The white helicopter circled the island again, low enough for Lucia and me to hear the rotor wash beating against the roof of the abandoned fisheries station. It had no visible markings, and the broken VHF radio was still hissing beside us.
Lucia looked toward the sky, then toward the radio.
“Stay inside.”
I wanted to ask who he thought was coming for us, but the answer was already written across his face.
Someone knew where we were.
Hours earlier, we had been convinced that reaching land would be enough.
It wasn’t.
After Diego’s boat slammed into ours, Lucia had pulled me from the water by the safety line around my waist. My arm was throbbing from the metal edge I had hit when I jumped into the auxiliary boat, and the engine was barely running after the collision.
Then the weather changed.
The sea that had carried us away from Diego became the thing trapping us.
Waves rose hard against the little boat. Every time the hull dropped into a trough, my injured arm burned with salt water. Lucia kept one hand on the controls and used the other to keep checking our direction.
Neither of us talked much.
There wasn’t much to say.
We had escaped Sebastián’s boat, but we had no idea whether Diego had survived the collision, whether Elena had reported us missing, or whether Sebastián was already telling everyone that I had disappeared because of some accident of my own.
By dawn, I was shivering.
Lucia finally guided us toward a small rocky island with almost no fuel left.
When the boat scraped against the shore, I could barely stand.
He helped me onto the rocks and immediately checked my arm again.
“This needs proper treatment,” he said.
“I know.”
“You’re running a fever.”
“I know that too.”
He looked at me for a second.
Then he nodded toward the island.
“We find shelter first.”
The island was little more than rock, scrub, and an abandoned fisheries surveillance station sitting behind a low hill.
The building looked as though nobody had used it in years.
Inside were old tools, damaged batteries, storage cabinets, and a radio that looked almost as tired as we were.
Lucia searched the station carefully before letting me sit down.
He found enough supplies to clean my arm and wrap it securely. It wasn’t the treatment I needed, but it was better than leaving the injury exposed.
Then he went back outside.
I watched him disappear behind the hill.
An hour later, he returned carrying a length of cable and part of an old solar panel connection.
“I found something.”
He set the pieces down beside the radio.
“There’s still a panel on the roof.”
“Will it work?”
“Maybe.”
That word had become our entire morning.
Maybe the engine would hold.
Maybe the weather would clear.
Maybe the radio would work.
Maybe someone would hear us.
Lucia climbed onto the roof and connected the remaining panel as carefully as he could. The battery gave a weak response.
He came back down and tried the VHF radio.
Static filled the room.
He adjusted the controls.
More static.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Then a broken voice came through.
“…unit in emergency… identify yourself…”
I sat up.
Lucia froze with one hand on the radio.
The voice disappeared.
He adjusted the frequency and tried to answer.
“This is a small vessel stranded on an island. We need assistance.”
Static.
He repeated it.
Still nothing.
Then came a sound from outside.
At first, I thought it was thunder.
Lucia didn’t.
He turned toward the doorway.
The sound grew louder.
Rotor blades.
A helicopter appeared over the hill.
White.
No visible markings.
It dropped lower and began circling the island.
Lucia immediately shut down the radio.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because we don’t know who they are.”
The helicopter made another pass.
It wasn’t flying like someone casually searching the coastline.
It was circling us.
Lucia moved toward the side of the building and looked through a narrow opening in the wall.
I stayed low.
“What do you see?”
“Not enough.”
The helicopter passed again.
This time, I saw a dark shape through one of the side windows.
Someone was inside.
Lucia crouched beside me.
“Listen carefully.”
I did.
“If they land, don’t run toward them.”
My stomach tightened.
“What if they’re here to help?”
“Then we’ll still have time to find out.”
He reached for the radio again.
Before he could turn it on, the helicopter moved behind the hill.
For a few seconds, the island seemed quiet.
Then the rotor noise returned from the opposite direction.
Lucia looked at the radio.
“There’s one thing we can try.”
“What?”
“Send the emergency signal again, but don’t identify us.”
He switched the radio on.
Static filled the station.
He waited.
Then pressed the transmit button.
“Emergency vessel. Unidentified persons stranded. Request immediate assistance.”
He released the button.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
This time, another voice answered.
“Repeat your position.”
Lucia looked at me.
He didn’t answer immediately.
The helicopter passed overhead.
The windows shook.
The voice came again.
“Repeat your position.”
Lucia finally transmitted the island’s coordinates.
The response was immediate.
“Remain where you are.”
Then the channel went dead.
Lucia lowered the radio.
“That wasn’t a rescue instruction,” I said.
“No.”
“It sounded like an order.”
“It was.”
The helicopter began descending.
I felt my pulse rise.
Lucia stood and moved toward the rear of the station.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure we have another way out.”
He disappeared through a damaged doorway.
I followed as far as my arm allowed.
Behind the station was a narrow trail leading toward the other side of the island.
There was nowhere obvious to go.
No road.
No dock.
No second boat.
Just rock and open water.
The helicopter descended farther.
Dust and loose sand blew across the ground.
I shielded my face with my good hand.
Lucia came back holding something small.
A metal key.
