Chapter 50: Fiji
Nine days.
Cam repeated that to herself as she climbed over slippery rocks, checking for fish in the tidal pools. Nine days until they were rescued. They would just have to survive nine more days.
The knife had, indeed, been priceless. With it, she'd been able to sharpen the points of sticks into arrows, cut herself a bow, and at just that moment Shana was back in their seaside cave pulling feathers from the two fat ducks Cam had managed to shoot down. The meat would do a lot toward their calorie count for the day, and while she couldn't risk going back to those berry bushes, where there was one there could be more elsewhere on the island and she would just have to look.
Shana was still groggy and out of it, and while she was spending more and more time sleeping and less time in the drugged delirium, the fact of the matter was that she was still delirious part of the time, delirious and begging for the drugs that had put her in this state, and Cam couldn't leave her while she was like that. Several times she'd heard the sound of human voices filtering down to them from the holes in the cave roof and had to quickly grab Shana and put her hand over her friend's mouth until she was sure that the owners of those voices had gone past.
She was slowly starting to develop a mental map of the island as she rambled over and around it. It was quite large for a private island, she guessed about twenty acres or so. The main residence, where the house was, was at the very top of the mountain peak that made up the island, with a basement (the library) and a sub basement (the cells) sunk deeply into and carved out of the rock of the mountain itself. It was roughly teardrop shaped, and there was some sort of fishing platform at the northern tip of the island, which just affirmed Cam's belief that the woman who had given them the knife had been telling the truth about the cameras. And it made sense that the east side of the island would have cameras too; that was where the huge stretch of sandy beach was.
The water was fairly shallow almost all the way around the island except around the fishing platform at the north face; the white sandy bottom was easily visible in the crystalline water, which was part of the reason why Cam thought they were pretty close to some tourist resorts. She'd seen several large boats, more like pleasure yachts, out on the water several miles away from the island; too far to hail, but for some reason the sight of them was oddly comforting; it was a sign that life went on, outside of their own troubles, and managed to put some perspective and keep her from sinking too deeply into despair.
She still wanted to try their luck with the log; as Shana got better incrementally each day, she could see how their escape plan might work. The other island out there seemed to be closer to the deep water than this one, and deeper water meant the tourists' water sports would come out farther. All they had to do was be able to reach that other island, and from there they could maybe flag one of those pleasure yachts and go home.
But even if they didn't manage to flag one of those boats they could still look forward to rescue in nine days. They just had to survive for nine days.
She carefully skirted a pool that she knew held sea urchins and headed for the rocky outcropping that hid the mouth of their little cave. Sea urchin spines were poisonous, even if the animal itself was good eating; she didn't dare risk incapacitation, not with Shana at less than a hundred percent and depending on her for food, so she hadn't even tried to catch one of those, although she had marked them as a possibility. She just wanted to explore other options first.
She reached the end of the rocky part of the shore and was about to step out onto the sandy beach when she heard voices. Instantly cautious, she ducked behind a rocky outcropping and watched as a large white yacht pulled up at a small pier at the very end of the sandy spit. Her eyes hardened as she saw Damien Kennedy step out of it and onto the dock, and her fingers itched for her bow; she had arrows, she had a working bow (although she couldn't shoot as far because she'd rigged a bowstring from elastic cannibalized from the elastic waistband of the pants she and Shana had been wearing. Braided and doubled, it made a tolerable bowstring, good for short distance shots; this shot was short distance, and it could be easy—she could easily hit him at this range even with the crude weapons she held.
The problem was that even if she hit the SOB there was no guarantee that she would kill him. And that was what scared her. If she wounded him but didn't kill him, her death, and Shana's, was certain. No, better not to even risk it. His people were obviously looking for her and Shana, best to not leave any trace of their presence. Let him think they had somehow found a way off the island, let him go chasing that possibility while they hid in this cave under his house.
But if he was back, then the search of the island was going to intensify, and it wouldn't really be safe to ramble around it in broad daylight. She was going to have to limit her foraging sessions for dawn or twilight and night, and stick close to their cave during the day. Not that that was a hardship, her father had taught her long ago how to navigate in darkness, how to feel with her fingertips. She was confident she could manage.
She watched Kennedy stroll down the dock. Stroll, not wheel himself in his wheelchair. She wondered if he even really needed the wheelchair they had first seen him in, or if he just used it as a way to manipulate people. He obviously had a lot of money—it took a lot of money to buy your own private island and staff it and keep it running, and added to that the fact that he had paid a quarter of a million US Dollars to buy both her and Shana from the market just fed into that perception, along with the mansion and this private yacht. She didn't put it past him to have used people's perceptions of his disability to acquire the hefty fortune that having his own private island demanded. Where she hated pity and despised the way people looked at her once they knew about her past and her scars, he relished it, used it. And she despised him for it.
