#Book 3 - Page 48 (2/2)

“Stay with me,” he said through the clank of his s.h.i.+vering teeth. “We’re almost out of the woods.”

I closed my eyes. I could hear him fiddling around. Then the roar of the engine, the boat shuddering under its surge. I heard Dex run across the deck and haul up the anchor from the front of the boat and then disappear below deck.

He came back up and I found myself being covered with a million blankets. He tapped me lightly on the cheek until I opened my eyes.

“Hey. You need to stay awake. I can’t put you downstairs yet. It’s warmer there but you might fall asleep and not wake up. OK? Stay with me.”

I nodded slowly. He tucked the blankets around me. He was wet too, s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably. I wanted to tell him to cover himself up but I couldn’t form the words.

He got behind the wheel, put the boat in the highest gear and motored it away. The more we picked up speed, the colder I got. The wind was brutal.

Occasionally Dex would check on me, shake my leg, to make sure I was still conscious.

Finally I felt him slow the boat down, heard him flick a switch and come out from behind the wheel. He picked me up, the blankets falling away, and took me downstairs.

The heat was going full blast and the lights were all on. In a dream–like state I noticed my iPhone lying on the table as he took me into the front bedroom. He had shut the door so the room was the warmest.

He lay me down on the bed, brought out another pile of linen and sleeping bags from the closet as well as a bunch of towels.

“I don’t care if you think this is inappropriate,” I heard him say through s.h.i.+vers. I turned my head and saw him stripping down to his boxer-briefs. His body was s.h.i.+ny and translucent from the cold, every inch covered in automatic convulsions. He came on top of the bed and started to pull my jacket and top off.

“What?” I mustered.

“Trust me,” he said. He took off my boots and pants as quickly as he could until I was also just in my underwear. Then he lay down beside me and pulled all the blankets and towels over us. He pulled me right up to him and wrapped his arms and legs around me and held me tight. I was too sluggish to protest and I knew I wouldn’t have anyway.

He held me until I started to feel again. At first it was the s.h.i.+vering, then the terrible never–ending cold. Then we both began to calm down. The heat between us was warming us over, trapped beneath the blankets in the warm room.

I was able to think more clearly. I was able to feel my body parts again. I was very aware of his bare skin on mine. I looked up at his face. He looked relaxed, relieved, but didn’t loosen his grip around me. Our mouths were close. His breath smelt like salt.w.a.ter.

“Who is driving the boat?” I whispered carefully.

“Autopilot,” he said, looking into my eyes. “I’ll go up and check on it in five minutes.”

I closed my eyes and brought my face into his neck, burrowing it. He cupped his hand behind my head and held it there.

“We made it,” he murmured.

I started to cry. It was all too much for me to take. It always would be. I didn’t know how much I could keep going.

“I’m scared, Dex,” I mumbled between sobs.

“I know.”

“I don’t…I can’t live like this. Why do I have to see these things? Why do they come after me? What is it about me?”

“We are putting ourselves at risk by doing this…”

“No. It’s always been like this. I know it has been. I feel like I can’t tell what’s a dream. What’s real. I’m going crazy. I have to be. What if all the world is inside of my head?”

“It’s not, Perry. It’s not.” He held me tighter.

“What if I really am alone?”

“Baby, you aren’t alone. I’m here.”

“I’m so scared. I don’t want to see these things anymore. It makes me want to tear my brain out. I don’t know what’s real. How can I tell what’s real anymore? What’s real, Dex? Tell me what’s real.”

He put his hand on my face and looked at me with the most magnetic, impa.s.sioned spark in his dark eyes. “I’m real. This is real.”

I closed my eyes in grat.i.tude, my heart filling up, the warmth radiating out from there and soaking up my nerves. He kissed my forehead and pulled me back into him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Is your phone charged yet?” Dex asked me.

We were sitting in a late–night diner in the outskirts of Victoria. It was 2 a.m. and the place was empty except for an old man who nursed a cup of coffee at the counter.

We must have looked like quite the sight. We were both dressed in Zach’s leftover sailing gear; the blue and red vinyl h.e.l.ly Hansen suits were the only things left on the boat that were dry. It looked like we had come in from an epic, wild sailing race and in some ways, it was kind of true. Luckily, the jackets were so long on me that they covered up the c.r.a.ppy bandaging job we did on my wrists from Dex’s car’s first aid kit.

After our body temperatures returned to normal, Dex went back up top and steered the boat back into the marina. It didn’t take long at all. It was amazing how close the island really was to civilization, yet when we were there, it was like another world altogether. A world made up of humanity’s darkest misdoings and the most shameful nightmares of our souls.

As soon as we docked, I ran to the sh.o.r.e and literally kissed the ground. I was so overcome with so many different emotions, but the strongest one was just transcendent relief. We really had made it. We were back in amongst the living and we were alive ourselves.

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