Free Dream Sky by Brett Battles Page B

the sea.”
    “Yeah. Pretty much what I was thinking.” Pax leaned on the railing next to Robert and watched their wake for a few minutes. Then he said, “Thanks for coming to get me.”
    Robert made no reply.
    “You, um, you going to be okay?” Pax asked.
    “I doubt it.” A pause. “But who is really ever going to be okay again?”
    “True.”
    Silence.
    “Have you ever killed anyone?” Robert asked.
    “I have.”
    “Do you…remember it?”
    “Every night before I go to sleep.”
    Robert nodded. “I guess I have something to look forward to, then.”
    Pax put a hand on Robert’s back. “You did what you had to do. If you hadn’t pulled the trigger, he’d have killed you, and then maybe killed me. If that had happened, this boat would still be heading in the other direction.”
    Robert said nothing for a moment. “What about the plane?” he asked. “It should be there now. What are they going to do when we don’t show up?”
    “My satellite phone’s still on the bus. Didn’t want these jerks getting ahold of it. We’ll call when we get to Limón. They’ll be there.”
    “What if they’re not?”
    Pax allowed himself a tiny smile. “They wouldn’t dare leave me behind.”
    It was nearly midnight before they arrived back in Limón and were able to retrieve the sat phone. For a few minutes, Pax received no answer from the plane. Then, after at least a dozen attempts, he was greeted with a groggy, “Hello?”
    As he’d hoped, the plane had not left. Pax set a new rendezvous time for late the next morning and signed off.
    “Well?” Robert asked as Pax put the phone away.
    “Like I said, still here.”
    They took twenty minutes to motor back to the small tugboat dock at the auxiliary port where Robert had left the fuel truck, but instead of filling up then, they decided to call it a night. They were both exhausted, and didn’t think they could make it across to Isabella Island until after they’d had some rest.
    They moved the now conscious Luke down to the lower passenger area, where Aiden and Kat were. With Pax holding the gun, Robert untied Aiden from the bench they had strapped him to, undid the bindings around Luke’s wrists, then moved back over to the stairs.
    “Listen up,” Pax said. “We’re going to be spending the night here, so that means we’re going to lock the stairway door. You all will need to make yourselves comfortable right here.”
    The two men looked annoyed but not surprised. Kat, on the other hand, looked terrified.
    “Please,” she said. “Please don’t leave me down here.”
    Her message was directed at Pax.
    After a few seconds, he nodded. “You can come with us.”
    “Thank you,” she said, all but jumping up from her seat.
    “What the hell?” Aiden said. “If she gets to go up top, we should be able to, too.”
    “She never held a gun on me. Just be glad we’re letting you sleep here and not throwing you over the side.”
    With that, Pax, Robert, and Kat headed up the stairs. Once back on the main deck, they shut the door and secured it with a rope that even the most talented escape artists would have a problem removing.
    Pax pointed Kat to a bench near the rear of the passenger area.
    “If you try anything, we will desert you,” Pax told her. “Do you understand?”
    “I won’t. I promise,” she said. “You know I won’t.”
    “Good. I just want to make sure we’re clear.”
    “We’re clear.”
    Pax relaxed his stern expression. “I want to trust you, Kat. You know I do. But given what happened, that’s something you’ll have to work very hard to earn.”
    She nodded but said nothing, and then sat down on her bench.
    Robert and Pax moved to the other end.
    “Maybe we should take turns standing watch,” Robert said.
    Pax glanced back in Kat’s direction. “She’s not going to be a problem.”
    “I hope you’re right.”
    Pax lay down on one of the benches and closed his eyes. “Me, too.”

January 6 th
     
    World