21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
London
I slip out of bed before Micah wakes up, and somehow, without him noticing. His arm was splayed out on top of me, and he didn’t move it the entire night. His fingers gripped and teased me even in his sleep, pinning me in place. Anytime I moved, he would flinch and pull me in even closer.
Micah passed out in a way I’ve never seen him do—sleeping so soundly. He must’ve been exhausted but didn’t want to admit it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have fallen asleep, so I didn’t want to wake him. At one point in the night, I slipped into a semi-conscious state. But whenever I closed my eyes, I was plagued with nightmares, so I tried not to close them and focused on the flames instead. I stared at those flames twirling in the night, trying to ignore the images that haunt me.
Blood, crooked smiles, bone weapons and spears, dark chestnut eyes under a dark hood, and fishing wire. Severed hands and argyle.
I dared not close my eyes again. Keeping them open was better, even though the shadows played tricks on my mind and I kept thinking I saw a figure staring back at me. When I looked back, it was gone.
The temperature dropped, and we had no shelter, but Micah kept me warm. I got up a few times to put new logs into the fire to keep it burning, but I slipped back in beside him and he placed his hand over me again each time.
As I walk down the creek to the spot where Maison is buried, I look in every direction to make sure I’m alone. I’m on high alert, not wanting to become like Ollie—completely unaccounted for. As the sun starts to rise, I can tell the weather is going to be as dreary as my mood. The clouds are thick, and a heavy mist hangs in the air. The trees look as if they belong in a painting with their delicate strokes of evergreen, icy white, and muted gray.
I find the spot with two crossed sticks on the ground—a feeble attempt at marking Maison’s grave but appreciated all the same. I sit with him for a few minutes as tears form in my eyes, but not because I’m grieving his loss. I am slowly coming to terms with that. I’m crying for Micah since he refuses to acknowledge Maison’s death.
He cried out last night when he was asleep, yelling Maison’s name. He was so alert when he did it that I thought for sure he was awake as pure anguish twisted his face. My heart broke for him.
Then he went quiet and fell back asleep as if it didn’t happen at all. He merely reached out for me. I let go of my anger and took in his pain. A hint of a smile pulled my lips, knowing how annoyed he’d be if he knew how deeply I understood his grief. If he only knew he allowed me to see the most vulnerable sides of him…
Running my hands over the muddy spot where he is buried, I can’t help but hope that Maison will appear just like he has done before and that the gentle whisper of wind in the trees is a sign he’s here. However, he can’t be because his lifeless body rests beneath me while his soul is hopefully somewhere peaceful.
I’m better now, away from the cabin and not as isolated. My body is much colder, but my mind is clearer. I was hallucinating and risking extreme dehydration when Maison appeared to me. I hope I never experience that state again and that if I do, I will meet a swift end.
The snap of a twig alerts me. My head whips up toward the sound.
Wind. Silence. Isolating pain .
“Fuck,” I mutter as my heart rate spikes. I look around, seeing nothing out of place, suddenly feeling idiotic for coming out here alone. At least I can scream, and I doubt Nigel would get very far if he tried anything. Then again, I can’t very well scream if I’m dead.
I’m so scared that I can’t move. My body is frozen in this spot, and I lie down in the mud right over the cross. After a few minutes of heavy sobbing, I pull myself together and rise from the grave. The sun is peeking through the clouds over me, and I savor that sunlight, stripping my clothes and walking to the icy waters of the creek.
When I arrived yesterday morning, before I passed out from exhaustion, I changed into fresh clothes, but my skin is still caked with a thick layer of dirt and sweat. Micah must really love me because I’m not sure how he can stand the stench of me, let alone fuck me like this.
When I’m satisfied Nigel isn’t going to jump out from behind a tree, I approach the icy bank and start by leaning over and splashing water on my face. I keep going until I’ve scrubbed myself as clean as I can, then quickly dip into the creek and let the flow of water wash my hair. When I come up for air, Micah’s voice startles me.
“I don’t like you coming out here alone.” My eyes whip to him, standing with his head tilted. He has changed into black sweats and a white T-shirt and is holding a sweater. I avoid his heavy stare. I’ve been crying, and he probably can see it on my face, which makes me feel vulnerable with him.
I keep my eyes to the ground as I rise and walk toward him, and he pulls the warm sweater over my dripping body. I fall into him as he pats me dry. “I’m sorry. I just needed a minute,” I tell him.
Last night was intense. I mean, sex with Micah is always intense, but last night was different. I can’t read him right now, although I’m sure he can read me easily.
He helps me get dressed, then reaches over and hands me a spear. “At least, if you’re going to wander off, take this with you. I made it for you this morning. ”
I narrow my eyes, casting my gaze to the sky, realizing I have no concept of where the sun is through the heavy, thick clouds. “You made it this morning? When?”
Micah’s eyebrows rise. “London, you’ve been gone for three hours.”
Jesus.
How long was I at Maison’s grave for? Because I certainly wasn’t bathing for three hours in those icy waters. Maybe my mind is not as clear as I thought.
