Delirium (Captive Love: Forced Proximity Standalones #4)

Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

CAMP

L ife was easier when you compartmentalized things into tiny boxes. This was how I felt about bike riding. This was how I felt about green peppers, as compared to red peppers. This was how I felt about Scarlett.

Some things were harder to categorize, which left my brain a jumbled mess in a way I didn’t particularly enjoy. Usually, if something didn’t fit into its carefully labeled box inside my brain, I would just cut it out completely.

From my life, not my brain, so don’t go thinking I was lobotomizing myself with every breakup. I wasn’t that insane.

Yet. I didn’t think, anyway. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve told you I was at least 99% sane, or at least more than anyone you’d pull off the street. But after last night, I really didn’t know anymore.

I still could’ve sworn I watched James stab Nash, leaving him dying in a puddle of his own blood. And yet, according to the three of them, a very much alive Nash included, a murder simply never happened.

But it seemed so fucking real . How was I supposed to trust anything from then on out? Witnessing a murder that never actually happened was a bit hard to categorize. Was I crazy? Was I sick? Was this whole trip just a fucking dream, while I sat rotting in a jail cell somewhere, desperate to escape, if only in my mind?

No. I wasn’t quite meta enough for that. This was definitely reality. The little bits in between though…they were hard to add up.

Another part of what I struggled to categorize was how I felt about sharing Scarlett. I knew how I felt about her, tidily marked in a neat box, shelved as Fun. But I’d never given much thought to sharing before. Most likely because I never liked a single person enough to consider sharing them, let alone liking other people they might have been involved with.

This was where the struggle came in. I didn’t like James, so I thought I was going to be far more jealous than I was finding him naked and buried in Scarlett on the deck in the night. It didn’t bother me, sharing Scarlett with Nash, because it made her happy, and Nash was a good guy, but something about James just didn’t sit right with me.

Until I saw her smiling up at me from the floor, looking every inch the beautiful goddess she was, I didn’t find myself jealous at all. The tiniest bit annoyed it was James underneath her and not me, sure. That didn’t quite fit into any of my boxes.

I sighed, stuffing the thin sleeping bag left outside my door into the top of my backpack. I guess at the end of the day, it really didn’t matter. All of this was more of a “if we survive this shit” scenario, than a “let’s debate morals before we go on a suicide trip into the rainforest” kind of thing.

“Camp, you ready?” Scarlett stood in my open doorway, backpack already loaded, hair twisted into a tight braid.

“Yeah. I’m good.” I heaved my backpack around my shoulder, taking one last look around. Thankfully, I’d come onto the boat with only my singular pack. Scarlett was having to leave a good chunk of textbooks and notebooks behind. It had to pain her.

“How are you feeling?” She pressed her wrist to my forehead, frowning. “You feel warmer than last night. Tell me the truth. How do you feel? Did you have any more weird dreams?”

I brushed her hand off gently. “I’m good. I promise. I’ll tell you if I start to feel rough in any way, but right now I’m good.” I studied her, taking in her pallid complexion. “How are you though? You haven’t said anything about seeing anything, but you really don’t look good.”

She shrugged. “I’m fine. Besides, I think I’m the least of our concerns between you and James. A little sweatier than normal, maybe, a bit more tired. But I’ll be fine.”

I grabbed her wrist before she could pull away, forcing her to look at me so I could examine her more closely. She definitely looked paler than normal, her freckles standing out more than I’d seen before. Dark purple swatches painted the delicate skin beneath her eyes, but when I met her gaze, it was as sharp and bright as ever. She might be sick, but she was right. For now, she was okay.

“You’ll tell me if anything changes.” Not a request. A demand.

She bit her lip in response. I recognized a challenge when I saw one. “Why, Campbell, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried about me.”

I tugged her close. She let out a quiet gasp as our bodies pressed together. “I might be sick. I might not be able to decipher fact from fiction, but I can tell you precisely one thing in this world I know to be absolute—you matter more to me than anyone else on this fucked up planet. So you will tell me if you start feeling any worse, and I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. Do you hear me?”

“Are you asking or telling?” she whispered, not looking away.

“I’m expecting. I’ll never ask you for much. But I’m expecting you to allow me to do what I can to protect you. Fight me on whatever else you want. Fight me on evolution, or space exploration, or what makes a person a good person. Don’t fight me on this, Scar.”

Her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, and hesitation passed behind her eyes, as if she was picking her words carefully. “I love you, too.”

Something in me broke. I blinked, struggling to regain the composure I’d had only a minute ago. Somehow, this witty, brilliant, woman had wormed her way past my every defense, and knew me better than I knew myself.

She wasn’t wrong, though. I did love her. And she put the pieces together without me ever saying the words. Maybe I wouldn’t have ever been able to say them. Scarlett didn’t care either way. I leaned down, pressing a kiss to her lips, a kiss filled with all the words she’d read between the lines.

