24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
London
D ay unknown
This will be my last entry. I no longer want to remember or document anything on this island. However, I think it’s necessary to tell whoever may read this that Ollie was Nigel’s latest victim. He was murdered in cold blood in the most heinous way. We’ve completely disintegrated. Only eight of us remain out of the twelve original survivors. Nigel is dead… I killed him.
Hunger, dehydration, and dread consume us. We thought we saw another plane yesterday morning. A brief shimmer in the sky before it disappeared within the cloud of distant smoke that lingers in the air from some fire on a different island. So our sole purpose is to keep our signal fire lit. It’s our last sliver of hope as our food is running out. I’ve seen no sign of Micah since he left me two days ago. I saw the look in his eyes when he left. In those last seconds, it wasn’t Micah staring back at me. I didn’t recognize him; it was as if he wanted to kill me, too. The Micah I know and love is gone, and I don’t think I can bring him back. I’d rather remember him the way he was—not wild, feral, and brutal, but as the boy I’m in love with. The soul-crushing love, the kind that hurts your bones. I won’t go back to the cabin with him the way he is right now. He’s broken, and I’m broken, and two broken people shouldn’t be together. This pretty little island finally killed me.
I step outside the shelter after spending the last hour trying to nap since I refuse to sleep at night. I was numb when Ezra carried me back to the site a couple of days ago. And I’m marginally better, although I still struggle between the grip of dreams and reality.
The fire is blazing in the middle of the meadow, the flames nearly touching the sky as I approach the others who are huddled, their faces grim and tight. They are sitting around the fire, a sense of calm surrounding them since there is no more threat. Yet the actual threat is the worst it’s been. Hunger is settling in as we’ve depleted our entire food supply.
I can’t talk, eat, sleep, or breathe.
I sit next to Ezra, and Naomi grimaces, her jealousy coming off as no more than trite. Despite Naomi’s glaring, he moves over and makes space for me. Everyone—except for Ezra—thinks Micah killed Nigel, and it’s easier to keep it that way. The reality of what I did to Nigel settles in my stomach like a stone. What I am capable of… What we are all capable of, and how easy it was for me to do it. I’d do it again to anyone here if they push me.
The others don’t know the true extent of what he did to me, and I don’t know how to tell them… or if I should tell them at all. However, I think Ezra suspects it because he checks on me constantly, taking his oath to Micah to heart.
His promise to take care of me.
I observe Jade as she pulls her hood over her head, choosing to stay secluded while a dark plume of smoke envelops us. She avoids speaking to anyone, even to Thomas, who is sitting right beside her. Her gaze remains fixed on the flames, seemingly imprisoned within her own thoughts. The countless cuts scattered across her body are now nothing but cruel reminders—scars she will carry for the rest of her life. I want to help her heal, to reach out and talk to her, but I can’t bring myself to ask her if he did the same thing to her he did to me .
He had her longer…
Naomi and Serena dote on her and, of course, gloss over me. While my wounds might not be as visible as Jade’s, they run just as deep.
My mind is a blur as I nearly choke on the thickness in the air. I look around. The light is different; something isn’t right. The sun, high in the sky, is blood red. Heavy smoke has settled around us, layered in the air. Pieces of ash bear down on us, lightly dusting the ground like snow. There is no way our tiny fire made all this smoke.
Two days went by, and nothing—no airplane, no rescue. We burned the fire for as long as we could until we just couldn’t keep up with it any longer. And now we settle with a fire burning enough to keep us alive. The wood is still wet from the spring melt, the earth is damp, and the water in the creek is rising from the glacial melt. The days are warm, but the nights are still freezing, so we all sleep huddled together in the three shelters.
To Naomi’s extreme displeasure, Ezra spent one of those nights with me, leaving her cold and alone.
I barely speak, still not truly trusting everyone. Especially not Naomi, who does nothing but stare at me and keeps her distance from me. The feud between us still lingers.
“Where is the smoke coming from?” I finally ask, ignoring Naomi’s icy glare as Ezra drapes a friendly arm around me.
Or a guilty arm… He really is sorry for everything he put me through.
Thomas moves his arm from stroking Jade’s back, and Jade doesn’t acknowledge my question. “We don’t know. It rolled in about an hour ago,” Thomas says. “It came in fast and heavy, so wherever the fire is, it’s close.”
The island is burning.
My stomach flips, realizing what caused it. There is only one person skilled enough to make a fire this big, especially at this time of year.
“I think it’s Micah,” I whisper.
This garners a response from Jade, who shoots me a look but still refuses to speak, the spark of life within her extinguished .
“What are you talking about?” Thomas asks, keeping his attention focused on her as she blankly stares back into the fire.
I shrug indifferently. “The fire. Micah said a few times that we couldn’t build a fire big enough to see from the sky. So I think that’s exactly what he did.”
My stomach tingles at the thought of Micah doing this. The butterflies he still gives me, knowing he did this to potentially save us gives me the hope I’ve been searching for.
A not-so-subtle sign. A message to me in the way only Micah would communicate.
Perhaps he’s still with us, after all, and he’s not gone completely wild.
Thomas blows out a breath. His muscles still flex, even though he’s dropped at least thirty pounds since being here. “Yeah, Micah would do that, wouldn’t he? This has Micah written all over it.”
“How did he get it to burn?” Naomi asks. “We’ve been trying to burn this wood for days. It’s too wet.”
I blink at her lazily. Her hair is pulled up tight, her cheeks are sunken, and she is hardly recognizable. I keep my face neutral but don’t respond to her. Instead, I focus on Thomas. I can’t speak to Naomi; I still hate her. Ezra might have forgiven her, but she’s yet to apologize to me for anything.
The most sinister thought consumes me. “Maybe he didn’t burn wood. Maybe he burned something else.” Like a pile of dead bodies.
No one responds to that.
“We need the flare gun,” Thomas says, rising and throwing wood into the fire before directing his attention to me. “He has it, doesn’t he?”
I merely nod. Micah has the flare gun—he’s had it since the beginning. He didn’t want to waste the only two flares in the beginning because no one would have seen it. I hope when the time comes, he will actually use it. And since he never gave it to us, he clearly wants it for himself.
I leave the others and walk to the creek, grabbing my pack to bathe. Before I do, I call over my shoulder, “Make sure you keep an eye on the sky. This fire might gain the attention we were looking for. Something’s attracting those airplanes.” This fire, in particular, is fresh, so whoever is out there will probably come looking.
At least, I hope so… Otherwise, we’ll burn alive.
Once alone, I scrub myself to the point of obsession until my skin is raw and tears burn the back of my eyes. No matter what I do, I can’t shake the feeling being caked with blood—Nigel’s blood when it splattered over me like paint. It’s like, somehow, it seeped into my pores and he’s now a part of me. Afterward, I attempt to wrap my hand, doing my best to brace it like Micah would, and get dressed. Not that it matters anymore since I no longer have any feeling in my fingers. And that numbness is spreading through every nerve in my hand. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s spreading to my heart.
Before I head back to the others, I peer at the sky. The smoke, dark and foreboding, is reminiscent of an apocalypse.
A perfect ending to this story.
It’s quiet—eerily so—as if the spring birds, critters, and insects are hiding from the smoke, knowing their time on this island is ending, too.
It takes a few minutes for me to realize I hear something strange. It’s more than the usual hum of wilderness, the distant crackling where the fire is burning, or the soul-sucking voices in my head.
It’s a whooshing sound, low and close.
Like a machine.
Or a helicopter… flying low, heading in the complete opposite direction.
I drop my bag and run to the others, who see it too, each of them standing and staring up through the dense brush in the middle of the clearing. As if on cue, every single one of us, including Jade, jumps up and down in the meadow, screaming and waving our arms.
We scream until our lungs bleed. Then we scream some more .
The helicopter disappears into the heavy smoke, and we’re all quiet again, out of breath and heartbroken. The silence is suffocating.
Naomi leans against Serena and starts to cry. I fall to my knees as my heart beats through my chest. The sense of doom I’ve been feeling takes over completely. My mind numbs, and my chest caves in on itself. We stare at each other as if silently saying, “What’s next?”
But there is no next, and we all know it.
Perhaps my plans of offing myself will happen much sooner than I anticipated.
A few minutes go by, then a few more…
“What was that?” Ezra asks, breaking the silence among us.
“What the fuck did you see?” Thomas asks, furrowing his brow, still clearly harboring anger toward Ezra, just as I do for Naomi, but casting it aside for the moment for the sake of the others.
“It was a light in the sky,” he says.
I whip my head up. “Are you sure?”
Ezra nods. “Yeah, it was a flash, but I saw it above those trees.” He points northward.
The flare.
Micah.
He’s alive and trying to save us. My heart swirls. I love him so fucking much for it.
We all pause, waiting for something.
At last, the helicopter reappears. We all go wild, waving our hands and screaming our lungs out. We let out a collective cry of relief as it flashes, its lights signaling that it sees us, and starts its descent into the meadow.
The whooshing sound overwhelms my senses, and it’s such a serene feeling to see something human. Once it lands, a man in a blue uniform exits and the engine stops, the silence reverberating into the forest. My body releases all the tension, every muscle and fiber of my being giving out.
The man scans all of us, shaking his head incredulously. “I can’t believe my eyes,” he says. “The entire world has been looking for you folks for a very long time. ”
Two other men jump out, and within seconds, I am gathered inside strong arms and pulled in what I can only assume is an army helicopter.
Except it’s not… They’re wearing blue uniforms with the word Police etched on their chest.
“Who are you?” I ask him.
“My name is Sergeant Reynolds. I’m with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, otherwise known as the RCMP.”
“Canadian?” Ezra gripes, shaking his head as the men escort us onto the chopper. “You mean we’re in fucking Canada?”
Sergeant Reynolds nods. “You are… Your plane went way off course. You’re in the northern territory called the Yukon.”
“Well, I’ll be fucked,” Ezra says. “No wonder you couldn’t find us and it’s so cold.”
I can’t help but laugh. All this time… We’re not even in Alaska.
“Alright, come on,” he says and mumbles something into a walkie-talkie, giving a hand signal to the pilot, who fires up the chopper. “We need to go now. Whatever caused this fire, it’s spreading fast, so grab whatever you want to bring with you and get on. Are there any more of you?”
“Wait.” I wiggle out of the officer’s arms and run to the shelter, grabbing Maison’s hockey sweater and nothing else. All my other possessions, including my journal, can burn. “There’s one more person. We have to find Micah.”
Sergeant Reynolds narrows his eyes. “Is that it? One more?”
Thomas steps forward. “No one else survived, sir.” That is the understatement of the century.
Sergeant Reynolds narrows his eyes. “And where is Mr. Matei?”
I bite my lip. “We’re not exactly sure where he is. But there’s a hunting cabin north of here. He’s probably staying there.”
He shakes his head. “No, we cleared that site an hour ago. No one is there. ”
My stomach sinks as one officer carries me into the chopper.
“Was he the one with the flare?” Sergeant Reynolds asks, strapping me in.
We all nod. “We’ll send a team to come back for him once the smoke clears out. Right now, my orders are to get the survivors to safety.”
“Micah is a survivor!” I cry out, trying to get out of these straps.
My breath falters. The straps are too fucking tight. I rip myself out of them without anyone seeing.
My body convulses, and I let out a sob, but I don’t bother arguing. If the chopper went to the cabin, Micah would have seen it. He went into hiding. He wants to die out here…
One of the other officers moves over to Jade, and his eyes must catch her scars because he lifts her arms and asks her permission to inspect her.
Sergeant Reynolds stops and really takes us all in. His eyes search every single one of us, knowing these injuries were caused by humans.
He can tell there’s a story but doesn’t ask.
The chopper takes off once we are all on board. The silent sobs and blind panic consume me as we rise into the air, matched only by the overwhelming grief of never seeing Micah again.
Once the chopper lifts, I peer outside. The view is hidden by the smoke, and I lurch off my seat. “No. No. No! You can’t leave him.”
Beg. Begging always works.
The officer has me in his grasp while the others just stare at my outburst. “Please, we have to find Micah. He’s alive. I know he is.”
“We’ll come back for him, Ms. King. You need to take a seat.”
Ms. King…
He knows my name. He knew Micah’s name…
The entire world knows my name.
When we step out of this chopper, they will watch and see who steps out—who survived …
Forty-two people left New Ocean that day, but only seven will return. He has no fucking idea what we endured to get here, no one does. But they will… The world will want to know what happened out there.
They will force us to tell them as if we owe them something.
I sit with my head in my hands, rocking back and forth, looking at my peers who are all silent and thinking the same thing as me. Each of them is truly a stranger to me, just like when I stepped on that doomed plane all those months ago.
I never want to see any of them again.
Only now that I’m soaring through the air and the rush of the wind against my face is bringing back memories do I remember a promise I made to myself never to fly again. I spend the remainder of the flight trying to keep my food in my stomach. It’s a lovely distraction from the pain in my heart, which is in literal pieces in my chest.
I wait in extreme anticipation until the chopper lands at an outpost, and we all get carted onto a large airplane, even bigger than the one we crashed in.
“I shouldn’t have left him,” I whisper to myself, knowing it’s too late.
I repeat those words without a care about how crazy I look. I close my eyes and sway as panic grips me.
On the plane ride back, everyone has their eyes closed, dealing with their own internal torment. I’m in utter shock the entire plane ride to New Ocean.
I can’t get Micah out of my head. His dark eyes, his olive skin, his warm, muscled body… How he looked at me and had been watching me from day one.
The day at the beach when he scrutinized me as I lay in my bathing suit, angry with the world. How alive he makes me feel.
I just left him… abandoned him to that inferno. I will never see him again, and that thought utterly destroys me.
The airplane lands abruptly, the screeching sound of the brakes piercing the air, and I take a deep breath as blind panic consumes me. I keep my eyes open because it’s easier than closing them and reliving the horror of watching people die. And no one is here to comfort me this time.
Breathe.
