Chapter Twenty-Three
Cillian
The main camp feels bare when night falls.
The signal fire is burning bright on the beach where Willow and Yasop have said they’re going to keep it going until they’re tired.
Mary and Charles have already turned in for the night in their own camp, and Darren has gone off to his own new lean-to as well.
I prod our fire, but any panic about it going out has passed.
We have matches. Relighting it won’t involve hard labour.
Seán rests his forearms on his knees. “There’s space for you to have your own spot now.” The empty lean-tos in camp have supplies stashed beneath them that could be easily moved. I go still, feeling caught in a lie. Seán raises a brow and waits.
“Jules is on concussion watch.”
“You told me yesterday that you weren’t going to sleep with him. Yesterday, Cillian.” He’s speaking low enough that Jules and Mathieu, turned in already, won’t be able to hear him.
It feels like someone else made the promise. I wonder if Seán would have anything to say about what I was doing with Mathieu a few hours ago.
“I said I wasn’t going to sleep with him and piss him off,” I correct. He’s currently pissed off at me, but not because we slept together. I’m not sure how Mathieu earned Jules’s forgiveness. He’s been glued to Mathieu all evening, and Mathieu’s been lapping up the attention with naked delight.
I need to apologise.
“Cillian.”
Seán’s asking the way his dad does it, softly, without anger or judgement.
Yesterday I would have agreed. Yesterday I did agree.
But that was before I’d kissed Jules. Or held him quiet while he came.
If I have to sleep in the next lean-to over, knowing that Jules and Mathieu are making out and getting each other off, I’ll go crazy.
But that isn’t all of it. Most nights when I wake up, I reach around myself, check Mathieu and Jules are there, and then I can go back to sleep.
“I think it can work,” I say, “without anyone getting pissed off.”
“Cillian.”
I shouldn’t be giving any kickback. I should listen, go lie down in a different lean-to, and put the two of them out of my mind. But I don’t want to. I haven’t ever felt strongly enough about anyone to prioritise what I want with them over Seán.
“You’re straight.”
I pick up a stick and prod the fire. “Growing up, being straight was more convenient. Anything that would make me stand out in that place was to be avoided at all costs.”
Seán’s hand tightens into a fist.
“Not that I realised I could be attracted to men. It hadn’t occurred to me to even look.
I’m attracted to personality,” I say. “Always have been.” If a woman is assertive, outgoing and doing things, then she’ll catch my attention.
It isn’t a stretch to realise I’m attracted to those qualities in men, too.
“You don’t think it’s the situation? The proximity?”
“I wasn’t marooned in the club.”
Seán fidgets. “I don’t want to stand in the way of this discovery—because I’m fine with you being bi. I like to think I’m not like your parents—”
“I would have swum to that other island if you were.”
“Fair. But Jules and Mathieu have something going on. You’d be butting in as an awkward third wheel if you go into that lean-to.”
I glance up. Whatever Seán reads in my face has him burying his in his hand with a groan. “Cillian.”
“Pretty sure we found earplugs. Check the med kit.”
Seán throws the entire thing at my head.
I catch it with a laugh and set it back under the tarp next to our other precious supplies.
The only thing not there is the jerrycan, which is stashed even further back, away from the fire.
I ruffle Seán’s hair as I pass, and he groans again, as if in pain.
“I’m never introducing you to my friends ever again. ”
“I’ve already met the best ones.”
It occurs to me as I approach the lean-to that I might be turned away, and Seán will get to laugh at me.
I kneel on the edge of the bedding—we have a layer of couch pillows now, and compared to the fibre bedding of the week before, it feels like a feather bed.
The firelight illuminates Mathieu and Jules facing each other, curled up and cosy. I stare at them.
They stir when I sit on the end of the bedding. Mathieu, with Jules tucked into his throat, sends me an unmistakably smug look. He predicts the grovelling about to ensue and is clearly ready to enjoy it.
As opposed to earlier, when I got the upper hand, Mathieu now has all the power. He can help, or he can hinder. I’m sure he knows it. I’m wary he’s going to use his advantage to get me back for making him yield earlier.
“Jules.”
Jules doesn’t respond. I clear my throat. “Jules.”
Mathieu’s eyes sparkle. “Try not whispering.”
Jules makes a “hm” sound, stirring against Mathieu’s neck. I watch as drowsy kisses are pressed against Mathieu’s throat. “Did you say something?” Jules mumbles, voice thick with sleep.
I didn’t know it was possible to find a grown man cute.
“Jules.” I raise my voice above a whisper.
