Surviving the Refuge (Survivalist Reality Show Book 2) Read online

  9

  Lily

  Dear Diary,

  Everything keeps getting worse. Every single day, something bad happens. I thought people always said it’ll get better. When? Now that the boat is gone, I know Dad is never going to let me hang out with Travis and Heather again. I wish they could live here on the island with us. Regan can go live in their house. I’m so tired of all the drama. And Regan is usually the one to blame for the stuff that happens here. I wish my dad could see that!

  I wish I could blame her for the boat being gone, too, but I know I can’t. I just wish things were different.

  It was nice getting to hang out with Travis and Heather. I really miss them. Heather is such a cool mom. She’s nothing like my dad. Her and Travis are really close and talk about everything. He helps her out and she treats him like an adult. I wish my dad would quit treating me like a little kid. They’re doing okay by themselves without any extra people to help out. I told them all about what’s happening on the island. Heather says I need to give Regan a chance. I already did, though, and she blew it. She’s always doing something to screw things up. Now, she even has my dad yelling at me. He never used to yell at me. Regan is the queen, and I’m nobody.

  But Travis was really sweet. He picked me a bouquet of wildflowers to help cheer me up. I didn’t bring them home. I knew Dad would freak out and ask if I like Travis, and then he won’t let me stay the night there anymore if he gets suspicious. I’m not talking to him about any of that. Besides… Travis is cute, but we’re just friends. Unlike the rest of my so-called friends, he’s still cool and fun to be around.

  Meanwhile, Dad says there’s no way we can go into the city. Heather told him about some stories she heard about a group trying to take over.

  I hope the cops or the military gets here and fixes everything. Fred told me they’re not coming, but I don’t believe it. How can he know? He doesn’t know. I like Fred, but he acts like he knows EVERYTHING! He’s funny when he’s not carrying on about facts that no one cares about. If I had to pick one person to stay, it would be Fred. He’s a little quirky and I kind of get the feeling he doesn’t like the rest of them. He always sticks to himself. Maybe I’ll invite him to camp out with me or go fishing with me one of these days. I think we’d get along pretty well.

  Yesterday, Dad tried to talk to me about all the stuff that’s been going on. I wanted to tell him how I really felt. I know he would have told me I was wrong, and that we’re doing the right thing by helping these people out. He’d tell me it’s better to have four hands than two or something stupid like that. Maybe we are doing the right thing, too, but what if they’re bad guys in disguise? What if Regan did steal the boat that day? She could be hiding the gas on one of the other islands and getting ready to escape with our stuff. I know my dad would say I’m acting crazy, but I think he’s blinded by her beauty, as Grandpa would say. He can’t see what I do.

  Hey! I wonder if she did have something to do with the boat being stolen from the shore yesterday? Tabitha said Regan was out sailing by herself—all afternoon. Who does that? Why would she go sailing by herself? She was super sick the first time we went out. I think my dad needs to be careful around her. It isn’t like he’ll listen to me, though. I wonder if I could talk to Grandpa and have him talk to Dad. I think I’m going to do that. Grandpa needs to fix this before it’s too late.

  For now, I’m going to keep camping out. I don’t care if someone knows we’re out here. I can’t stay in this house. I hate it here. I want to go back and live with Heather and Travis. I can help them. I can teach them some of the stuff Dad taught me. I think I’m going to give Dad one more chance, but that’s it. If he keeps siding with her and not listening to me, I’m going to run away and go live with them. I don’t care if I have to swim to the beach. Dad will see what she’s really like and it will be too late. I’ll already be gone.

  Today, I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to pretend I’m on the island all by myself. I’m going to the other side where no one ever goes and set up camp. I’ve been meaning to make a sleeping mat from the palm fronds like I’m really stranded on a deserted island. Maybe I’ll make a grass skirt, too! LOL. Kidding! I am going to try making one of those fish baskets Grandpa showed me how to make forever ago. Then, I can fish without actually standing there and holding the pole for hours.

