Chapter Four-The Crash

Chapter Four  - Remy

Jane's head rested against my lap while I stroked her dark hair from her face. After thirty minutes of realization that ended with screams, rants and cursing, she fainted onto the sand.

I knew it wouldn't be long before she broke down. At first, nothing seemed real. Not the crash, the situation or everyone's deaths, but the little girl crying broke through Jane's shield and everything spiraled afterward.

She moved after a few minutes, looking up at the darkening sky. "Where are we going to sleep?" she asked.

I glanced over at Taborie sitting on a broken log, sharpening what looked like a rock into a spear. 

"We need to make a shelter. Do you want to check on the little girl while I start? Are you okay to get up?"

She stood with shaky legs, pulling at the men's sweat pants I talked her into changing into, since our clothes were soaked. "I'm fine."

The little girl sat with her back to us, staring into the river where she screamed her family went swimming. I couldn't imagine the trauma she'd endure from seeing this, but she needed to eat which we hadn't had any luck with.

Taborie stood when I made it to him. "Is she okay?"

"For now," I said, running my fingers through my sweaty hair and glancing around at the vast forest. "We need to get some shelter going. It shouldn't be too cold but cold enough to make a fire. Do you know how to start one?"

"Dry wood and time," he said.

That was true but we didn't have too much time on our hands, the sun was getting low.

I gave Jane a glance before walking toward the wooded area surrounding us. She sat beside the little girl on the riverbed, saying something I couldn't make out.

They both looked frail and dirty. Jane met my gaze over her shoulder and I pointed toward the woods to let her know where we were going.

"I actually need to do something first," I said.

Taborie nodded. "I'll be over there," he said, jabbing his finger over his shoulder. "We need to watch for snakes," Taborie said. "It's summer and there are deadly vipers here."

"Got it."

I walked toward the hollowed out sequoia trees where I'd laid their bodies. I mentally blocked out their faces while I started digging a hole. I forced myself into tunnel vision, and dug deeper with my hands, feeling the rough dirt and rocks tear at my fingertips.

Tears pooled in my eyes, but I wiped them away. There was no time for crying. I needed to be strong and get us through this.

"Jesus."

I turned to see Taborie standing above me. "Dude, you don't want to do this alone."

He bent down beside me, continuing digging a second spot. We dug in silence while I fought back tears at burying my best friend. God, what would Mrs. Johns do when she found out?

Taborie helped me put their bodies in their makeshift graves and cover them the best we could with leaves. It was a shitty job, but hopefully, they wouldn't have to stay there long before we were found.

I stood up and stared down at them.

This was messed up.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Thank you for helping me."

"We're in this together," he said, offering me his hand.

I took it, feeling numb on the inside. Taborie led me in the opposite direction and I was glad for it.

The woods consisted of tons of giant sequoias and a variety of pines and oaks. We settled for a group of random baby trees because everything else was too big to grab their branches.

Taborie snapped down several trees and hauled them over his shoulder. "I take it you and Jane know each other?"

That was an understatement.

"Yeah, we were on the same class trip."

"Wow," he said. "You guys were on a trip with college students? How many didn't make it?"

I shrugged, trying not to think about my classmates that didn't make it out. "Maybe fifteen of us total."

Taborie frowned, wiping the muck from his forehead, he headed toward our makeshift camp. I stayed behind to gather more trees and random leaves for coverage.

They had to know we never made it to the airport by now. We were only a few hours away from making our destination when our engine failed.

What had Lucas said? One in 1.2 million? What kind of bad luck did we have?

Taborie and I carried trees and leaves for hours until the sun was so far down that we couldn't see. Jane carried the little girl on her shoulder, shivering because the drop in temperature.

There was no way we could get a fire going that night, so we'd have to rely on body heat to keep us warm.

Our hut looked lopsided and probably easily destroyed, but it was better than exposure to the elements.

"I'm going to lay with her," she said softly, stroking her hair. The moonlight gave us just enough light to see one another up close. "Should we be okay without a fire?"

"We'll have to be," Taborie said. "We need sleep. Tomorrow is going to be brutal."

Jane didn't move. "Are we going to be found?" she asked after a long minute. "They have to know we didn't make it today, right?"

Taborie didn't answer, maybe he didn't want to make promises he couldn't keep, so I stepped forward. "Everything is going to be okay," I said.

Lie number one.

Jane crawled inside, lying the little girl down on top of some old clothes and random leaves, then lying down beside her. The hut was big enough for all four of us to lay but definitely touching.

Taborie took the spot next to the little girl, leaving the spot next to Jane opened. She didn't move when I slid in beside her, but tensed at my touch.

It felt normal for her to be on edge around me, especially since the kiss weeks before. Jane ignored me since it happened, hiding out in her apartment while I longed to get a glance of her during class or around campus. It pissed me off.

We needed that closure, or a second to ourselves to talk about what happened. Now I didn't see a time coming where it'd be appropriate, considering.

"Where did you bury them?" she asked into the silence.