I love you. I want you. I need you. I’m scared.

I’m scared to lose you now that I’ve found you.

Wasn’t that what love came down to, at the end of the day? A fear of losing that little bit of yourself you’d found in another?

I pulled away, pressing my forehead to hers. “Come on. Nash will be wearing a hole in the goddamn floor if we make him wait any longer.”

Sure enough, as we met the other two next to the already positioned gangplank, Nash looked between the two of us with relief. “One more minute and I would’ve come knocking…”

“I know. We’re good.” Scarlett grabbed my hand, giving it a small squeeze. “I promise.”

Nash and James both clocked the handholding, and in a similar way to how I’d processed things earlier, a quiet smile soon spread across their faces. If she was happy, they were happy.

“Alright, then let’s go. Stay close. If you need a break, speak up. I’d rather it take us a little bit longer and we all make it out than save a bit of time only for consequences we don’t need.”

“Nash?” I asked.

He looked over to me. “Yeah?”

“Not to sound like a complete idiot or anything, but we’re not going to go anywhere near the city are we?” I shuddered. “I’d really rather avoid the area if possible. Once was enough for a lifetime.”

Something flickered across Nash’s expression, gone as soon as it was there. “I’m not planning on revisiting it. Any other questions?”

Scarlett shook her head next to me, and James was his normal brooding, depressing self, so with no other complaints, Nash started down the gangplank. I laughed when I realized our fearless leader was carrying not one backpack, but two, fully loaded packs, the tent strapped beneath the uppermost one.

Fucking showoff. I couldn’t even find myself to be annoyed with it, because knowing Nash he wasn’t trying to show off. In his mind, he was just saving us from having to carry anything else.

Unfortunately, it was kind of hard to make fun of a good person.

Once we were all down, Nash slipped his machete from his belt, swinging a wide swatch at the endless green vines in front of us, until another worn path became apparent. It was definitely smaller than the path we’d taken to the city, the thick vegetation choking out most of the space, forming a claustrophobic kind of tunnel.

Good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic. That I knew of.

There was a first time for everything.

Nash turned back to make sure we were all there, then held back the curtain of green. Single file, we made our way onto the path, Scarlett first, head held high. James was next, keeping a close eye on Scarlett. I followed, but at the last second, something made me turn back to make sure Nash was following.

Still holding the wall of vines, he looked back at the Carpe Diem , sitting forlornly in the water. “Goodbye,” he whispered, quiet enough I had to strain to hear it. “I promise I’ll be back.”

Most of the time I struggled to understand human attachment to inanimate objects, but in this situation, I understood it. To him, Carpe Diem wasn’t just a boat. It wasn’t just his house. She was his companion. I looked back and forth between Scarlett and Nash, wondering what the right decision was here.

Scarlett turned around, making sure we were following. A wave of sadness washed over her features. In that moment, I knew what the right call was. I walked back to Nash, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.

He looked over to me. It surprised me to see tears in the big man’s eyes. Even thinking I knew what he was feeling didn’t touch the surface of reality. “Come on, man. She’ll be waiting for you. But she might not be, if we don’t get a move on.”

Nash swiped the tears away. “Fuck. You’re right. Okay.” One last look at the boat, one last murmured goodbye, and he dropped the wall of vines, effectively entombing us in our richly fertile grave.

Silence surrounded us on the path, with the exception of our hiking boots squishing into the mud. Thankfully, at some point overnight the rain had stopped, and hadn’t started up again, leaving us with just the mud as a reminder that at some point, the rain would be back.

I didn’t like the silence.

“You know,” I started, and James groaned from ahead of me. “I always wanted to donate my body to science when I died. I just assumed it meant actual scientists would be examining me and making advances in the world with their discoveries. Not turning into compost in the middle of a remote rainforest.”

“Shut up, Camp,” James muttered.

“You’d be bored as fuck without me, James.”

We walked for an indeterminate amount of time. We swatted away mosquitoes that swarmed our heads. Flying bugs with iridescent wings flew by, nearly glowing in the rain, ethereal and out of this world. Not a single part about this place seemed real.

One particular leaf was too sharp, too bright.

Nothing could be that green.

A bug crawling on the limb of a tree had too many legs, stopping to stare at me as if it knew I was judging it.

At some point, I realized something wasn’t right.

The fever was creeping back.

Which meant the hallucinations would only be so far behind. I needed to center myself before I lost it completely. Last time I’d seen a murder that never actually happened. Fuck knew what I’d see this time. Already the crisp green leaves of the trees grew hazy, blurred around the edges. A bird called out for another, a mournful sound that echoed in the back of my head like a gong.

