Higher Ground by Becky Black (notion reading list txt) 📗

“I’m sorry. It’s been a strange day.”

“I know. But a good one mostly.”

“Mostly. If only we’d all been able to get away.”

“I know.” Adam sighed. “But we couldn’t, so there’s no point in complaining about it.”

“You’re right. Wishing won’t change things. You do the job in front of you.”

“Don’t be too worried. We’ll move faster with only young, fit people.”

“I feel more singled out now. Before, with Korrie and the doctor to back me up, it was easier. They had the authority I didn’t.”

“You’ve got authority.”

“I have?” He sounded genuinely surprised, and Adam chuckled and ruffled his hair.

“Good thing you’re cute, eh?”

“What?”

“Zach, you were right. What you said would happen, happened. Being right gives you authority. Like Simon. He sent the signal, risked his job, and if he hadn’t, rescue might still be days away. That’s given him authority.”

“And you?”

Adam grinned. “I hang out with you and Simon and bask in the reflected glory.”

“That’s not true,” Zach protested, shaking his head. “I’ve seen the way people come to you and ask your advice.”

“I’m the practical one, I guess. Could call me your right-hand man.” He moved said right hand, stroked Zach’s side, continued down his thigh, and pulled Zach’s leg up to crook over his. “What do you think of our replacement medic?”

Zach stiffened. His whole body went tense against Adam’s side. Could Glyn be the source of Zach’s tension? He’d given Glyn a couple of unfriendly looks this evening.

“I’m sure he’s a competent medic,” Zach said.

“But he’s not Dr. Howie, I know. He’s not one of us. But give the guy a chance. He didn’t have to volunteer.”

“He didn’t anticipate how long it could be for,” Zach said. “He was surprised to hear about the other group.”

“Yeah, guess he missed that. Well, he’s here, and we have to deal with him.”

“You made an effort to make him welcome today.”

“Didn’t I mention it?” Adam grinned. “I appointed myself morale officer.” He laughed at the impatient look on Zach’s face, then swallowed the laugh in a yawn. “Okay, we’d better get some sleep.”

“Okay.”

Zach didn’t let him go when they lay down to sleep. They usually slept pressed against each other—as much for warmth as anything else—but Adam wasn’t sure he could sleep with someone’s arms around him. As he drifted off, he figured they’d both have cramps in the morning.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Zach’s rage had a new target in the morning—himself. He couldn’t believe how badly he’d behaved the night before. He knew exactly what he’d been doing—claiming Adam. Marking his territory like an animal. The fact Adam didn’t seem to realize it only made Zach feel worse about such disgusting behavior.

Trudging through the steady rain didn’t make him feel any better. The drops drummed on the hat he’d brought to keep off the sun, soaking it right through until water ran down his face and neck. The rain could make little difference to the weight of water in the basin so would have no effect on the island’s gradual submergence, but it dragged people down at least symbolically.

“It’s like water is trying to get us from below and above,” Adam said gloomily while they ate a cold lunch, barely stopping for twenty minutes. Then he shook himself, smiled, and went to talk to people, trying to lift them out of their glum mood.

He was good at cheering people up, and when Zach thought sensibly about it, he knew Adam had only been trying to make Glyn feel welcome and part of the group when they’d been talking and laughing around the fire the night before. He’d joked about being morale officer, but that was exactly what he’d become for the group.

As they hiked on over the bare and stony ground, sometimes slipping on rock torn loose by the quakes, Zach couldn’t lift his personal gloomy mood. He wished Adam would come and help boost his morale. Finding out he had such caveman-like depths of unreasoning jealousy had bothered him. He was supposed to be an intellectual. A man of logic and rationality. A scientist. Yet he still felt the ridiculous urge to challenge Glyn to a fistfight every time Glyn even glanced at Adam. He’d been jealous before, if he suspected a lover of betraying him, but never in such a bloodthirsty, primitive way. It wasn’t a pleasant aspect of himself to discover lurking in the darkness. Would he have violent feelings toward Adam if he suspected him of being unfaithful? That would be much worse than such feelings about a rival.

Stop it, he ordered himself. So far, he hadn’t had any such abhorrent feelings and no reason to think he would. He looked back over his shoulder at the group, struggling on up the slope, hiking poles more than mere accessories but necessities, even for the fit young people. Behind them, he could barely see into the basin, visibility poor in the rain.

Were Torres’s group still ahead of the steadily rising water? The quakes weren’t as bad as he’d feared they might be. Perhaps the island was settling smoothly after the initial collapse of the fault. But smoothly or not, it was sinking. It would go all the way down; he’d come to believe that the last day or so. The whole island gone, vanished under the waves as if it had never been there. So if rescue didn’t come back soon enough…

It would. They just had to keep moving.

They were moving, but too slow. The rain and the gloom didn’t encourage speed. The loose screes of rock they had to negotiate slowed them still further. Adam moved away from walking beside Simon and caught up to Zach just as Zach stumbled.

“Careful there,” he said, grabbing Zach’s arm. Once Zach was steady on his feet again, they walked arm in arm for a while. It made balance harder on the treacherous slope, but Zach drew comfort from it.

“Adam, do you think we can get people to move faster? We should be faster. I know