It’seasy to get used to the good life when nothing reminds you of the destruction.
Zion is a different world. The Change seems like some dark distant nightmare.
The island is beautiful. The sun sets behind the green hills that look like Hawaii or New Zealand, and the ocean acquires a pinkish-orange hue. It’s like liquid metal.
Everything calms at dusk, and the center of life is the dining room, which smells of smoke and food. Everyone piles in for food, conversation, and laughter. Even a simple fish fry with salad tastes heavenly.
Dani is quiet as Ty makes her a plate and fusses over her.
Katura is chatting with Zach and Jeok, smiling as she tells a joke, and the guys roar with laughter. Katura is good with guys. And conversation. And finding her way into any company. She wears shorts and a loose surfer tank. Her body is gorgeous, lean with muscles. Barefoot, she looks even more like an Amazon.
I wear a t-shirt and shorts. My shoulders and face are already slightly burned, the skin tingling and scratchy with sweat and salt.
It’s easy to get used to the good life when nothing reminds you of the past.
But my past is here.
He is tattooed head to toe, and no matter how much I try to keep my eyes on the plate as I sit between Maddy and Katura, I glance up at him.
He never smiles. Barely talks. But the bitterness burning between us is almost tangible.
And then the darkness falls. The solar lanterns light the area that becomes a small happy world. The dining room is cleaned up, and everyone drags chairs and blankets toward the Common Lounge, where a stone fire pit on the sand is lit. The bonfire illuminates almost two dozen people who settle around it.
“Where is Bo?” I ask. Because the only people missing are Bo and Kai.
“Probably, the workshop. Kai doesn’t like fires. Especially bonfires,” Ty explains, flicking a glance at me as he and Maddy arrange a row of cups on the sand and open jugs of brown liquid.
The accident. I nod. I remember the story.
“He hardly ever comes for these. But here you go.” Ty nods somewhere into the distance, and I see Kai and Bo emerging out of the darkness, walking in our direction.
My heart is a treacherous whore, because, despite the bitterness, it starts pounding in Kai’s presence like there is a secret switch that he flips.
“Try this.” Ty pours us glasses from a big jug, and Katura and I take a sip.
“Oh!” Katura smacks her lips. “Homemade beer?”
“Yeah.” Ty smiles. “We buy it from town. It’s dirt cheap.”
I nod toward the jug that has thePura Vidalogo. “So this place used to be a resort.”
“Yeah. One of those new-concept self-sustainable ones. Tons of solar panels. But a lot got destroyed by the hurricane a year ago.”
Katura leans back in her chair, feet crossed at the ankle. “How often do storms happen?”
Ty sits down on the sand next to Dani’s chair and pushes his blond hair back. “Every several months. Small ones. The hurricane season starts in June. That’s when occasionally it hits big.”
“June?” Katura cocks an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Soon.”
“Hmm.” Katura tilts her head. “What are the chances of this entire village being wiped out just like those overwater bungalows?” She nods at the bare beams sticking out of the water at the shore.
Ty only stares at her as he takes a gulp of beer.
You don’t need to be a meteorologist or an expert to know that a big hit can destroy this place. And people.
As if to distract us, Owen asks about the Change and how it started.