Chapter 6: Crew Rules

We ate that night on the stone floor of the ruined kitchen, out of a tin of peaches Abel found under a fallen cupboard.

It was the first thing any of us had eaten since the morning before.

Rhys sat across the fire from me with his back against the chimney and his knees drawn up.

He had been in the same wet clothes for two days, and the cut on his forehead had crusted black.

He hadn't looked at me once since the beach.

He was looking at Junie.

She lay in the crook of my arm, awake, blinking at the firelight with her grey-blue eyes.

"I have rules," I said.

Abel looked up from his peach slice. "I thought you might."

"Number one. Nobody talks about the past until a boat comes. Not Veda, not the safe, not us."

Rhys nodded slowly.

"Number two. You sleep on the east side of the cellar, I sleep on the west, and Abel sleeps wherever his knee allows."

"Very kind," Abel said.

"Number three." I made myself look at Rhys. "Nobody touches anybody unless somebody's bleeding."

Something moved behind his eyes, and was gone.

"Understood," he said.

"I mean it."

"I know you do."

"Good. Then I'll start. You're bleeding."

He touched his forehead.

"It's fine."

"It's a laceration with sand in it. Come here."

He came around the fire on his knees, because there wasn't room to do anything else, and stopped in front of me.

Close up, I could see the salt dried white in his eyelashes.

I handed Junie to Abel, who took her.

Then I tore a strip of clean sheet, wet it with boiled water, and tilted Rhys's chin up with two fingers.

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