“You know…” I started, needing to hear my voice out loud, to know I was still here.

“Shut up , Camp!” James snapped.

“Listen, man, this fact might save your life! Did you know there’s a difference between a jungle and a rainforest?”

“He doesn’t,” Scarlett called from up ahead. “I already called him out on it so it’s a touchy subject.”

“Would you both fuck off?” James grumbled. “There’s not exactly a lot of expeditions in my line of work. Excuse me for not nerding out like the two of you.”

Behind me, Nash laughed, and the sound echoed, over and over and over. It sounded a little crazy at the end, slightly maniacal. Maybe Nash wasn’t okay either. Or maybe I was hearing things.

“Anyway,” I explained, “for those who care—James—a jungle is a part of a rainforest. It’s thicker on the bottom than it is on the top. Rainforests are the opposite. Thicker on the top, not a whole lot on the bottom because not a lot of light is reaching the bottom. Wild, right?”

I smiled, but looked warily up to the sky, only to see it covered entirely by the trees. Trees I could’ve sworn were growing in shades of pink and purple.

No . Shake it off, Camp .

Trees were green, not fucking purple. I was sick, but I was in control, dammit. Eyes still to the sky, I slammed right into the back of James, who had come to a sudden halt.

James rebuffed, “So you’re telling me a jungle would be what we were sailing down the middle of, and what we’re walking in now is a rainforest?” he asked.

Rubbing my chest where I’d run into his shoulder that was apparently made out of marble, I frowned. “No, because we were sailing down a river. But technically, yeah, I guess, because the river ran through a jungle. There’s a lot of variables. You can’t walk in a jungle for one, really. It’s too thick.”

“But Nash’s boat, the river, that would be jungle?” James was quite insistent, and I was very confused.

“Yeah, sure.” I shook my head. “Can we keep walking though?” I really didn’t like the way the vine at my eye level was twisting, turning into itself, its eyes boring into me.

It was just a vine. Just a vine. Just a vine.

“Scarlett Ward, you better hope you can run fast,” James yelled. “You made it quite clear I was an idiot using the wrong terminology but Camp just told me otherwise!”

Scarlett’s laugh made me smile, but I held my hands up in defense, wanting to make a joke when the violet-colored snake lunged out at me, hissing wildly.

I stumbled back, falling onto my ass into the mud, chest heaving. “Get the fuck away from me! No!” I had never seen a snake that color before, but I could only imagine it was venomous with such a deep hue. It lunged farther, mere inches from my bare arm. I shuffled backward on my hands as quickly as I could. “Fuck!”

It loomed closer, my vision tunneling until it was only me and the snake, the snake and I. We could’ve been one for all I knew.

On the other hand, if this fucking purple snake was the last thing I saw before I died, I’d be pissed. I’d probably spend the rest of eternity being an angry ghost, haunting James because I knew it would bug him to no end.

But not seeing Scarlett’s angelic face one last time before I bit the bullet? Never. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew what that meant. I was committed, all in. I was attached. One day, that would be my downfall. Not today, though.

I threw myself forward, grabbing the snake with both hands, strangling it for all I was worth. “See how you like a taste of your own medicine, motherfucker!”

“Camp!” Hands pulled at my shoulders, yanking me back, away from the danger, but didn’t they know I had this handled?

“Get off me! I had this under control!”

“Camp, goddammit, look at me!” Scarlett’s wild scream brought me back to reality, her angelic face I’d been so desperate to see only moments ago finally in sight. Did that mean it was my time? I’d gotten what I wanted, after all.

Except Scarlett wasn’t looking toward the snake. She was looking at me.

“Camp, baby, what do you think happened? Talk to me.” She crouched next to me, wiping my hair away from my face. Surprise rocked through me when I realized her hand came away wet.

“The snake. Did you not see the snake? Did it get away? It was so purple, how could you have missed it?” Why was her hand so wet? I reached up, touching my forehead, realizing I was dripping in perspiration. Fuck. “Tell me you saw the snake.”

Scarlett shuffled backward, grabbing a long vine. “Is this the snake, baby?”

A long green vine, dotted with tiny purple trumpet-shaped flowers. In no way a snake. It didn’t even have a beating heart.

“Oh.” I looked up at her, squeezing her wrist tightly. If anything was going to keep me on this earth, it was going to be her. “Scarlett. Don’t let me lose my mind. Don’t let me go, whatever you do.”

She shook her head, her blue eyes filling with tears I wanted to brush away. I hated that I was the one making her cry. “I won’t. I promise.”

She deserved more than this. Better than this.

Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to let her go. I clung to her tighter, harder, an anchor in a world that was drifting away from me, piece by piece.

At some point, there was going to be nothing left of me.

Nothing left of me except the little bit of my soul that lay nestled inside Scarlett’s heart.