Handing off the makeshift shovel to Reyya and dusting their hands. Krys doesn’t move as fast as I thought they would, almost reluctant…or knowing. Slowly, they reveal more food bars, a smaller first aid kit, a solar-powered flashlight, anti-diarrhea medication, duct tape, industrial nitrile gloves, cash and a few prepaid visa cards in a wallet, a prepaid burner phone, a plastic mess kit, a tightly bound sleeping bag, and a waterproof canister.

“You look like you’re about to commit a murder. Oh my god, that’s why you were the random pat down!”

“Probably.”

“What’s in the container?”

“Copies of our documents of identification.”

“Our?”

“Yes…both physical and digital.”

“What was your note?”

“Um…well. Uh. ‘L-like two magnets, I know y’all can’t stay away…if you get lost, I know you’ll find a way. Ha, I’m a poet.’”

“Wow, you’re unc’s a bigger shipper than me,” Quinn muttered. 

Zahra held a hand up. “No, seriously. How’d you get this through the airport without looking suspicious?”

“Everything is technically in compliance with the TSA guidelines. Including the bag, which was custom made for the airline’s listed measurements of personal items, taking into account walking with it, storage capacity, and weatherproofing.”

“Why and how does he afford to do this,” Ants needled again.

“My uncle used to be a field surgeon in the military. Made bank and bad memories.”

“No wonder he’s fucking loco.” 

“Explains the stellar first aid kit,” Zahra says, opening the huge red pack.

“Yeah. Uncle Drew invested most of his earnings before he got out. Most of it’s still set aside, but he does like to spend it on his ‘favorite troublemaker’ when the opportunity arises.”

“Wow.”

I nodded in agreement. I am spoiled in the oddest of ways.

Anthony just shook his head. “When you title yourself the Oh Shit Kit Queen, I didn’t think you were serious.”

“Paranoia runs in the family. Although I’d like to clarify, I do not have it in the clinical sense.”

At his disbelieving look, I clarified. “My mom got me tested after I told her I was building a shed in the back for my apocalypse stash.”

“As she should.”

“Talk about the silver lining,” Zahra murmured, but it was directed toward the med kit. She wants to be a doctor or mortician. I can’t remember which.

“Zahra, there’s no scalpel in there," Krys told her gently. "They don’t allow that in carry-ons."

She immediately drops the bag. “Tch. Bummer.”

“We’ll make sure to get you something sharp from the plane debris,” Krys assured. 

“Really,” she perks up.

“Yeah, just don’t go ham with it.”

I’m not touching that conversation with a ten-foot pole. Neither was anyone else by how Quinn, Tavia, and Inés raised their heads adamantly at Ant as he opened his mouth, again.

“No, let's talk about the fact you were going to walk around with this,” Reyya harps. 

“I wasn’t going to walk around with all of it.” I had a prior agreement with Krys about where to put the emergency supplies going back to eighth grade. 

Reyya rolls her eyes. “Mhmm. So how are we going to stretch out the food?”

“I’m thinking we ration ourselves to one snack a day. Eat the raisins, fruit snacks, and rice cakes this week. Leave the protein bars and jerky for next week. We need to start fishing and looking for other food sources starting now, and if we are...limited in success, then we have something to fall back on.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“How will we know what to eat when it comes to island fruit,” Ant asked.

Oh my god, does this man not go down rabbit holes on YouTube?

“Eat the leaf of something that seems abundant and or familiar. Wait eight hours. If you didn’t die then wrist, lips, tongue, chew, wait,” Quinn thankfully took over and explained. 

I'm starting to regret picking him because he was a boy. Should've known better.

“What?”

“It's a drawn-out testing method, so if you have a reaction, you catch it before you ingest the damn thing and actually die. At first, only let it touch the skin on your wrist or the inside of your elbow. Then, a few minutes on the lips. After a few minutes on the tongue, let it sit in your mouth. You can chew, just don’t swallow until after several minutes. Wait several hours to see if it settles. If you don’t die, try more of it, and if you don’t after that, it’s probably fine.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously," I groan. But we can survive without food for more time than you’d think since we can drink water, as long as it's filtered. We’re going to have to spend some days not really doing jack while figuring out food sources other than fish. Although fishing might not go well if we don’t properly clean it out, the stark reality is that we could get food poisoning either way.”

“I might as well starve. That sounds really scary.”

“Cause it is. So let’s try to stick to plants we already recognize.”

“Again, why do you know all of this stuff?”

“For a hot second in middle school, I had Denzel Washington and abduction films phase simultaneously. Between Man on Fire and watching way too many bitches getting put in trunks, I was like anxious. I started many contingency plans of what to do after I got away. Lots of googling and library time.”

“And why would someone kidnap you?”

“Hey! For all we know, I could get napped from a Hornets game and end up trafficked. It happens all the time.”

“I concede.”

“Thank you. The best part of this situation is if somebody tries some shit, I am not on American soil.”

“Same,” Reyya, Krys, and Inés agreed simultaneously.