"How do you know I did?" I asked.

"Because I know you wouldn't have left them. Where?"

"I'll show you tomorrow."

"How did they die?"

I didn't think the information would help her sleep, or in our current situation. I'd prayed she wouldn't ask, but she wouldn't be Jane if she didn't.

"Do you think knowing would help you?"

She didn't answer right away. Instead, she turned her back away from me, which didn't help at all having her ass pressed against my dick. Her hair still smelled like her shampoo—cinnamon and apples.

Truthfully, Ash had the worst of it being alive and pinned down by her seat while she bled to death. Jane couldn't live with knowing she'd been right in front of her best friend while she screamed for help behind her.

I didn't wake up in time to save either of them. Ash told me one thing before she died in my arms—love her. I knew she meant Jane, but it wasn't that easy, was it?

Lucas was gone before I woke up. The water got to him before us, and he drowned. Ironic since he was a swimmer. The one thing he loved more than Jane was the thing that killed him.

Taborie saved himself, which was fitting for his character now that I knew him a bit. Jane sat in her seat, head slouched against the headrest, her ankle stuck between the seats in front of us but nothing else looked out of the normal.

I wouldn't tell Jane any of those things because I loved her enough to know it'd break her.

***

The night turned cold enough for us to shiver and use each other for heat. The little girl had the best of it with being tiny enough to tuck into Taborie completely.

Jane shivered into the night, finally losing her pride, she tucked herself into me, our legs intertwined as if we'd spent the entire night doing other things I dreamed about.

When the sun hit I got up and went to take a piss, examining our surroundings, noticing tracks close to our camp. I couldn't make them out but some animal was around us—too close for comfort.

A fire should help scare them away.

Jane was up when I got back. She stood in front of our hut, arms wrapped around her waist and staring at the rushing river.

"You feel okay?" I asked, which was a stupid question.

"Fine," she said. "I can't get the little girl up. I can't even get her to tell me her name. I don't know what to do." She looked over at me, tears in her blue eyes. "I'm not a mom."

"No one expects you to be. We'll get her to eat today. She won't starve herself. I'm going to work on making a fire, maybe try to catch us a fish today for protein."

She fiddled with the bottom hem of some stranger's shirt she wore. "They have to find us, right? I mean—they have a way to track where our plane lost contact."

I stepped toward her. "We'll be fine, Dove. We just need to be strong."

Jane turned and left me after a couple seconds of watching my mouth. She had to feel crazy on the inside. With the memory of how she tasted and felt in my hands—along with the blindsided crash and our friends deaths.

Nothing made sense.

I found a long sturdy stick in the woods, and used the sharpened rock to strip a thick piece of bark off it, and tied the arrow to the end, making a shitty spear.

I grew up in Dallas, but we fished with poles not spears. I didn't know any other option we had. Taborie made his way to me soon after. "Looks decent," he laughed. "I'll try to start a fire if you want to start trying to catching something."

"I'll give it a shot, no promises."

I walked along the riverbank until I found a spot where the water was clear enough to see a few stray fish. I stepped into the icy river, and waited.

The fish were quick, and maneuvered easily through my attempts at catching them. After what felt like hours, I heard a twig snap behind me.

I jerked. Jane stood at the edge of the woods, staring at me with a worried look. "Catch anything?" she asked.

I let out a breath of frustration. "Hell no," I spat, wadding back toward the bank. "It's hard."

She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear, she sighed. "Taborie got our fire going, so that's good."

"Yeah, at least someone did something productive today."

I wasn't one to feel sorry for myself but I felt like shit not providing anything for us. I ran my palm down my face, and closed my eyes.

Jane scoffed softly, and I found her giving me a dirty look. "What?" I asked.

She shrugged, looking small in her overly large clothes. "This isn't the time to get into your feelings about not being dominant or providing, Remington. No one expects you to be good at this."

"Says the girl that just cried about not being a mom."

"She's a human being."

"Yeah," I said stepping forward. "And I'm trying to help keep these human beings alive."

Jane looked down. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm just scared."

It showed all over her face. "It's okay. We're not ourselves out here. We'll probably go through a lot of emotions."

Jane turned to look back at the woods. "Can you show me where they are buried?"

"Yeah," I said. "Follow me."

We walked through the vast forest toward the place Taborie and I buried them.

Jane stopped several feet away. "Which one is which?"

"The left is Ash, the right is Lucas."

Jane nodded absently. The minutes ticked into fifteen or so before she looked down at her bare feet. "Why wouldn't you let me tell him?" She turned to face me. "You knew I was going to tell him, didn't you?"

God.

"This isn't the time. You're grieving."

"Tell me," she shouted, shoving my shoulder with her opened palm. I felt her pain inside, but I wouldn't let her treat me like shit, because this crash wasn't my fault.

"Stop it," I said. "It was a selfish thing to do, Jane. Why would telling him moments before his death be fair to him? You wanted his last thoughts to be about me and you kissing? About how his best friend secretly loved his girlfriend for years?"