His voice carried on the slight breeze down the beach as Hans approached. From this distance she could see his stooped, slight figure, his thin face and dead-black hair, and even from this distance he gave her 'the creeps'. "Hans. Have you found them yet?"
"No, Mister Damien. We have had men looking everywhere but we haven't found them yet."
The frustrated tone carried downwind, making Cam smile in vicious satisfaction. "This island is twenty seven acres surrounded by water. There is no way on or off since I take my helicopter and my yacht off the island when I leave. None of my employees have ever managed to leave unless I gave permission. How did two naked slaves manage to evade my best hired people?" He blew out his breath. "Do you have any idea why you haven't found them yet?"
"One of the men thinks they may have tried to swim for the other island over there," and Hans indicated the island Cam, had been eyeing. "He says they could have pushed a log into the water and then paddled with hands and sticks over there."
"They are slaves, Hans! They aren't that smart!" Kennedy said roughly, and Cam gritted her teeth in anger. She and Shana would show them. They would escape. And as Kennedy walked off the dock and through a door in the cliff face, where the other side presumably had a lift that would take him up into the main part of his house, Cam's lips curled in a small smile.
He'd left the boat.
"Shana. Shana, come on, I think I found out ticket off here." She had to shake Shana firmly to wake the redhead up, but she was positive that Shana would be able to handle this. All they had to do was get down the beach to the yacht, scoot aboard, and start the boat. They would steal Kennedy's own yacht to escape—it would be fitting justice.
"What…" Shana was dazed and dizzy. Cam understood, and sympathized; at this stage of recovery Shana was exhausted from the fight her body had just gone through and had little energy left for anything. However, the need to escape was too strong to ignore.
"Shana, it's Cam. Come on, wake up. Please." She had to fight to keep the pleading note out of her voice. "We gotta go, Shana, come on!"
"What…Cam…leaving?" Shana couldn't even form a complete sentence, but Cam figured out what she was saying.
"Yeah, we're leaving. It's not safe for us here anymore, Shana. Kennedy left the island for a few days but now he's back and he's pissed. He's going to turn the island upside down to find us and he's not going to stop until he does. But he parked his boat at the end of the pier on the beach and I figure we can probably steal it." She didn't have the foggiest idea how to drive one, but she was positive she'd figure it out. And after all, it wasn't like she was entering a boat show or anything; they just had to get to the next inhabited island.
And they'd be free.
The tide was coming in; they just barely fit under the rocky overhang over the water, and Cam half-supported, half-carried Shana down the beach. There was a spot there where the sand sloped upward to meet the dock, and she used that as a 'ramp' to get up on the dock after a quick glance at the door in the rock, making sure it was closed and no one would come out of it at the last moment. Then she made a mad dash for the end of the pier, hoping against hope that their cameras wouldn't spot her until she and Shana were on board—because she KNEW there were cameras on the boat, the dock, the pier—how could there not be? A man who would look at two women as slaves, as toys, as things, would certainly have cameras trained in the possessions that truly mattered to him; his luxury yacht, his private helicopter, his cars (if he had any.)
She gritted her teeth as Shana's legs buckled, dumping her against the railing of the boat as Cam tried to scramble onto the deck with Shana almost a dead-weight behind her. 'Stay with me, Shana, please, stay with me," she whispered urgently. "Just a little longer, Shana, please, just until we're away from the island!"
Shana must have heard her on some level, because she fuzzily tried to get her knees under her. With a superhuman effort and a strength of will Cam didn't know she had, she managed to get both of them off the deck and down into the wheelhouse. "All right. We're out of sight. How do I drive this thing?" she stared at the wheel in frustration. "Keys. There have to be keys somewhere. Come on, where would someone put the keys?" She pushed aside navigation charts, maps, assorted paperwork on the table in the middle of the wheelhouse and finally found the keys on a shiny keyring under the a map fo what looked like the island. "All right!" She crowed triumphantly as she palmed them, and turned to stick the key in the ignition.
And froze.
There was a man behind her, standing halfway up the shallow steps that led from the wheelhouse to the decks below. And he had Shana in a headlock, with a gun barrel pressed to her temple.
"No!" The anguished cry slipped from her as she realized that Shana was completely out. Unconscious. Unable to put up a fight, or help herself. "Shana, wake up, please, wake up!" she screamed helplessly. "Shana!"
"She's out of it. She's not going to answer you." The man said; unnecessarily, because Cam knew it was hopeless as tears slid down her cheeks. They were so close—so damn close, if she could just reach the bastard she could knock him out or kill him, and they would be on their way home—but even as she thought that, her eyes measuring the distance between herself and the gunman, she knew there was no way she would reach him before he pulled the trigger, and her shoulders slumped in defeat as she put the keys down on the wheelhouse table.