  No matter what, I’m going to find anything I can to avoid having to be in this house with all these people. I wish I had my own island. Bye, for now.

  10

  Regan woke early, as was her usual habit, and headed into the kitchen. It was quiet in the house, telling her that everyone was likely still in bed. No surprise there—everyone had been mentally exhausted the night before, the revelation about the boat having put a damper on spirits. It seemed hard to imagine that the relative peace and harmony they’d found on the island was at risk. Wolf was taking it especially hard. He’d been so convinced that the violence and desperation unfolding in the city wouldn’t bleed into the small towns for at least several months more. Clearly, things were changing faster than expected.

  Rather than wait around for the others to get moving, she decided to get a jump on her morning chores and headed outside, inhaling the fresh scent of the morning even as she walked out the door. There was a slight breeze rattling the palm fronds. Strangely, she only really noticed the sound first thing in the morning—it was new enough to catch her attention as days began, but natural enough that it faded into the background quickly. Throughout the day, with all the coming and going, it became white noise that barely registered on her radar. One more sign that she was beginning to call this little island a sort of home, maybe.

  The greenhouse’s door opened into what she’d come to consider her own territory, but instead of it being abandoned, she found that she wasn’t the first one up after all. Instead, Wolf’s familiar figure was bent over one of the tanks, examining the fish.

  “Hey,” Regan greeted him. “Are you checking up on me?” she teased.

  He shook his head in reply, and gave her a quick kiss hello before answering. “I wanted to check to see how it was going. I’m sorry I didn’t explain the filter to you. That was entirely my fault. I assumed you knew and didn’t even think to mention it.”

  She shrugged. “You were having a bad day. It’s okay, and none of the fish died. I probably should have known, but I assumed we’d gone over all the details. You know what they say about assuming,” she added half-jokingly.

  “You’re doing a great job. I’m proud of you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  “Thank you. I was taught by the best. What are your plans for the day?”

  He shrugged. “I need to check the foundation of the house. My dad told me he fixed a crack while we were on our way back from the swamp. I want to make sure it’s holding. We need to return Heather’s canoe also. You?”

  She smiled. “I’m going to talk to the fish for a bit and harvest some of the beans before planting new stuff.”

  He gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll let you get busy.”

  He walked out the door at the same time that Tabitha came meandering inside.

  “It’s hot in here,” she commented.

  Regan nodded as she began picking beans. “It always is.”

  “Do you think things will ever be normal?” Tabitha asked out of the blue.

  “Normal?” Regan echoed.

  “Yes, like, we each have our own houses, families, and jobs. Will we have electricity and normalcy again? Is that ever going to be in our future?”

  Regan laughed. “You are asking the wrong person. I can’t think past tomorrow, let alone that far down the road.”

  “You and Wolf don’t talk about your future?”

  Regan’s eyes widened as she looked up at her friend to see if she was joking. “No!”

  Tabitha seemed surprised, though Regan couldn’t imagine why. “I thought you two were a thing?” she asked.

  Regan raised
an eyebrow and went back to the beans. “We are, kind of. But, I mean, we’ve known each other a little over a month. I’m not ready to talk about the future. I like to take things one day at a time. Even if the world were normal right now, we’d still be in the bare beginnings of a relationship—nowhere near talking-about-the-future territory.”

  Tabitha came closer and leaned against one of the tanks, watching Regan work. “I like knowing what to expect. I want to make plans and set goals. Geno and I used to lay in bed and talk about what kind of house we were going to have and how it would be decorated.”

  Regan smiled. “I think you can still have those kinds of goals. If it makes you happy, then I say dream on.”

  Tabitha let out a long sigh. “It isn’t only the house we used to talk about.”

  “What’s with you? You look sad,” Regan said, standing up and re-focusing her attention on her friend.

