loneliest and most solitary person in the world. My body is
invaded by an overpowering need for human contact, knowing that
Flint's light will go out soon and I'll be left here, all alone.

So I return to the shack, into the humid pestilential
air inside, and lie down next to Flint once more. I wipe his head of
the salty sweat, and kiss him on the cheek, and his eyes crack open
in a moment of lucidity.

He looks at me, eyes clearing, and I break down for the
contact. His eyes turn shallow, and he lifts his hand to me and takes
my cheek in his palm. I fall into his chest, and cry hard, and we
stay like that for a few moments, locked in what might be our final
embrace.

“
Help me outside. I'd like to see the stars.”

Flint's voice is weak, croaky. He's hardly spoken to me
for days now, locked down by his fever, unable to break out. I look
in his eyes and see them clearing, and help him to lift his weight
off the palm leaf covered floor.

His leg, still locked in the rudimentary splint, hangs
lose under the light dressing I found in the first aid kit. Nothing
else remained inside, however, that would make a difference to him.

He hobbles out under my shoulder, and we reach the
cooling night air. I set him down onto the beach, and he lies down on
the wet sand, cooling his body right through.

“
It's beautiful,” he says, looking up at the stars.

I lie next to him in his arms and nod, silent tears
rolling down my cheeks.

“
How's the raft coming?” he asks weakly. “You need
to escape this place, when I die.”

There's an acceptance to his words, as if during his
fever he's had time to come to terms with it in the recesses of his
semi conscious mind. There's no fear, no brittleness as he speaks.
Only a sober tone of reality. He knows he'll die.

“
The raft is...”

I take a breath, and decide not to tell him the truth.
Not to tell him that the raft is gone and that I'm now stuck here,
soon to be alone, the most solitary person in the world.

“
It's coming along,” I croak.

“
Good. I can't bear the thought of you being here
alone.”

The tears stream harder and I feel his weak arm grip me
tighter.

“
Promise me, if you escape, that you'll go see my
mother and tell her all about this. Tell her I love her, and I'm with
father now. Will you do that?”

I nod, but can't speak. My voice wouldn't work now.

We lie for a time, a silence dawning and the weight of
the world crushing down upon us. Together we stare up at the stars,
the salty tears still running from my eyes, and I try to hold onto
this moment together. Try to remember it so that I can take it with
me to the afterlife.

Eventually, Flint croaks again, his voice whispering in
my ear.

“
I love you, you know that Lib?”

Now I turn, and I see that his eyes are wet too.

I kiss him, our lips moistened by tears, and know that
it's the first time anyone has ever said that to me before.

“
I love you too,” I say back, cursing the world for
giving me this perfect man only to take him away again.

And then I lie against his chest once more, and moon
continues to drift across the night sky, and eventually, my eyes
begin to close.

I try to stay awake, try to preserve this moment for as
long as possible, never knowing if I'll wake to find Flint dead, my
head resting on his lifeless body. And then I think that maybe it
will be best if neither of us ever wake up. If we could go together,
hand in hand, from this world.

Waves of exhaustion now hit me. The frantic day I spent
trying to get everything ready suddenly catching up with me. The
emotional turmoil inside now settling and flat lining as my eyes
slowly draw shut.

My unconscious mind takes over, and shows me images that
I try to keep back in my sleep. I see the plane again, see Benjy
sitting across the aisle, a smile on his face, excited for what the
future might bring.

I see Flint, sitting in his suit at the back of the
plane, surrounded by people. He's the master of all he surveys, the
king of the castle, but on this island he's just a man.

A man I've fallen in love with.

And those peaceful images soon turn dark, my mind intent
on tormenting me. Refusing to let me sleep calmly as I had been for
many months until Flint fell from the tree.

It returns to the early days of my tenure here. Those
days when I was scared of everything and my mind replayed the crash
over and over again each night, waking me in the darkness not knowing
where I was and who was lying next to me.

Those horrible nightmares return to me now, the sound
and smell and sight of the plane as it lost control in the storm
dominating my thoughts. And I hear people screaming, and lights
flashing, and know that I'm going to die all over again.

And soon those flashes of light get brighter. So bright
that they consume my vision, and I think that maybe I'm being taken
to heaven. That maybe through sheer will I've left this earth with
Flint, unwilling to part from him.

I then I hear voices, and I hear a chugging sound, all
of it blurred and indistinct. They grow nearer, more intense, and the
bright light in front of my eyes continues to burn.