"Pick up the redhead bitch," The man gestured with the gun, and Cam obeyed even as tears flowed faster. She'd failed; failed Shana, failed Snake Eyes, failed herself and Charlie, and it stung. Despair and disappointment cut through her like a knife as she grabbed Shana's arm, slung it over her shoulder and stepped out of the wheelhouse. The gunman was barely two steps behind her as she walked out onto the deck, then down off the deck to the dock. Shana was a dead weight, and she was progressing slowly, so it wasn't a surprise to her when the door at the end of the dock in the rock wall opened and she saw Damien Kennedy step through and stand there, glaring in the bright sunlight.
"How did you evade my men for three days?' He hissed at her, his eyes alight with furious anger, the calculating anger of an angry cobra. "How? What are you, that you could evade us and manage to hide my property from me for three days?" He raised a hand, snapped his fingers; the door behind him opened again, and this time Hans and Rosa came out with a gurney between them…and Rosa held a needle. Cam cried out in inarticulate protest as they grabbed Shana from her, hauling her onto the gurney and strapping her down roughly, then Rosa slammed the tip of the needle into Shana's arm and injected her with the drugs. Moments later, the tormented grimace on Shana's face smoothed into a look of peace as she slipped into a drugged daze; she made no movement, no protest, as Rosa and Hans tightened the straps holding her down and then took the gurney back through the door, leaving Cam alone to face Kennedy.
"I cannot punish her," Kennedy said, his voice trembling with rage. "But I can punish you." He grabbed her arm roughly with one hand, grabbed a fistful of cloth from the front of the shirt she wore, and stripped it from her. She kept her spine straight, face impassive, refusing to show shame or humiliation at her sudden nudity.
"Bitch," Kennedy said, her impassivity apparently enraging him even more. "Bring her," he snapped to the man who had caught Cam and Shana on the boat, and turned and led the way through the door in the wall.
Inside, Cam could see Shana already strapped down to the steel medical table in the corner, drugged and unconscious. She was given no time to reflect, however; the man dragged her over to where two tall posts stood upright on the concrete of the floor maybe about four feet from the wall farthest from the cells she and Shana had escaped from. Kennedy held a gun on her as the guard went about tying her wrists tightly, one wrist to each pole, with her back to the room and her face to the wall; once she was bound securely and unable to escape, Kennedy pulled up a chair and sat down with his back to the wall, looking into her face. Cam tensed as she heard the sound of leather thongs whistling through the air.
"You will whip her until she passes out," he told the man, then addressed Cam with a cold, cruel smile. "Feel free to scream as loud as you like. I will enjoy every minute of it." He nodded to the man standing behind Cam. "Begin."
The first stroke against her bare back made her go rigid in her bonds, breath hissing between her teeth. Goddess, but it had been so long since the last time she felt this pain, she'd forgotten exactly how much it hurt. She braced herself, hands gripping the ropes that bound her to the poles, and leaned back, trying to remember all the lessons she'd taught herself when she was a captive of her aunt and uncle. Breathe. Accept it. Don't fight it. Accept it. Breathe.
The mantra helped her withstand the pain for a while, but not even she was proof against it for long. Eventually it grew too much, and she started to whimper, then to cry, then to screaming as the pain grew beyond her ability to bear. Exhaustion took over, and she could no longer even stand; she sagged limply in her bonds, her body rocking with each blow, as the whip rose and descended, again and again and again. The scarred skin on her back broke, bled; she felt the blood trickling, and in the few moments as the guard rested his arm she wondered dazedly what she would look like when they were done.
She tried to keep in mind her pain acceptance mantra, but soon she couldn't even hold onto that. Nine days, was her next thought, but the agony, overwhelming as the whip cut the scarred skin of her back, made it unlikely that she would last nine days. Not like this. Her only hope, as darkness finally claimed her, took her away from the wreck of her body and the white-hot pain in her back, was that she hoped they would bury her somewhere on the island. Or even if they just threw her body in the ocean; the chip implanted next to her scalp would still lead the Joes here, and Shana would still get out. It was this last hope that made her smile as blackness wrapped velvety wings around her conscious and took her away from the agony.
Kennedy stood as the body of the scarred slave slumped in its bonds, its own weight yanking down against the ropes on its wrists. He'd enjoyed watching her pain, enjoyed watching her fight the pain until she couldn't keep her cries back anymore, until her will finally broke and she screamed in agony.
He crossed the room now to where his slave, the Testarossa, lay strapped to the table with her legs apart. The hole had apparently been taking care of her; she was clean and dressed in castoff clothes from the laundry, and had eaten something—berries, likely—given the stains on her lips and fingers. "Take those clothes off her," he ordered brusquely. Then leave them here for tonight. I'll attend to them tomorrow."