“Where did you get that?”
“Storage cabinet.”
“For what?”
He pointed toward a locked shed behind the station.
We crossed to it together.
The key fit.
Inside were old maintenance supplies and a small emergency equipment locker.
Most of it was useless.
But Lucia found a handheld radio battery that matched the damaged VHF unit.
He stared at it.
Then at me.
“We may have more power than I thought.”
He connected the battery.
The radio came alive.
A clearer voice appeared.
“Station personnel, identify yourselves.”
Lucia answered.
“This is Lucia.”
He gave his former naval service identification and explained that two people were stranded after a maritime collision.
There was a pause.
Then the voice asked for my name.
I answered.
Another pause.
“Valeria?”
My chest tightened.
The person on the radio already knew my name.
Lucia looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
The voice returned.
“We have been trying to locate you.”
I stared at the radio.
“Who is this?”
The answer didn’t come immediately.
Instead, the helicopter passed overhead again.
Then the voice said, “Do not approach the aircraft.”
Lucia’s expression changed.
“What is happening?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Lucia.”
He finally looked at me.
“The aircraft isn’t the rescue team.”
The words landed harder than the waves had.
“Then who are they?”
He glanced through the broken window.
“I don’t know.”
The helicopter circled again.
This time it didn’t descend.
It simply watched.
I thought about Sebastián.
About the photographs on his phone.
About the trust account in Panama.
About Daniela’s disappearance.
About the women Lucia had spent two years connecting to the Alcázar family.
And then I understood what frightened me most.
The people searching for us didn’t need to know where we had gone by accident.
They only needed to know what we had discovered.
Lucia turned the radio volume down.
“We have to assume someone else has access to the information.”
“The photographs?”
“Possibly.”
“The trust account?”
“Possibly.”
“Then Sebastián knows.”
Lucia shook his head.
“Maybe not Sebastián.”
He looked toward the helicopter.
“Someone higher in the chain may know.”
I remembered the way Diego had shouted my name.
The way he had followed us without hesitation.
The way Elena had stood on the deck telling him not to let us escape.
This wasn’t panic.
They had expected us to run.
They had prepared for it.
Lucia pulled the photographs from my bag.
The edges were damp from the seawater, but the images were still visible.
He spread them across a dry section of the table.
“We need to preserve these.”
I looked at the phone photographs again.
The accounts.
The names.
The records I had copied before leaving Sebastián’s phone.
One image showed the trust account in Panama.
Another showed a name I hadn’t understood at the time.
Lucia stared at it.
“Wait.”
He leaned closer.
“What?”
“That account wasn’t just connected to Daniela.”
He pointed at a second name.
I read it twice.
It was a woman.
Not Daniela.
Lucia pulled another photograph closer.
Then another.
The same name appeared again.
Different document.
Different date.
Same account.
“That’s one of the other women,” he said.
The helicopter passed overhead again.
We both looked up.
Lucia gathered the photographs.
“We can’t stay here.”
“Where can we go?”
He looked toward the opposite shoreline.
“Somewhere they can’t land.”
We moved quickly.
The island wasn’t large, but my injured arm slowed me down. Lucia kept checking behind us as we crossed the rocks.
The helicopter remained overhead.
It never fired anything.
It never landed.
It simply followed our movement.
That made it worse.
At the far side of the island, Lucia found a narrow break in the rocks leading toward the water.
Below it was a shallow inlet.
The tide was coming in.
“We can hide there,” he said.
“For how long?”
“Long enough to make another call.”
We crouched beneath the rock shelf.
Lucia turned the radio back on.
Static.
Then the same voice.
“Valeria, if you can hear this, stay where you are.”
I grabbed the radio.
“How do you know my name?”
Silence.
Then:
“We know what Sebastián has done.”
Lucia’s hand closed around the radio.
“Who are you?”
The voice answered.
“Someone who has been waiting for proof.”
I looked at Lucia.
He looked back at me.
The helicopter moved lower.
The voice continued.
“And you brought us exactly what we needed.”
My heart started pounding.
Lucia reached for the radio.
Before he could speak, the transmission ended.
The helicopter hovered over the far side of the island.
Then a rope dropped from its side.
Someone was coming down.
Lucia pulled me farther beneath the rocks.
Neither of us could see the person’s face yet.
Only the boots appeared first.
Then a dark jacket.
Then a hand gripping the rope.
The person touched the ground and immediately looked toward the station.
Lucia held his finger to his lips.
We stayed still.
The stranger walked toward the abandoned building.
He wasn’t carrying a weapon that I could see.
He wasn’t moving like Diego had.
There was no shouting.
No threat.
Just purpose.
He reached the station.
A few seconds later, he emerged holding something.
The old radio.
Lucia’s face went pale.
“He took the radio.”
The stranger looked down at it.
Then he turned toward the rocks.
Toward us.
I felt Lucia’s hand close around my wrist.
The stranger lifted the radio and spoke into it.
“We found them.”
The helicopter’s engine rose behind him.
And then another voice answered through the radio.
Not the voice we had heard before.
A voice I recognized immediately.
Sebastián.
“Bring Valeria back alive.”