  Tabitha’s normally smiling face looked pensive, and her eyes had dark circles under them. Now that Regan really paid attention to her, in fact, it became clear that she looked tense in general.

  “Can we go outside? It’s too stuffy in here for me,” Tabitha said, waving a hand in front of her face.

  “Sure.”

  The two women walked outside and headed toward the picnic table positioned in the shade of a huge cypress.

  “What’s going on?” Regan asked, knowing there was something Tabitha needed to get off her chest. Regan wasn’t great with the best friend relationship thing, but she could be a good listener, and she’d gotten to know Tabitha well enough to understand when something was truly eating at her.

  Tabitha sank down at the table and let her chin rest on her hands, looking for all the world like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “I always thought I wanted to have kids, Regan. I mean, that was always the plan when we talked about our future. Geno and I were going to get a house; he’d set up shop and I would work part-time as a paramedic. We’d decided we were going to have two kids, one boy and one girl, though I was starting to lean toward two boys,” she said, a wistful tone in her voice.

  Regan giggled. “I don’t know if it quite works like that, but it’s a nice plan for dreaming about.”

  “That’s my point. Was it all a dream? Can I ever have that?” Tabitha asked, catching her eyes. “What kind of future can we have now? Are we always going to have to live like this?”

  Regan shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable—she’d been trying not to think about the long-term future and what it might look like, but the seriousness in her friend’s eyes made it clear that Tabitha had been doing the opposite. “I don’t know,” she answered after a moment of thought. “I don’t know that anybody knows anything. I have to think that one day we’ll have normal lives, though. They might be a little different than our old lives, but we’ll have something that’s normal for us, at some point, whatever that looks like. The human race will go on.”

  Tabitha shook her head, her dark brown hair falling around her shoulders with the movement. “No, I know that, but… I mean, someday isn’t good enough when it comes to normal living. I can’t possibly get pregnant and have a baby now, the way things are. It would be irresponsible to bring a child into this world. It isn’t safe. I mean, look what happened yesterday. Someone stole a boat in the blink of an eye. I don’t want to think about trying to protect a baby when we’re struggling to stay alive.”

  “A boat is not the same as a baby,” Regan pointed out, trying to lighten the mood. “And, we’re not exactly struggling.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s dangerous out there. I don’t want to live here forever. And I don’t know if anywhere is safe to live,” she groaned. “I wanted a house in the suburbs with police on patrol.”

  Regan reached across the picnic table and clasped Tabitha’s hands. “Relax. You don’t need to worry about any of this right now.”

  Tabitha gave Regan a look. “Don’t I?”

  Regan smiled, and hoped it managed to come across as reassuring. She understood where Tabitha was in her life, even if it didn’t match where Regan herself was, but they couldn’t do anything but go forward with what they had—Tabitha had to accept that, as the rest of them did. Tabitha and Geno were a young, healthy couple. It was natural for them to act like a married couple in all ways. Preventing a pregnancy would be difficult without access to birth control, and so they had to think about it, but they could only do so much. Regan knew they had some condoms right now, which they’d picked up while scrounging, and she knew also that Wolf had a few boxes stored away that he’d shared with Geno upon request, but those would run out soon enough.

  “I think you have to do your best, and if it happens, it happens. We’ll figure it out. You know everyone here will support you.”

  Tabitha’s eyes darkened, but she nodded her head. “It isn’t right that you would have to. If I get pregnant, it’s mine and Geno’s responsibility.”

  “True, but we’re all in this together. It could be fun having a baby around. It would add some excitement to the place.”

  “And a lot of stress.”

  Regan simply shrugged. “Stress is inevitable. If you don’t want to risk getting pregnant, talk to Geno. Make him understand your concerns. I’m sure he will be, uh, disappointed if you guys were planning on it, but he will survive,” she offered.

  Tabitha smiled, seeming to relax a little. “Thank you for talking to me, and for saying that. I feel a lot better. I know this is an awkward conversation, and definitely not your thing.”

