𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

54. rankie or jabel?

F I F T Y - F O U R
rankie or jabel?

I'm touching Rafe.

His damp skin rubs against mine.

It's awful.

That sounds worse than it is, but it's still not great. It feels wrong. It sends me back in time, somewhere I'd rather not go.

Being in close proximity, in a confined space, makes my heart beat speed up. He smells the same, clean and woody. The way he looks at me feels different; our relationship seems to be ever-changing, currently, we need to work together. We're curled up under a tarp, as close as sardines in a tin. To get my head away from him, it means my legs are pressed up against his. The sun beats down on the plastic tarp, making it so hot I feel like I'm being cooked.

There's a sustained few seconds of eye contact as I hear the driver talking to the men arming the gate, my breathing shakes.

"It's going to be fine," Rafe soothes gently and almost silently.

I just give him a brief smile, I can hear a dog sniffing the outside of the truck. This could go so wrong so damn quickly.

But it doesn't go wrong. Point one for Mabel. "Let them through!" One of the guards shouts, and the truck begins moving again. We can't come out of the tarp oven yet, we need to wait until we are well out of sight of the guards.

We wait a few minutes, but then I can't stand the touching and the looking, so I push the tarp off and get out. The outside air feels amazing after being stuck in the stuffy tarp oven for way too fucking long.

"I told you we just had to work together," Rafe lectures me as we both get out. "All right. Listen, I'm headed out to my boat, okay? I can give you a ride out, drop you wherever, somewhere safe. One thing, though. Look at me," he demands. I turn to look at him. This is too much. He seems so comfortable around me; our history clearly doesn't weigh on him like it does on me. "I know your friends are on the island, and my sister. I'm not helping them. All right? I can't trust them, okay? I'll give you a ride out, not them. Okay?" He offers.

I need that fucking boat. I need that boat, I need to get Sarah, John B, Pope, Cleo and JJ off the island. And I really, really need to ditch Rafe.

I swallow back all the emotion the last few weeks have burdened me with. "I just want to get off the island, I don't care how or with whom," I tell him.

"That's a smart girl." He looks away from me and adjusts his position. "You know, I never thought of you as a Pogue."

I can't help but roll my eyes; both of us look forward, so thankfully, he can't see me. I've never been anything, really. Too rich—until very recently—to be a Pogue, but too poor to truly be a Kook.

"What did you think of me as?" I ask.

"I mean, I've always liked you, Franny. Everyone knows that. You've always been a Kook to me," He smiles to himself. "I could've made you a real Kook, though. Still could."

I let out a tense half laugh, it's pretty much just a strained breath out. But he laughs genuinely. He really needs some strong antipsychotics.

We ride on the back of the truck for well over an hour, sitting in silence, trying not to get a concussion every time we hit a pothole. This place is worse than The Cut, and that's saying something; it's like the moon over there.

When the truck slows down, Rafe begins to get off, making his way through the hay and beginning to climb out. I take this as the sign I'm meant to get out as well.

He looks around for a second, familiarising himself with where we are. When he figures it out, he taps my lower back and begins walking.

It feels so fucking wrong.