I get the same not-really-awake “hm” from him.
I scoot closer, ignoring Mathieu’s amused look.
“Is it okay if I sleep in here?” I ask. I doubt any apology is going to get through right now.
“Of course.” Jules rolls away from Mathieu and stretches out so he’s lying in his own spot, and mine too. His eyes are shut, his breaths steady.
I blink at the positioning.
“I mean, can I join you?” I ask.
Mathieu covers his mouth, stifling his laugh.
Jules has gone back to sleep.
I crawl into the lean-to. “Jules.” I cup his shoulder. “Can I—”
Jules’s entire body flinches.
“Ow”—a punch lands square on my nose—“Get your”—hard enough that my vision blots out—“fucking”—I jerk back, as startled by Jules’s raised voice as I am by the hit—“hands off me.”
I fall out of the lean-to, catching myself on my palms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Did I hurt you?”
Mathieu bolts upright at the same time as Jules, who’s cupping his shoulder, eyes flashing in my direction, wide with panic.
Seán seizes my shoulder, poised to haul me away.
I cup my throbbing nose, tasting blood.
Our eyes collide. Jules’s fill with recognition. “Cillian?” His voice is hoarse. He scrambles out of the lean-to, hands feathering against my face as Seán crouches next to me. His grip on my shoulder eases.
“I thought it was Darren. I’m so sorry, I was asleep—is there gauze in the med kit?”
Amid the bustle of Mathieu grabbing the med kit and Seán finding the gauze, I register a few things. A reactive, fear-filled punch. I thought it was Darren. Jules is holding his shoulder oddly. And then, I see his throat.
I go cold.
I know for damn sure I didn’t grab his throat hard enough to bruise, let alone do that.
Jules is crying. He’s framing my face, staring at the blood dripping down my chin with open horror. A dozen I’m sorrys fall from his lips in quick succession. His voice sounds sore.
“Hey.” I press my hand against the back of his. “It’s okay. You thought I was going to hurt you?”
“No, no, of course not. I thought you were Darren—” He cuts off.
I swallow hard.
“Darren did that to your throat?” I ask.
Seán’s hand stops in the middle of handing me gauze. His gaze moves to Jules, and genuine anger fills his eyes as he lays eyes on his throat. The ring of bruises is tight beneath Jules’s jaw, his delicate throat marked out by individual fingers. Darren’s handprint.
Jules starts to pull back, but I squeeze his hand and will him to keep looking at me. “Jules,” I say. “Darren injured you?”
His nod is tiny.
“Can we look at your shoulder?”
I squeeze his hand. Jules nods again.
Seán gives me the gauze, and I hold it to my nose.
I keep Jules’s hand inside mine and guide it onto my lap.
He keeps his eyes on me. The same quiet attentiveness that he’s slipped into when we’ve been intimate together wraps around him like a shield.
There’s something terrifyingly vulnerable in it.
Mathieu kneels at his side. “Can I slide this down?”
I squeeze Jules’s hand.
“Yes,” Jules says.
It’s a half-button-up shirt. Mathieu unfastens the buttons, then eases the fabric off Jules’s shoulder. His arms are down, and the fabric falls to his elbows on either side. Jules doesn’t bat an eye, focused on me.
There’s bruising on the side of his arm, and I know from Mathieu’s expression that there’s more on his back. Seán moves behind Jules, examining the damage.
“Bruising and swelling, but not as bad as your throat,” Seán says. “Let’s ice it and… We have no ice packs.”
“I can dip something in the ocean.” Mathieu grabs a shirt from his own bag and darts out of the camp at a brisk trot.
Seán pulls the med kit over and digs out bruising cream.
“We’ll cool your shoulder and throat first, then put the cream on,” Seán says. He tries to make eye contact with Jules. Jules doesn’t acknowledge the effort.
Jules is staring at me. It’s like someone has put a gun to my head and threatened to end the world if I let my temper slip out. I’m not sure Jules is in the right headspace to distinguish that my anger isn’t directed at him.
“I don’t know what to do,” Seán admits. “We can’t call the guards. We’ll report him when we’re rescued, obviously, but in the meantime…”
I could beat the ever-loving shit out of Darren. Jules doesn’t deserve to be hurt, and he doesn’t deserve to be scared.
When did this happen? When were they even alone together? “He’s not allowed anywhere near Jules,” I say. “He’s not allowed near camp.”
“Has your nosebleed stopped? Here.” Seán offers me a wet wipe. I use it to clean myself.
