Kael returned to the beach with a bleeding neck and a bruised ego.
Neither injury was serious, but both were visible enough to discourage anyone from laughing at his predicament.
For several minutes, he told anyone who would listen that Kai had gone insane.
“He threatened to kill me,” Kael insisted. “That lunatic has a knife, and he thinks he owns the entire island.”
Tyler and Javi supported his story. Neither mentioned that they had gone to the cave intending to take Kai's supplies.
Elara listened without interrupting.
When Kael finished, she looked toward the hillside.
“Did he actually cut you?”
“Barely.”
“Then stop shouting about murder.”
Kael stared at her.
“Ms. Voss, with respect—”
“Save your breath. We have bigger problems.”
She looked at the empty bottles scattered around the makeshift camp.
The sun was beginning to descend, but the heat remained oppressive. People were sitting in the shade, conserving energy. Some had abandoned their searches entirely.
They had spent hours collecting things they once considered valuable. Now most of those things lay forgotten in the sand.
Elara could see the change in their faces.
Fear was beginning to replace optimism.
She needed water.
And Kai had it.
“I'll speak to him myself,” she said.
Kael's expression brightened.
“Good. He'll listen to you.”
Elara didn't answer.
She wasn't sure he would.
Kai was sitting at the cave entrance, eating a small portion of canned beef, when he saw Elara climbing the slope.
He recognized her immediately.
Even barefoot and covered in sand, she moved with the determination of someone accustomed to getting things done. Her injured ankle made the climb difficult, but she refused to ask anyone for help.
Kai watched her approach without standing.
Elara stopped in front of him.
“Reed.”
“Ms. Voss.”
Her eyes moved to the water bottles beside him.
“Give me one bottle of water.”
Kai swallowed his food.
“Why?”
Elara's expression stiffened.
At the company, people rarely asked her why. They asked how quickly she wanted something done.
“Ten thousand dollars,” she said. “One bottle. When we return, I'll have the money transferred to your account.”
Kai looked at her for a moment.
Then he picked up a bottle, twisted the cap open, and drank.
Elara watched his throat move as he swallowed.
He stopped, screwed the cap back on, and placed the bottle beside him.
“Twenty thousand,” she said.
Kai returned to his meal.
“Fifty thousand,” Elara continued. Her voice had become rough from thirst. “I'll arrange for you to be on the first helicopter out. You'll have enough money to start a new life.”
Kai looked up.
“Is that supposed to be a reward?”
“It's a fair offer.”
“Fair according to whom?”
Elara's eyes narrowed.
“According to the person offering you fifty thousand dollars for something that cost less than a dollar.”
Kai almost smiled.
There it was. The assumption that the value of an object was determined by what someone could pay for it.
“In the world we came from,” he said, “that might be a fair price.”
“And here?”
“Here, a bottle of water is a bottle of water.”
He tapped the bottle beside him.
“I can't buy another one from a shop. I can't call a supplier. I can't have someone deliver a case tomorrow morning. Once these are gone, they're gone.”
Elara looked at the supplies behind him.
“So you're willing to let people suffer when you have enough to help them?”
“I'm willing to make sure I don't run out before I can find a reliable source.”
“You have more than you need.”
“You don't know that.”
“I'm offering you money.”
“And I'm telling you money doesn't solve my problem.”
Elara's jaw tightened.
She had negotiated acquisitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She'd sat across from stubborn executives and watched them change their minds when the right number appeared on a screen.
Kai wouldn't even look at the money.
“What do you want, then?” she demanded.
Kai set his food aside.
“Work.”
“What?”
“You want water? Bring me useful supplies. Dry branches, edible food, anything that helps us survive. Or help me gather more.”
Elara stared at him.
“You expect me to collect firewood?”
“I expect you to contribute something if you want a share of my supplies.”
“I am the CEO of Aetheris Group.”
Kai glanced toward the beach.
“Then you're probably good at running a company. Unfortunately, I don't have a company to run.”
Her face flushed.
He continued before she could respond.
“Out here, your title doesn't make you less thirsty. Your bank account doesn't make you less vulnerable. And it doesn't give you ownership of things you didn't find.”
Elara looked as though she'd been slapped.
Kai wasn't trying to humiliate her for the sake of it. He simply didn't have enough resources to treat every person on the beach as a special case.
If he gave water to everyone who asked, his stockpile would be gone before nightfall.
“Take some time to think about what you can contribute,” he said. “If you find something useful, come back.”
Elara turned away, her face rigid with anger.
She had never been refused so completely.
Not by an employee. Not by a business partner. Not by anyone.
And certainly not by an intern who had once been ordered to fetch drinks.
She hadn't reached the bottom of the slope when another voice called out.
“Elara, wait!”
Lila Hart was climbing toward them.
The actress had lost much of her earlier composure. Her cover-up was torn, her legs were scratched, and sweat had ruined what remained of her makeup.
Still, when she reached Kai, she straightened her shoulders and put on a practiced smile.
“Kai Reed, right?”
He nodded.
“I've heard a lot about you today.”
“Mostly complaints, I imagine.”
Lila gave a small laugh.
“You're funny.”
She moved a little closer.
“Look, I know you've had a difficult day. We all have. But we're in this together, aren't we?”
“Are we?”
Her smile faltered.
“Of course. We're all survivors.”
Kai waited.
Lila took a breath and softened her voice.
“I really need some water. If you could spare a bottle, I'd be incredibly grateful. When we get back, I'll give you my private contact information. We could have dinner. Just the two of us.”
She tilted her head.
“People pay a lot of money for that kind of access to me.”
Kai looked at her.
He could understand why the offer worked in the world she'd come from. Lila was beautiful, famous, and accustomed to people treating a moment of her attention as a prize.
But she was offering him something that depended entirely on returning to a world neither of them could guarantee still had a place for them.
“You think dinner with you is worth a bottle of water?”
Lila's smile disappeared.
“I didn't say that.”
“You implied it.”
She folded her arms.
“I'm trying to make a reasonable offer.”
“No. You're trying to use the same currency you've always used.”
Her eyes flashed.
“And what's wrong with that?”
“Nothing, if it works.”
Kai gestured toward the beach.
“Can you find food? Can you gather firewood? Can you help make this shelter safer? If not, then your fame doesn't help me survive.”
Lila stared at him.
“You know who I am, don't you?”
“I do.”
“Millions of people would give anything to spend time with me.”
“Then ask one of them for water.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Lila's face turned red.
“You arrogant little—”
“I'm not interested in buying your attention,” Kai said. “And I'm not interested in being bought with it.”
He picked up his food again.
“If you want water, bring me something useful. Otherwise, we're done.”
Lila stood there for another moment, searching for a response that might restore her dignity.
Nothing came.
She turned and followed Elara down the slope.
Kai watched them go.
He wasn't proud of making two desperate people feel powerless. But he wasn't going to pretend that beauty, money, or celebrity status could replace food and water.
The island had already taken enough from him.
He wasn't going to hand over his survival because someone expected him to be grateful for their attention.
By the time Elara and Lila returned to the beach, the survivors were beginning to gather beneath the largest patch of shade they could find.
Kael approached them immediately.
“Well?”
Elara sat down carefully, wincing as she shifted her injured ankle.
“He refused.”
Kael looked incredulous.
“Even you couldn't get through to him?”
“He doesn't care about money.”
“Then we'll have to take the water.”
Elara turned sharply.
“No.”
Kael fell silent.
For the first time that day, she sounded uncertain.
She looked at the dead satellite phone in her hands, then at the empty horizon.
Midnight was still several hours away.
She had told everyone that rescue would arrive.
She had no way to prove it.
And for the first time, the possibility that Kai knew something she didn't began to trouble her