The Prior
Chapter 14: The Drowning of 1857

POV: Max Jameson

I’m wet. I’m wet and chafing. I’m wet and chafing and cold. I’m wet and chafing and cold and pissed off. Why me? Why the hell did I get involved in all this shit. ‘You all have necessary talents’ my ass. I haven’t once used forensics. Cass, Elliot, sure. Me? Hell no. Why me? Why me? Despite anxiety always existing in my stomach, I feel it extra strong today. Every breath pulls the nerves into my chest cavity, which rage has already claimed a den out of. What. The. Fuck.

Belle’s crying. She thinks Elliot and Cass are dead. To be fair, they probably are. And so me and a 16-year old get to solve the next gazillion missions alone. Great. We didn’t need Elliot and Cass this time, so I guess we’ll be fine. If I could get Belle, myself and this Ryland guy on a lifeboat mid-boat crash, I suppose I’ll be able to figure out the rest of them.

At what point are we going to jump? Ryland’s on a lifeboat, we should be able to jump any second now. I’m just waiting for it. Belle lays across the other end of the lifeboat, still crying.

The boat abruptly shakes, I see a woman’s hand appear. Out from the wave, I catch a glimpse of blonde hair. The woman’s head pops out from under the water. She pants, out of breath. Cass. Is. Alive.

Her cold eyes glare at me. She doesn’t say a word, but I scoop her up. Lifting her up by her armpits, I pull her onto the lifeboat. Ryaland just watches, Belle must be passed out from exhaustion, she does not stir with Cass’s addition. I lay Cass down the best that I can. She’s nearly blue, her face, her fingers, her skin. And, she must’ve lost her dress. She’s wearing a white blouse, long thin, white pants. I can see absolutely every part of her frozen body through the sheer undergarments. My first instinct is to take off my own clothes and use them to dry her. Upon grazing my jacket, I remember that my clothes are equally as wet and cold as hers. Regardless, extra layers cannot hurt. I remove my suit jacket and lay it on top of her body. Maybe it will help keep her warm. And if not, at least her once-exposed body is no longer visible to Ryland.

“Thank you,” she mumbles, weakly.

I don’t know what to do. Now that I consider it, maybe no clothes would be better to warm up. Nothing to shield her from the icy winds, but also nothing to trap in the cold. The sun is warm on my neck. Perhaps the sun would be useful to her. But, that would require completely undressing her. I don’t want her to think that I am trying to see her naked. Or trying to expose her. She is important to me; I can’t ruin our friendship. There’s just no way that me removing all of her clothes could possibly end well. But, also, cold, wet clothing could end worse.

It’s hard to befriend someone who is dead.

I tap the side of her cheek. Just her left eye opens, the right one twitching with the rest of her body from the cold. I smile at her and brace for my question.

“Cass. Would it not be better to take everything that’s wet off of you and dry in the sunlight? I’m afraid you’ll get hypothermia from the wet clothes. As of right now, you are only turning bluer.” I can only hope that she will answer me. If she doesn’t respond, I don’t know what to do. Is she conscious? Did she even hear me? Nothing leaves her mouth immediately. She continues to shiver, but I see her lips part slowly.

“Yes.”

I lift the jacket off of her. Her white old-timey undergarments already reveal everything that I am about to see. Ryland sits facing us. He looks right at her chest. Disgusting.

“Can you turn around?” I scoff at him. His face turns red, almost as if he forgot that I could see his wandering eyes and growing bulge. Ryland does not respond, but follows my directions and swivels to face the other side of the boat.

Cass still shivers, completely blue everywhere. Her blouse sticks to her body, I lift it slowly from her skin. She only continues to shake more and more. I eventually get it over her shoulders, exposing her entire upper body. The wet shirt left drops of water all over her. Hopefully these will go away soon. I pry at her bottoms. The weight of her body prevents me from getting them off easily. It doesn’t help that I can’t step back or stand up on this small lifeboat. After an aggravated struggle, she lies completely naked in front of me, still shivering. I take the handkerchief out of my abandoned suit jacket and wring out all the water I possibly can. After ten squeezes, I think it is dry enough. I place the near-dry handkerchief along her hips, for the most modesty she could possibly have as she warms in the sunlight.

She hugs herself to warm up, covering her chest. I want her to know that I am respectful, so I cautiously move myself to be facing the ocean, rather than her body. Here, I get to work on wringing out her shirt. The blouse is long enough to be a dress. Ideally, if I can wring all the water out, like I did to the handkerchief, she can have something to wear soon.

After maybe 10 minutes of constant wringing, nothing else will be removed from the blouse. I lay it in the sun along the boat. Cass is still pale, but the blue has faded from her skin, thanks to the warm sun. Her shivering has also subsided.

“Cass. How are you?” I ask her at last.

“Cold.”

“I wrung out the water from your blouse. It’s just drying in the sun, you should be able to put it on in a few minutes,” I say to her. She nods slightly. I try not to look at her too closely, out of respect for her. And also out of respect for our friendship. Just as it happened to Ryland, if I glare too closely at her figure, I might get excited. Ideally, I’d like to preserve both of our dignities.

“That’s fine. Thanks. Did you save the stupid guy?” she grumbles.

“Yeah. Look to your right a bit.” I tell her. She looks in the opposite direction and sees Ryland who shivers next to her, still facing away.

“Oh. So, why are we still on a boat?” she questions.

“Yeah, no clue,” I tell her. After a few more minutes, I pass her the blouse and she puts it on. The fabric is still sheer, but I don’t think she realizes it. I can see her bosom just as clearly as before, but I don’t mention it. Her chest is small, especially in comparison to her broader shoulders. But, not small enough to make me not interested. It suits her well.

