Jack's campfire cast hellish shadows across the fuselage wreckage. The bastard's fishing spear stood planted in sand like a trophy, its tip glinting with aircraft glass.
"Ration protocol." I distributed 72% cacao tablets from the first-class galley. Each wrapper crackled like a gunshot in the heavy silence.
Emma peeled her Hermès scarf into makeshift fishing nets. "We'll harvest clams daily."
"Hypothermia risk," I countered, cleaning my KA-BAR with aviation fuel. "Electrolyte depletion."
Kate's feverish shivers synchronized with the tide cycles. Her SIG Sauer lay forgotten as she clutched her abdomen - our last Cipro tablets had barely touched the dysentery.
Daisy materialized with a bouquet of willow bark. When I crushed the aspirin-rich cambium into Kate's mouth with Evian water, Emma's Prada boot tapped an impatient rhythm.
"Mercy protocol." She blocked the medicine bag. "That tracker chip in her arm's spreading sepsis."
The Colt Python felt heavier than the moral calculus. "We don't play God."
"God left when that Gulfstream crashed." Emma's Cartier nail traced Kate's carotid. "I'll trade her to Jack for..."
Daisy's combat knife buried itself in the palm tree between us. Her hands signed
The trade happened at low tide. We found Daisy wiping her mouth with tactical gauze, a bluefin tuna bleeding out at her feet. Jack's laughter carried across the cove like mortar fire.
My breaching axe sang through salt air. Jack parried with a landing gear strut, our clash echoing steel on steel. "She came willingly, Boy Scout!"
Adrenaline burned through starvation haze. I feinted left, going for a SEAL close-quarters disarm. His knee met my ribs with crack of compromised body armor.
"Should've taken the deal." Jack's prison tattoos rippled as he locked me in a blood choke. "Now I'll take them all."
The double-click of a chambered round froze time. Daisy's Glock 19 pressed a moonlit halo into Jack's temple. Her split lip glistened crimson.
"Rules of engagement." My rasp cut through night surf. "You get three steps."
We watched his silhouette dissolve into the tree line. Kate's delirious murmur blended with the sobbing waves: "Should've let him finish me..."
Dawn revealed Daisy's true trade terms - not a kiss, but the coordinates from Jack's stolen GPS watch burned into her forearm with hot steel. The blinking dot showed a Coast Guard cutter 48 hours south.
Emma inspected the brand with clinical detachment. "You could've just asked for the fish."
Daisy reloaded magazines with methodical precision. Her eyes said what we all knew - some debts require blood collateral.