He clasps his hands around my lower back. “I figured you needed some space, so I gave it to you. But my patience is thin, London, and I don’t want to be away from you.”
A wave of guilt washes over me. I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with him because he’s not going to like what I have to say.
He kisses the top of my head. “You know I love you, right?”
I flit my eyes up, his chestnut eyes flashing. He never says those words to me. In fact, I’ve only ever heard him say it twice before.
I’m quiet, letting him speak because I want to hear him say it.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Not that it will change anything because I can’t be with him.
He runs his hands down my arms and squeezes his brows together. “Every decision I’ve ever made on this island, everything I’ve hunted and killed, every life I’ve saved, I’ve done it for you. I’m keeping you alive, London, and now it’s time to go home.”
I lean up and kiss him, and a weird feeling washes over me. Like, somehow, we are saying goodbye instead of hello. It’s entirely unsettling, and I dismiss the thought.
I have so many things I want to say to him. Like how he needs to deal with his brother’s death, how isolating ourselves will only bring us more pain, and that we can’t avoid our grief by immersing ourselves in each other. Because my grief is eating me up from the inside out, and I think it’s doing the same to him .
I blow out a breath. “We should head back to the others and help.”
He shakes his head and doesn’t let go of me. “Not fucking good enough. Give me something else. Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
I slap my hand away from him, my blind rage returning. “I don’t owe you anything,” I say through gritted teeth. “I know you want things to be okay again, for me to swoon because you finally decided to say what you’re thinking, but I won’t, not this time and not just to appease your precious ego. I’m not going back there with you, Micah. I meant the things I said when you left me.”
I fucking hate you. I will never forgive you for this.
Arguing with him on this point is fruitless, but I do it anyway. He called me stubborn once, and now he is about to find out just how stubborn I am.
I cross my arms. “Take Naomi with you. I’m staying here until we are rescued.”
It’s silly being jealous right now in these circumstances—as if petty matters of the heart are what’s important right now. But the jealousy is crippling, along with my anger for him leaving me like I’m a possession, and not a prized one at that.
Maison warned me. He warned me plenty, and I refused to listen.
Micah’s eyes flash, and the vein in his neck pulses. “We’re not getting fucking rescued, London. Look around, baby, this is it until you die. These idiots think that by lighting a tiny signal fire again, an airplane is somehow going to magically appear out of thin air. I have news for them and for you, sweetheart: it fucking won’t. They can’t make a fire big enough.”
I shake my head. “I refuse to believe that, Micah. As a group, I think we have a better shot at getting rescued than if we split and give up.” I’ve long thought Micah doesn’t want to be rescued, and this proves it.
“It’s not about getting rescued, London; it’s about surviving. Why don’t you see that? You will die here. Everyone here is going to die. We can live in that cabin, where we have a proper shelter—a home. We can’t survive out here in the elements. Look at you… A week away from me, and you look like shit.”
I press my lips together and glare at him. He knows… He knows this is a breakup. He slumps his shoulders.
Defeated.
It breaks me, but I can’t be responsible for healing his heart anymore. I’m not his medicine… I’m his poison. And I’m not making him any better. It’s sucking everything I have out of me to make him whole again.
My voice is broken. “You did this to me, Micah. You did this to us. You caused this fracture between us by not trusting me enough.”
My eyes jerk to the forest floor, and my heart falters. Something is protruding off the ground, leaning against a nearby fallen log. Something that wasn’t there before because I would have noticed it. My hand hits my mouth, tears fill my eyes, and my stomach turns as bile rises from the pit of my stomach, burning every inch of my throat, mouth, and nostrils.
Micah narrows his eyes. “London?”
The words get caught in my throat as I try to articulate the scene unfolding before me. He follows my gaze to Ollie’s severed head on the ground, a few feet away from us. His eyes are staring at us like the pits of hell. His hair is still intact, and his eyes open. A fresh kill—
“Fucking Christ,” Micah yells as he pulls my head to his chest, realizing what caused my reaction. “Don’t look, baby. Keep your eyes closed.” He covers my eyes immediately, but the damage is already done. I saw it…
I found Ollie.
“ Why? Why, Micah?” My body convulses and shakes, knowing who did this to him.
“Come on, London. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I can’t move. I stand, utterly frozen. “Nigel’s here,” I whisper. “He’s probably watching us.” He was probably watching me the whole time.
Grieving, crying, shedding my clothes.
That snap in the forest.
“He’s here, Micah. He’s here right now. That wasn’t here before. ”
Micah grows deadly still, calm almost, before calling out to the forest. “I’m going to find you, Nigel,” he threatens. “And when I do, I’m going to tear off every limb of your body.”
Nigel.
I would barely call human what he has become and disintegrated into. He’s nothing but a character in my mind now—a dark villain, a hunter, a killer among us. It’s as if he’s always been this way.
Micah and I walk back in silence through the heavy mist, with his protective hand on my back the entire time. I can’t speak. The island, once again, seems to be deprived of oxygen.
The haunting image of Ollie’s severed head will forever be etched in my mind—a constant reminder that his death was not caused by the plane crash, an animal, or the island itself. But by a sentient being making a cold, calculated decision and driven by anger, desperation, and pure instinct.
