Chapter 17
Triton
IT TOOK TIME, BUT ONCE we both finally felt recovered, Ashley and I returned to the pool once more to clean up, splashing each other again. This time, the companion that had been thrust into my life kept laughing instead of bursting into tears.
Even if I wouldn’t admit it, I hadn’t had any idea what to do when she started crying. Women were a mystery to me—they always had been, my mother included. And as many deadly missions as I’d been on, facing a woman crying so hard she couldn’t even speak had left me feeling completely out of my depth.
But she had crumbled. She’d fallen asleep, and then we’d woken up and had more amazing sex, and now she was right beside me again. That spoke to a depth of strength that, if not surprising, was admirable.
Our underthings were soaking, but that was all we had, so we trooped off to explore the island. I’d given Ashley the option to stay behind, but I’d seen her convulsive swallow and the way she’d taken a step closer to me. She had made an excuse that she would just get bored sitting around, but I’d seen the truth behind her gesture.
Even if I knew she didn’t want to be away from me in case the terrorists found the island, it still made me feel good that she wanted to be close.
In the daylight, there wasn’t much to the island. It was small, small enough it took us only the morning to traverse it, although the going was slow without shoes. Much of the island, as I had suspected, was close-cropped grasses and other low-to-the-ground plants that wouldn’t provide us with much. We didn’t see any animals, at least at first sight, although some could still be hiding in holes in the ground or the rocks. Still, in such a remote location, that wasn’t a given.
Across the island from where we’d landed, there was even less vegetation, the windward versus the leeward sides, where one side was lush, the other bare. Not that I would have called the foliage on the windward side dense, but at least we had trees and grasses. Here, the soil and weather conditions meant the vegetation was sparse and close-cropped, clinging to the dark ground.
We found several marshy areas on the lowest part of the land, close to the beach. Though we didn’t find anything to eat or hunt, the spots did have high grasses, moss, and an odd collection of low-slung red flowers glistening in the sun. When I went for a closer look, it looked like each red tendril on the green paddle-like leaves had a bead of dew on the tip. It was the strangest plant I’d ever seen.
But Ashley's hand shot out and gripped my wrist when I reached for it.
“Don’t touch that,” she said when I looked back at her.
“Why not?” I straightened.
“They’re carnivorous.”
“What, like a Venus flytrap? They eat bugs?” I watched the plant dubiously.
“Yes. The stuff that looks like dew? That’s what attracts and traps bugs and then breaks them down.” Ashley gestured at the plants.
“Breaks them down?” I didn’t know I was making a face until Ashley began to laugh. I was annoyed, but the sound was a bright cascade that made something in my chest flutter.
“How did you know that? Aren’t you a marine biologist?” I asked as we moved away from the marshes.
Ashley shrugged. “It’s all biology, and some plants are more interesting than others.”
“What would happen if I touched it?” A glance over my shoulder felt silly, but I felt like the plants would be reaching tendrils towards my back if I didn’t.
Ashley shrugged. “Probably nothing—you’re not an insect. But if you touch them enough, or enough of them, it might cause some gastrointestinal issues.”
“Oh.”
That was good to know.
The island was volcanic in nature, with black rock scattered on the ground and an enormous mountain-like hill rising from the middle that had either been a part of the volcano, or a massive emission from one, possibly lava or the cap. What had taken us half the morning to climb around took us another hour to climb to the top of. As we climbed, I helped Ashley over the rough spots until we reached the summit and stood staring out at the view.
“Wow.”
Ashley’s words echoed my thoughts. From this height, we had a 360-degree view of the island and the surrounding ocean. The undulating blue stretched for miles and miles in every direction, meeting the horizon so there was very little to indicate where the water stopped and the sky began. It was one disconcerting sheet of blue and gray with the occasional whitecap or cloud.
Far, far in the distance, I thought I could possibly make out the island from which we’d come, but I couldn’t be sure with the haze.
I’d been in similar places, mainly carriers in the middle of an ocean where you were the only thing for miles, as though the land had never existed. But on a carrier, you had other people, machines, beds, food, aircraft, a mess hall, and even access to the Internet. You were never alone, and it was never, ever quiet. If nothing else, the engines were always running.
It was disconcerting to truly see how far away we were from civilization and everything we’d ever known—we were entirely alone.
Beside me, Ashley wrapped her arms around herself, again echoing my thoughts. She had turned her face towards the southwestern horizon, wishing she, too, could see Japan somehow.