A tear slipped down her cheek.

"I'm not selfish for wanting to confess my sins, Remy. I didn't want him dying believing a lie."

"What lie was that?" I asked. "The lie about why you weren't answering your phone?"

She turned red in the face. "That I loved him!"

Someone sucker punched my gut. Jane didn't love Lucas? I couldn't imagine why she'd stay with him for over two years if she didn't love him. Was that why it'd been so easy for her to kiss me back?

That night replayed in my brain like a song. Her soft moans and full mouth my favorite part to reimagine repeatedly. I'd sat in my shower back home with the thought of her while I hammered one out like a thirteen-year-old boy.

"I can't live with this guilt, and now I can't get rid of it. If that's selfish, so be it. Why didn't I just tell him when I had the chance? I had so many opportunities."

"You think you're the only person that has guilt, Jane? I lusted after you for years, before Lucas even knew you existed, and I never told him the truth. When he asked if he should go after you, I said yes. I have regrets just like you, but now isn't the time to dwell on them. We're stranded on this damn mountain and you're starting shitty fights with me. You're not mad at me, you're mad at yourself. You could have told me to stop. I asked you if you wanted me to stop."

Jane balled her hands into fists and shoved my chest again, but I caught it this time.

"Don't take your frustrations out on me. I'm hurting too," I whispered.

Jane cowered into herself, palming her face with opened palms, letting out a hiccupped cry. I wanted to be there for her, hold her like she deserved but I didn't.

She raced out of the woods, leaving me there with the remains of our life back in Dallas.

I took my time going back to camp. The little girl sat near the shelter with a bag of chips in her hand. At least she ate something. Taborie poked a stick into the fire and perked up when he saw me. "No luck?" he asked.

"None. I couldn't even get close."

"Can I try?" he asked.

"Sure. I think I'm going to go walking, maybe I can find a small snake. I think I remember how to make a trap out of a rock from Boy Scouts."

"Sounds good."

Taborie went toward the river but stopped. He wrapped his shirt around his head like a bandana to block the heat of the day. "Everything okay? I heard y'all yelling and now she's crying."

I hadn't noticed Jane sitting by the water.

"Everything is fine."

Taborie gave me a knowing look. "Maybe we can talk about it later? You want to tell me how y'all really know each other?"

Was it that obvious?

"Maybe later. Now, let's try to feed us something other than packaged chips." I glanced at our makeshift pile of food and frowned. We only had two bottles of water and one bag of chips left.

I searched the sky, praying for a sign of an airplane or helicopter. Nothing.

After two hours of hunting for something to eat, I found a green garden snake slithering up an oak tree, and I caught it by the head, crushing it underneath my boot. It was small, but something to help our hunger.

It took all my might to ignore the way my stomach screamed at me, but focusing on it only made it worse. In Boy Scouts, we learned how to setup a trap by using a rock, a healthy stick and berries from a nearby tree. Rabbits loved small fruit and the small red berries were the only thing I could find.

It was worth a shot.

The sun sunk lower over the mountains when I arrived back at the campsite. Jane and the little girl looked wet as if they'd taken a dip in the river, but the little girl sat by her instead of crying.

I dropped the snake by the fire pit, drawing Taborie and Jane's attention. "It's not much, but we can savor a bite or two each. Did you catch anything?"

Taborie frowned and held up a medium sized crappie. "Maybe with the snake we'll have enough to get us by for tonight."

"Sounds good," I said, impressed he caught anything. "I sat a trap for a rabbit, it's been a while since I practiced using them, but it's worth a try."

Taborie and I spent the next hour cleaning the fish and snake, and cooking it over an opened fire. The snake had little meat, but we split it all up amongst each other.

The little girl made a face when Jane handed her share toward her. "I don't like it."

"You've got to eat," I said.

She stuck her tongue out at me, and despite the situation, I laughed. To see her true colors made me feel better about her health.

"This is Sarah," Jane said.

Sarah hid her head against Jane's arm.

"Just try it," Jane said.

Sarah took the fish and a bite, slowly she started to eat and her spirit lifted as the night grew.

The tension thinned, and I felt my body relax. The sun beat me down, so I couldn't wait to get into our shelter and sleep.

I stood when I felt a drop of rain hit my head. Before anyone realized, the skies opened up and a thunderstorm rolled in.

"Oh no," I mumbled, looking over at the lightening on the mountain.

Taborie and I began moving our shelter toward the fire as fast as we could, but the rain put it out before we finished.

"How are we going to get the fire started with no dry wood?" Jane asked.

"We're not," Taborie said.

Sarah yelled at the thunder and crawled inside of the hut. Rain seeped inside, soaking the covers and sand where we slept.

Jane sniffled, but braced her shoulders. She passed me without a word, her shoulder brushed against my chest and she crawled in behind Sarah.

Taborie gave me a look before following suite.

When I crawled into the hut the sound of a wolf reverberated from the distance.

This wasn't going to be easy. I had a gut feeling that things were going to get worse.