“Keeping him away is a good idea,” Seán says. “His lean-to is the furthest out, anyway. The only thing we’ll have to do is have someone bring him meals.”
“You or me, nobody else,” I say. I’m not letting Mathieu within a mile of that fucker either.
“I’ll do it,” Seán says.
“I can too.”
Seán studies me for a long time. “No,” he eventually says. “I’ll do it.”
“I—”
“I don’t want you getting done for assault too, Cillian. No, and that’s final.”
My jaw clenches, and Jules’s eyes focus there. Only when I force my jaw to relax do Jules’s eyes slide back to mine. “Okay,” I say quietly. “Fine.”
For the entire conversation, Jules kneels, silent. He’s watching me. I think he’s listening, waiting for an instruction of some sort. I squeeze his hand, showing that my next words are for him. “Can you tell us what happened?”
Jules’s eyes flash towards the entrance of the camp. He stares as though a monster will come slinking out of the shadows any second.
I squeeze his hand again. “On me,” I correct. “He’s not here, and he’s never getting close to you ever again. I promise.”
Jules’s attention flicks back. His eyes find mine and lock on. The panic goes away.
“He’s mad about Mathieu,” Jules says.
Mathieu steps back into camp, his dripping shirt in his hands.
“Usually I’d calm him down, but we’re broken up, and he’s treating me like shit, so I didn’t.”
Rage seeps into my bloodstream. Usually.
“He shoved me.”
Jules stops, as if that’s all the explanation he needs to give. As if that’s all that happened.
“And he choked you,” I finish.
Jules makes a confirming sound.
Mathieu passes behind him. He kneels and checks in with Jules before holding the damp shirt against his throat.
His mouth has the shape it did when we first wrecked, and Jules wouldn’t wake up.
“This happened when you came back for lunch, didn’t it?
You looked upset. I thought it was because of this morning. ”
Jules makes another indistinct sound. He doesn’t divert his attention to Mathieu, and I don’t think he’s going to either.
“Mathieu is going to put the cream on your neck now,” I say.
Mathieu applies the cream so gently that Jules doesn’t even flinch.
His dark eyes study Jules’s face, his hand inside mine, then my expression.
His sunshine has vanished. I notice the sunburn on his nose and cheeks.
His chapped lips. Messy, tangled hair, despite my work earlier.
For once, he looks less like a wild, revelling nymph than someone exhausted and frightened.
Seán stands up. “I’m going to talk to him so he doesn’t show up in the morning.”
I go to stand, and Mathieu’s hand fastens on my arm.
“No. You have to stay with Jules,” Mathieu says. “I’ll go with Seán.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Cillian,” Mathieu says. “He’s completely out of it, and he’s locked on you. You can’t go.”
Jules doesn’t react to the words. He’s waiting. Watching me.
Mathieu’s right. I can’t leave his side when he’s this vulnerable. But I can’t stand the thought of Mathieu being near Darren either.
“Your presence will make Darren angrier at Jules,” I say. “If he’s lashing out because you chose Jules over him, seeing you there while he’s”—the right phrase is “held accountable”, but that isn’t how Darren will see it—“called out and embarrassed will only make his reaction worse.”
“If I’m the reason—”
“It was like that with my parents,” I blurt, sharp and desperate.
“You could call them anything under the sun and they wouldn’t bat an eye, but mention the mountain of cans in the living room to so much as the postman and you were going to get it.
They’d laugh it off in the moment, but take their embarrassment and unleash it the second we were alone. ”
Seán breathes in sharply.
Mathieu doesn’t look away from my eyes. I see his thoughts churning. He finally glances at Jules, then at me again. “Alright.” He places his hand over mine, over Jules’s, and squeezes until I relax my grip. “I did promise to listen to your safety instructions.”
Relief fills me.
“I’ll let the others know that he isn’t allowed into camp,” Mathieu says. “Is that fine with all of you? Jules?”
Jules doesn’t answer.
Mathieu tips his head back, staring through the gap in the canopy at the stars. The heat of his indecision radiates off him, his body all tense lines. “He’ll be angry with me for it in the morning, but it’s better everyone knows what the situation is.”
I’m not sure what state Jules is going to be come morning, but I think Mathieu is right. “Everyone will see the bruises for themselves anyway. They’re only going to develop more during the night.”
My eyes find Seán. His injured shoulder, still in a sling.
“Yasop’s at the signal fire,” Seán says. “I’ll bring him with me.”
I nod.
Seán and Mathieu both wait an extra beat for some remark from Jules. None come. He’s usually the one organising and making plans. Without his buzzing, it’s eerily quiet.