After she is dressed, she sits up and Ryland turns to face us. At this point we are both just ignoring him. Cass glances around at the open ocean.

“I think we need to find a boat or the coast. There’s no other way that you and I, Max, can go anywhere.” I nod in agreement. This mission must include getting him on land too. It must be afternoon now. We’ll need to get out of here before it gets dark and even colder.

In the distance, I see something. Maybe. I’ve seen a lot of things that turned out to be nothing. Perhaps I was hallucinating. But, Cass looked in the same direction.

“Is that an island?” she mumbled.

“I think so,” I said with a breath of some relief. “How do we get there?” I ask after a moment. Cass always has the solutions. Always.

“No idea, Max. Not one idea,” she eventually said. I’ve never heard her say that. Cass doesn’t know? Something in the universe must be wrong. The tide isn’t strong enough to pull us onto the beach. We need to paddle…. Without any paddles. I scour the boat. My chance to prove myself, I guess. Can’t rely on Cass and Elliot’s brains every time. The seats of our lifeboat are wooden. Maybe I could pull them off and use it as a paddle. But, I either have to wake up Belle or move Cass.

Belle, it is, I suppose. I shake her awake. She looks sad, her eyes pink and watery. I ask her to move over, next to Cass so that I can take off the board. Her eyes go wide and she leaps across the boat to see Cass.

“You’re alive?” she questioned. Cass just shivered and nodded. Her energy seems to be non-existent. Belle wraps her arms around Cass.

I pull at the wooden seat. Only 4 nails attach the bench seat to the rest of the boat. My fingers dig into the wood and I use all of the strength in my body. The wood creaks, but does not release. Crap. I walk to the other side of the bench and pull at it from the very edge.

“Hey, Ryland! Can you help me out?” Ryland agrees and stands on the other side of the plank. Finally, I feel the wood begin to loosen.

And then, I’m on my ass and so is Ryland. The board snapped unevenly in half, splitting right where the middle nails had been. It sailed me off my feet and onto the floor of the boat. Guess half a plank of wood will have to do. I gather my dignity and stick the splintered side of the wood into the water. In order to reach the water deeply enough to paddle, I have to learn awkwardly, nearly sitting on the side of the boat. I ask Ryland to hold down my feet so that I don’t tip off of the boat.

Every row makes my back ache, between the awkward position and the resistance of the wave. But, the boat is slowly moving towards shore. I’m waiting for Cass to say something to me. Maybe a good job or thanks. But, she’s silent, other than the sounds of her chattering teeth.

By the time that we reach the shore, I can barely feel my fingers. I drop the paddle onto the sand and the wood has turned into a dark brown color. My hands ache, bleeding from splinters off the wood. Cass still sits, shivering in place. Belle, on the other hand, jumps up and down. She leaps off the boat and lands ungracefully on the sand. She even joyfully rolls in it.

I walk closer to Cass, shaking my hands in the wind. She manages to look up at me. Her eyes are big and wide, watering with tears.

“What’s wrong? We made it. We’re okay.” I mutter to her. She elicits no response. I sit down next to her and pull her into a soft hug. To my surprise, she hugs back. Neither of us speak for a second. I wonder if she doesn’t have the strength to say anything.

“Elliot’s dead. Isn’t he?” she finally mustered, after some time.

“I think so,” I say, to her despair. She pulls me closer, her teary eyes buried into my rib cage. Her touch comforts me. The splinter induced pain in my hands fades after she touches me. My brain is too hyper-focused on her touch to remember the splinters. But, perhaps I shouldn’t be overthinking this. She’s only hugging me because she’s upset. She’s only upset because something might have happened to Elliot. Elliot. Freakin’ Elliot.

“He might be okay. Did you see him get into a lifeboat?” I ask her.

“We were down in the basement dungeon when the ship sank. I pull him out of the window. But once we were both in the ocean, I had to let go of his hands so that I could swim. When I made it above water again, I didn’t see anything except for your lifeboat. Was there more than one boat?” she said.

“There were four more, maybe he got on one of those?”

“But, I only saw yours. Where did the other four go? If we go out at the same time, surely we were near each other. But, I never saw him or another boat.”

“I don’t know, Cass. Maybe we will find him, you know, once we jump. Let’s get Ryland to a town and we will find out,” I say. Unfortunately, that was what she needed to hear because she pulled away from the hug that I was thoroughly enjoying.

Ryland had just been staring at us, this whole time, silently. So, maybe it is okay that we are going to move along. All three of us join Belle on the beach.

“So, Cass, you’re from here, right?” I ask her. She nods and looks around.

“Yes, but if you’re going to ask me how to get to town, I don’t know,” she says, “I’m not sure if we landed on the Peninsula, which would be great because then we’d be super close to town. But, if we’re on John’s Island or Isle of Palms, we might be walking a really long way.”

We walk along the beach for a while. Cass’s pace is slower than usual. She drags her feet in the sand, leaving large trudge marks. Her posture is also worse than usual, she is slouching hard. She scowls too.

“Cass, need to sit down for a minute?” I ask her, gently.

“No, it’s fine. I’m just exhausted. Emotionally and physically.” she said.

“I’ll carry you on my back for a little while,” I offer. She nods and slides onto my back. Her arms wrap around my neck. I feel her chin rest on my shoulder.

The sand switched to dirt, then to grass, then finally to cobblestone. Now, we just have to ditch Ryland. He can find his way from here. I set Cass back down onto the cobblestone. Her and Belle slip away at one block and I do at another. We all peered around the corner to watch Ryland walk away.

As soon as he’s out of sight, we jump years.

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