Chapter 180: Chapter 180 – Convincing Others

Celia’s voice came out before she could stop it.

“’What the hell are you talking about?’”

Not loud. The specific, controlled loud of someone who has been holding something in and has reached the exact end of the capacity to hold it. The words hit the air of the shelter like something thrown.

Nara didn’t flinch.

That was the thing about Nara. She never flinched. She absorbed the directed energy of other people’s reactions with the composed, waiting quality of someone who had already planned for this.

“’Celia—’”

“’No,’” Celia said. She was sitting up fully now, her hands at her sides, her voice doing the thing it did when she was trying to be rational and her body was running seventeen degrees hotter than rational required. “’No, you don’t get to just — what are you saying, exactly? Are you hearing yourself?’”

“’I’m saying—’”

“’You’re saying we should—’” She stopped. Looked at the other women. The four of them, in various states of sitting, watching. Preet still not fully upright, her palm still flat on the mat. “’You’re saying we need to — what — keep him happy, or he won’t feed us?’”

“’I’m saying,’” Nara said, very patiently, “’that we are on an island. With no ship. No food supply. No communication. And one man who has spent the entire day keeping us alive.’”

“’That doesn’t mean—’”

“’He caught six fish, Celia.’” Still patient. Still that clean, structured voice that was the most infuriating version of Nara. “’He built a shelter from nothing. He started a fire in wet conditions. He found food and water in two hours when five men on a perfectly equipped ship couldn’t—’”

“’That is COMPLETELY different from what you’re—’”

“’Is it?’”

The shelter was quiet again.

The fire, outside, had dropped to a steady low burn. The tropical night was doing its thing — the frogs, the ocean, the dense, anonymous sounds of an island that had been here before any of them and would be here after.

“’You spread your legs for him,’” Celia said, and her voice was flat and specific and aimed. “’You did that. You. Nobody asked you to. He didn’t force you.’”

“’No,’” Nara agreed.

“’And now you’re here telling us we should—’”

“’I’m not telling you to do anything.’” Nara’s chin lifted. The specific posture of someone who has been accused of exactly what they’re doing and is choosing a more defensible framing. “’I’m telling you where we are. I’m telling you what we need. I’m telling you that he has skills and resources that will keep us alive on this island and that cooperation is—’”

“’Cooperation.’” Celia’s jaw set. “’That’s what we’re calling it.’”

“’Celia.’”

“’We can’t do that.’” She looked at the others. Gia’s face, careful and listening. Aisha’s hands, twisting in her lap. Meijin’s expression, the disciplined neutrality cracking slightly at the edges with something that looked like — not disagreement. Something else. Something more complicated. “’We are not — we’re not going to just — he’s a stranger. We don’t know anything about him. He could be—’”

“’He could be,’” Nara said, “’the reason we’re still alive tomorrow. Or not. That’s a choice you’re making.’”

“’That’s manipulation,’” Celia said. “’That’s textbook emotional—’”

“’You can spread your legs to a stranger,’” Nara said calmly, “’we can’t. Is that what you’re saying?’”

The silence that followed was not a comfortable one.

Celia looked at her.

“’I’m not—’”

“’You are,’” Nara said. “’That’s the sentence you were building.’” Her eyes didn’t move. Didn’t look away. The flat, waiting quality of someone who has laid a trap and is watching the other person walk toward it. “’You, who have slept with nobody. You, who said zero around the fire. You’re the one who knows what a stranger is worth?’”

“’That’s not what I said—’”

“’We are going to die out here,’” Nara said, and now there was something in her voice that was different. Not calculation. Something rawer. The specific, tired weight of someone saying a true thing they don’t want to say. “’Without food, without shelter, without someone who knows what they’re doing — we die. Not metaphorically. The island does it. Three, four days without the right resources. We have no experience here. None of us.’” She looked at each of them, one at a time. “’I am not a good person. I know that. But I am a practical one. And I am telling you that the practical path is the one I have already taken.’”

“’You’re selfish,’” Celia said.

“’Yes,’” Nara said immediately.

The honesty of it was disarming.

Celia’s jaw worked.

“’You are absolutely selfish,’” she continued, her voice lower now, losing the sharp register and finding something angrier and quieter underneath it. “’You made your decision and now you want company in it. You don’t want us to see you as the only one who — you want all of us to be—’”

“’You brought us to that ship.’”

Four words.

Nara said them the way she said everything — cleanly, precisely, with no particular emphasis. As if they were simply information.

The shelter went completely still.

Celia heard it. Heard each word individually. Heard the architecture of the sentence and what it was built to do.

“’What.’”

“’You organized the trip,’” Nara said. Her voice hadn’t changed. Hadn’t gotten harder or more accusatory. Just — stating. Like reading from a document. “’You booked the ship. You chose the dates. You assured us the crew was vetted.’” She let that sit for one second. “’The storage room. Two women from Jaipur overheard the watch men talking about us. About the weather clearing. About what two days would accomplish with six hungry women who had nowhere to go.’”

Celia’s hands, on the mat, had closed into fists.

“’We were nearly drugged,’” Nara continued. “’In whatever state they intended to find us. Because of the trip you planned.’”

“’You — ’” Celia’s voice was very quiet now. The specific quiet of someone managing something that was threatening to come apart. “’You’re blaming me.’”

“’I’m providing context,’” Nara said.

“’You’re a bitch,’” Celia said.

It came out without planning. Without the calculation she usually applied. Just — the word, aimed directly, and the specific, unvarnished truth of what she felt.

Nara looked at her.

Something moved across her face that wasn’t quite hurt and wasn’t quite indifference. The expression of someone who has heard a true thing delivered with cruelty and has decided to absorb it rather than return it.

“’Yes,’” she said, again. “’I know.’”

Celia’s chest was rising and falling faster than she wanted it to.

Her hands, on the mat, were pressed flat. Her nails pressing into her palms. Her jaw so tight her back teeth ached.

She thought of the watch man’s face. The calculation behind it. The two-day timeline.

She looked at the mat.

She had brought them here.

She had planned every detail of the trip — the ship, the dates, the specific, well-regarded charter company whose vetting she had trusted because their website was professional and their reviews were current and she had not thought to look at the faces of the men who ran it with the same reading-quality she now knew to apply.

She had organized this.

She had organized them all onto a ship with five men who had a timeline and a storage room and weather forecasts they’d been watching with a specific, patient intent.

Nara had known this. Had known it all day and had held it in her pocket and had waited for the exact right moment.

That was Nara.

That had always been Nara.

Celia looked down at the mat and could not find a single word.

The shelter.

The fire’s glow through the woven wall.

Preet, three feet away, finally fully upright, her knees pulled to her chest, her face doing the thing faces did when they were watching two people they knew destroy each other and felt the collateral impact of the destruction on their own skin.

Aisha’s hands in her lap.

Gia looking at the roof, her jaw working.

Meijin with her knees together and her arms folded and her expression set in the careful neutrality of someone choosing not to participate in a conflict they have opinions about.

Nara looked at all of them.

“’We just have to get through it,’” she said. The same thing she’d said before. But the framing had changed — the words landing differently now, in the specific aftermath of what she’d just done to Celia. “’A few more hours. A day. However long it takes to find a way off this island. He has that ability. I have seen his strength, his knowledge. He will get us out.’”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep