The group stumbled out of the burning carnival, covered in soot, and smelling of soot.

  The fresh air beyond the gate was the sweetest thing Reese had ever smelt. The salt of the sea mixed with the delicious scent of freedom.

  They had done it.

  They had taken the final step that confirmed they had escaped the nightmare they’d been living.

  Reese didn’t even know how long she had been in there.

  Once she took a moment to look around, she realized something was different.

  She wasn’t in the same place she had entered the carnival in.

  The slimy weathered dock she had anchored on was gone, nothing to replace it.

  It wouldn’t have crumbled to dust without reasonable force and time. It might have been old and decaying, but it hadn’t been so far gone that it would simply vanish.

  “What’s wrong?” Luca asked.

  “The dock...” Reese left Cillian to support Luca as she approached the shore, looking for any evidence that it had ever existed at all. “It’s gone.”

  “She’s right.” Theresa frowned. “There was a dock here, at least a dozen ships as well. There’s no sign of them now.”

  “I was relying on those to get off of this island.” Cillian groaned.

  He made a good point.

  Without the dock, there were no ships nearby. Without the ships, there would be no getting off of the island.

  They couldn’t possibly swim anywhere.

  There was nothing but a clear blue ocean as far as the eye could see.

  Not to mention, swimming and skirts tended not to mix.

  “What do we do?” Wrenly asked

  “We could swim.” Derrick suggested.

  “That’s ridiculous.” Reese and Myla responded.

  They might have escaped the carnival, but now they were trapped in a larger, more dangerous cage.

  In the carnival, there had been rules.

  On an island with wild animals on land and at sea, there were no rules.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  It was eat or be eaten, and no one cared if anyone fought dirty.

  Food had been easy to come by in the carnival, that wouldn’t be the case out in the wild.

  Reese knew how to fish, but she doubted she could catch enough to feed them all.

  The lack of food and clean water would cause contention.

  They would truly turn on each other, exactly the way Lyonell had wanted them to.

  They had come so far; only to fall right back into the hands of a dead man.

  Reese plopped down in the sand, water soaked through her skirt, and the waves lapped against the heels of her shoes.

  Turn after turn, she had adapted and planned around everything that had happened to her.

  Now, she was lost.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  “Even pirates have their plans foiled,” Luca said as he sank into the sand beside her.

  It brought a smile to Reese’s lips. “I’m still not a pirate.”

  “You might have to be to get us out of this mess.”

  “What is there to steal and plunder out here?” Reese asked.

  “Wood from the buildings, we could build a ship. It will take time, but with enough dedication, we could do it. Sail it all the way to the other side of the world if we wanted to,” he said.

  “And what would we do all the way over there?” She dug her fingers into the sand.

  She didn’t want to admit it, but she worried that if the dock was gone, her family would be too.

  They were what she had fought for inside the carnival.

  Now that she was out, they might not be there.

  She might not ever get to tell them that they were the reason she escaped.

  “I don’t know.”

  It always led to those three words.

  Reese wished she knew more.

  Maybe they wouldn’t be stuck if she did.

  “You got us this far, let us handle the rest,” Luca said.

  “An injured man, three nobles, a child, and a stranger?” Reese asked. “Do any of you even know the basics of wood working or ship building?”

  “One could argue we’re all strangers.” Luca pointed out. “But don’t worry about all of that.”

  “I can’t help but worry,” she said.

  “They’re out there, looking for you.”

  Reese glanced down as Luca placed one of his hands over hers.

  “How can you be so sure?” She asked. “You’ve been trapped in there longer than I was.”

  “I just know.” He squeezed her hand.

  He knew what she needed to hear.

  Maybe he wasn’t so delirious after all.

  “Was it all an act in there?” She asked.

  “Was what an act?” He looked at her.

  “The way you wanted Lyonell to think you felt,” she said. “Did you only do it because you wanted him to know you could take something else from him, or did some part of you do it for yourself?”

  “I did it because I wanted to, little sparrow,” he said. “I have spent too many lives trying to do what everyone else wanted me to do. Now, I only do what I want.”

  “But why did you want to?” She pushed.

  She couldn’t give in to his soft touches, not without knowing.

  “Because the moment I saw you, everything made sense. I’d known my brother was a jealous man. He blamed me for the death of our mother, but that we lived with. For decades. Until his wife died and he blamed me for that too. I couldn’t understand how someone could love another so fully that losing them could drive them to madness, but I saw it in Lyonell. I saw it in his eyes every time he looked at me. I didn’t understand how he could be so fully convinced it was my fault when it wasn’t. He needed someone to blame, someone to project his hurt onto. I didn’t understand it then, but I did when I saw you. I knew that if I lost you, it would drive me as mad as him.”