  “Like Geno, I will survive. Thank you for trusting me enough to talk to me,” Regan added, reaching out and grasping her friend’s hand.

  They sat in the silent shade of the tree for a few minutes more, both lost in their own thoughts.

  Then, Tabitha stood up from the picnic table. “I’m going to plant those seeds. They better be worth it, too, considering the cost of the boat we lost,” she muttered.

  Regan watched her walk back toward the garden area. That had been a heavy conversation. She had played it off as it being no big deal, but it had shed some light on a very serious issue. Relationships in this new world—hers and Wolf’s included—could have some serious consequences beyond family squabbles, and she’d given herself the luxury of avoiding thoughts of what that might mean until now. And, what made it worse was that she wasn’t sure how she felt about any of it, and would have preferred to put off any such considerations indefinitely.

  It was too much for Regan to consider now, and she felt the almost immediate itch to get away. Rather than venture back into aquaponics territory, she headed for the beach, needing some time away from everyone and their intense conversations.

  She avoided going toward the west side of the island with the dock, instead heading south to where she knew there would be plenty of space to be alone. She kicked off the heavy boots she had been wearing and left them on a tree stump before walking across the warm white sand. It felt good to have the sand between her toes and the sun on her face, even if it was a little on the hot side.

  Standing at the oceanside, she closed her eyes and spread her arms wide, soaking it all in, letting herself imagine she was on a sandy Florida beach on a nice vacation with cocktails at the ready.

  “What are you doing?” Lily’s voice cut through her fantasy.

  Regan’s head popped forward and her eyes opened to see Lily standing on the beach, holding a backpack in one hand and a pup tent in the other.

  “I was going for a walk.”

  “With your eyes closed?”

  Regan laughed. “I wasn’t walking yet. What about you? What are you doing out here?”

  Lily shrugged. “Looking for a new place to camp.”

  “This is a nice section of beach, but why are you camping, Lily?” Regan asked, tired of avoiding the obvious problem.

  “I like it. The house is full. Out here, I get my privacy.”

  “You have your own room at the house,” Regan pointed out.


  Lily glared at her. “You mean the room you sometimes sleep in?”

  “I can sleep on the couch. I thought you didn’t mind.”

  Lily didn’t respond. Instead, she dropped her gear on a pile of wild flowers mingled between the tall reeds and walked toward a palm tree.

  “Lily, I’d like to talk to you about what happened and why you’re angry with me. Will you please talk to me?” Regan asked, following her toward the tree.

  Lily turned around and sneered, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  With that, she reached out and jumped onto the trunk of the tree, making her way up to pluck some coconuts. The tree was one of those that hung practically horizontal toward the top, its base coming out from a slanted space of ground and curling over. Where Lily was, she was hanging upside down to reach the coconuts, and the tree wasn’t a thick one.

  “Lily, be careful. That tree doesn’t look sturdy.”

  “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you. I know when a palm is safe for climbing.”

  Regan grimaced, watching the girl reach out to a cluster of the coconuts—her hold on the tree looked more and more precarious. “Lily, I’m serious, be careful!”

  Lily laughed. “Relax, Regan. I think you need to trust me. I do this all the time. You’ve done it like five times and somehow my dad thinks you’re an expert,” she hollered down, reaching for another hanging fruit and pulling at it before tossing it downward to the ground. “See!”

  Regan ignored the insult. She’d known Lily would get upset about her giving the demonstration. With everything that had happened since that day, she wished like hell she would have never agreed to do the stupid thing. Wolf should have picked Lily to do it, and maybe none of this anger and hostility would be present.

  “Lily!” Regan yelled, watching the girl defiantly hang from the trunk and bounce against it to knock more fruit about.

  If Lily fell, it wasn’t like she could call nine-one-one or rush her to the hospital. And Wolf would never forgive Regan if she let something happen to his daughter.