Mangosteens. Will Greenfield sat up on his raft, working with a knife to cut open a mountain of the plum-sized fruit. Mangosteens! In the world of naming foods, who had come up with that one? It sounded like a partner in his father’s law firm: Berkowitz, Greenfield, and Mangosteen. They were good, though. Actually, they were delicious. But that was beside the point. Six lives were in danger. Important work had to be done for their very survival. And what was Will’s job? A mangosteen fruit salad. Just because he’d had the bad luck to get shot. And now this fever. 99.8 degrees, and everyone was treating him like he was on his deathbed. He’d run higher fevers from a bad cold. For an instant, a sense of foreboding replaced his irritation. His thigh didn’t hurt exactly, and the numbness was gone now, so that was a good sign, wasn’t it? But still it felt somehow wrong. There was a strange rhythmic throbbing, almost like a second heartbeat down there. One minute the leg would seem strong enough for him to get up and dance.