I’m still breathing…
I’m at the back of the plane. In fact, if I ever fly again, I will only ever sit in the back since it did, indeed, save my life. I finally blow out a breath once the plane comes to a halt and the lights come on.
Air is coursing through my lungs at an alarming rate, going from not breathing to breathing heavily in a matter of seconds. I stare outside at the town I left, at the sea of people waiting for us. My stomach crawls its way to my throat.
I exit the airplane last and walk down the steps onto the tarmac of the small airport in New Ocean. They took us directly home. Word must have spread of our arrival and they let the media in because the place is swarming with reporters, people, and flashing lights.
The world is waiting to see what’s left of us.
It’s unnerving to see this many people after not being around anyone except one person for months. It’s even more unsettling for me because I don’t recognize a single familiar face.
I wasn’t here long enough to matter to them.
Their disappointment is evident in their audible cries when they see my face instead of their star athlete. I’m the last to exit; there is no one behind me.
My heart races as I scan the crowd, the weight of the entire world’s eyes on me. I’m glad I made the decision to leave my journal on the island. No one needs to know my truth. I’ll keep my mouth shut forever to avoid reliving any of it .
As if on instinct, I reach for Micah, knowing he would protect me from the world that will want to consume me. I reach my other hand for Maison, also met with the icy emptiness that will now linger beside me forever.
The pain of losing them is crippling and shakes me to my core.
The crowd is filled with faces reflecting heartache and despair and families clinging to each other, their cries echoing through the air as they realize their son or daughter is never coming home. An entire generation was lost.
My parents push forward through the crowd, and my heart swells seeing my mom and dad together.
It’s been seven years since I’ve seen them together, and here they are, side by side, waiting for me. My heart bursts at the sight of them. I hadn’t realized how much I missed them. I let out a sob and run to them, ignoring everything else as I throw myself into their arms.
Cameras capture the moment.
My mom hugs me so hard and so frantically, as if she really can’t believe I am here. She runs her hands along my hair and face and down my arms. Her hair looks dull, her body is frail and thin, and she looks like she has aged at least ten years. “London. Oh my god, honey. You’re here. You’re really here.” I barely get in a sob because she’s hugging me so tight.
She pulls off and studies me—every bruise and cut. She feels the ribs poking out of my sweater. “What happened to you out there?” she whispers. My dad stands a few feet behind her, awkward as always. I hug him, too, remembering our last moment when he dropped me off at the airport the day I was heading to the hockey tournament to spy.
I was a spy and a fraud, and now I’m a murderer. And a victim. In so many ways, I’m a victim.
I stumble over my words. Where do I start? I’ll need therapy for the rest of my life to even begin to describe it.
Mom breaks down in sobs, and she and my father pull me in close as the media pushes through the barriers, shoving a microphone in my face. I have a moment of guilt, realizing that I was the sole focus of my mom and dad’s thoughts during my absence. Meanwhile, Micah and Maison consumed my mind the entire time.
I hug them harder because I did miss them. So incredibly much.
I can’t look at the others as the town fawns over them. We’ve all scattered into the crowd, and I’d be just as happy never to see their faces again. I’d give anything to forget it all—to forget everything and everyone I met while on this trip.
Even Micah. Because thinking of him hurts the most.
Eventually, the authorities pull us away, and they take me into a tent where an emergency doctor is waiting. They poke and prod me for a few minutes and, eventually, pull me onto a stretcher to run full tests on me at the hospital. There is red tape around the place, so at least the cameras stop flashing.
The paramedics take me through the back, and a woman catches my attention. I can’t take my eyes off her striking high cheekbones, olive skin, and fabulously rich-looking outfit. She catches me watching her, her eyes in a lethal focus on mine. Neither of us can look away, so I keep staring in complete fascination.
I remember her from the pictures when I was investigating her sons, but also because of her striking resemblance to Micah and Maison. Clearly, they got their looks from their mother.
The pain in her eyes mirrors mine, and I want to cry out to her to let her know Micah is alive but that he’s not ready to come home yet. I don’t because I’m not sure if he will ever be ready to come home and I can’t bring myself to speak.
For a moment, it’s as if she has the ability to delve into my mind, her piercing stare effortlessly seeing beyond my walls and into my dark, cloudy soul. It’s as if she can sense I’m desperately in love with them, and she watches me with a nurturing intuition while simultaneously assessing me to see if I’m worthy.
She leans into her husband’s shoulders and starts sobbing. I understand her pain, and tears sting my eyes as my mother grabs my hand, only now realizing that it’s shattered.
“London, honey,” she says as she wipes the hair from my eyes in a loving gesture. “Will you please say something?”
I haven’t uttered a single word since I arrived. I try to speak, but the words get caught in my throat. There is an overwhelming silence in my heart, and all I want is to escape New Ocean forever.