Page 23 of Drift: Willa & Koy

A nearly empty bottle of rye was still cradled in my arms from last night, the pain throbbing between my temples nothing next to the excruciating agony in my foot. It was propped up high, my swollen ankle blackened to a color that turned my stomach when I looked at it. At some point in the night, I remembered being sick and when I spotted the bucket on the floor beneath me, the fuzzy memory resurfaced. I winced, wishing I could erase it.

Koy blinked, eyes finding me, and he immediately left the window, coming to my side. He took the bottle from my hands, pushing the hair back from my face.

“You slept.” He looked down at me, hand stalling on my forehead a beat too long, like he was checking for a fever. “Can you move it?”

Again, I glanced at my foot, cringing. “I don’t want to.”

“Okay. That’s okay.”

I turned my face to search the post, looking for Ailee.

“She’s checking in with theWellworthy.”

“You should be doing that,” I croaked, my throat like sand.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You can’t just—” I tried to swallow back the tears springing to my eyes. This was a mess, all of it. “One of us has to be out there, handling things.”

“Raef is discharging the ships that are leaving and doing intake for the new ones.”

I looked at him. “New ones?”

He nodded. “Two more came in last night.”

“I hope they don’t need repairs.” I pressed a hand to my sweaty forehead.

Any other time, the comment would have been darkly funny. But here, curled in this hammock like a child that needed tending, I was only humiliated. The very thought made the tears spill over and I wiped them with the back of my hand angrily.

“Where’s Bruin?” I rasped.

“He’s gone.”

I didn’t look at him, because I didn’t want to know exactly what those words meant. Maybe he’d banished him from the island. Did he have the authority to do that? Or maybe he’d gotten rid of him some other way, like West had done with Crane.

Koy’s eyes traveled over me before landing on my foot. His mouth opened and closed before he finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Willa.” He breathed. “I had to.”

I reached for him, pulling on his shirt until he was close to me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him thank you or tell him that he’d saved my life in more ways than one. I couldn’t form the words to say out loud that when I’d seen him on the docks, I’d known I was safe.

“I know I should have listened to you. I should have dealt with them months ago,” he said, the words faint.

Maybe he should have, but I wasn’t convinced this wouldn’t have ended the same. There were those on the island that needed the change, like Speck. Then there were those who would die to prevent it. Jeval was a simmering pot, just waiting to boil over, and it finally had.

“Say it.” I smirked through my tears.

When he caught my meaning, he smiled sadly. “You were right.”

“I’ve never heard you say that before.”

The tension uncoiled itself from around him and he laughed, a sound I now found myself craving. When my eyes landed on the bundle on the floor behind him, I lifted myself up onto my elbows.

“What is that?”

Koy turned to look at my hammock. It was piled in a heap in the corner.

“You’re moving in here,” he said, not even an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

“What?”