I’m still shaking as we come upon the meadow. The others are huddled there, preparing for what looks like will be an enormous fire. Micah grabs my hand and squeezes it before we get there, his lips brushing my ear. “I don’t care what you say, London. I am not letting you go now.”
I cling to his arm, regretting the entire conversation I just had with him despite speaking my truth in the moment.
If Nigel has his way, I will end up like Ollie. It’s a miracle I’m still breathing.
James, Serena, Ezra, and Naomi are busy moving wood. No one spares us a glance; everyone is broken in their own way. We’ve all lost someone, and now, after everything we’ve had to endure, the real battle is just beginning .
“Where the fuck are Jade and Thomas?” Micah says as we walk up to them. Ezra merely glares from his spot on the ground, but he keeps his steady eyes on my neck, then grins and shakes his head.
I forgot about the bruises—the marking, the claiming. Micah spent a good twenty minutes licking and sucking me, as if those marks will somehow protect me.
Will Nigel care when he comes for me?
James rises at the urgency he picks up in Micah’s voice and narrows his eyes, also noticing the new bruises on my neck. I can barely keep my head up, let alone try to hide them.
“They went to collect wood for the signal fire,” James says as he carefully studies me while all the food in my belly slowly rises up my throat. “What did you do to her, Micah?” James can’t hide his dislike for Micah any more than Micah can hide his jealousy of him.
Micah snaps his jaw tight as I seem to lose the ability to use my legs. “Don’t concern yourself with London right now,” he says, setting me on the log near the fire and rubbing his fingers over my lips in the way he does when we are alone—looking at me as if I’m the only person in this world. “Are Thomas and Jade together?” I keep my gaze to the ground and sway back and forth, keeping my hand firmly gripped on my boyfriend’s arm.
My boyfriend.
I’m his, and he’s mine.
The words exchanged last night were far from meaningless. The way Micah’s holding me right now proves it. He’s my home, and I fully appreciate that now, even if it took a severed head for me to realize it.
All their voices are distant, as if they are speaking into a tunnel.
“Yeah. They’re together; that was our rule,” I hear James say. “But seriously, man, what’s wrong with London? She looks like she’s seen a ghost.”
Micah kneels next to me, rubbing the back of my neck. His fingers feel like paradise on my otherwise clammy skin. “She’ll be alright. Go get them… Now. ”
Ignoring Micah’s demands, James walks over and crouches in front of me. I raise my head to meet his soft, concerned expression, and I give him a nod. “Go, James. Please get them.”
His eyes flash. “Alright, they’re not far. I’ll be right back.” He starts toward the creek.
“James!” Micah barks out, and James goes wholly still, keeping his back to us. “Bring your weapon with you.” Micah jerks his head to Ezra, who’s busy staring at Naomi’s ass as she bends down, picking up wood with Serena a few feet away. “Ezra, go with him.”
Ezra merely scoffs, keeping his eyes laser-focused on Naomi as she bends over in a rather compromising position. “I don’t fucking answer to you, man.” He licks his lips in a way that makes it seem like they had plenty of time to make up.
James freezes, his body tense as he turns slightly toward us. “Are you going to tell us what’s going on?”
Micah leans down and grabs the big knife he never keeps too far away from him. “London and I found Ollie. He’s dead, dude. We saw his head. Nigel’s here somewhere. He fucking slaughtered him.”
I flinch.
Jesus, Micah.
James slumps his shoulders, a visible reaction, but he doesn’t look back and picks up his pace, disappearing out of view. Micah crouches. “Stay. Right. Here. London. Don’t fucking move from this spot.” He yells over to James, “Hold on, man. I’ll come with you.”
The scream bursts out of me. “No. No. No!” Micah stops at my visceral reaction to not having his protective hands on me right now.
We have everyone’s attention. Naomi and Serena come jogging back. “What’s going on?” Serena asks.
Ezra, too, looks like he’s seen a ghost. His cocky grin only moments before is replaced with pure disgust and terror.
“London.” I can’t let him go alone. Micah looks at Ezra, his eyes raging. “Did you have anything to do with this? ”
Ezra’s eyes widen, and he jumps to his feet. “What? Fuck no. I swear to god, dude. I didn’t have anything to do with this. I just want my girl back. I only wanted food, man. I only took London because I was hungry. I swear. I fucking swear.”
“What’s happening?” Naomi asks, darting her gaze between the two of them, then to me.
I’m shaking, chilled to the core. My teeth are chattering, even though the air is still and the wind has died down.
Micah tosses the knife to Ezra, gripping his bone weapon.
His preferred weapon.
“Protect the girls. If he comes near here, end him. Don’t fuck up again, Ezra.”
I shake my head at Micah. “Don’t leave me again,” I whisper. “ Please .”
He presses a kiss to my head. “I’ve got to go help James. Ezra will watch over you. I’ll be back in five minutes, baby. I promise…”
“I promise…” So many broken promises.
I blow out a breath, watching as the love of my life walks away. Again.
The others’ eyes burn into me while my body still processes what I saw—how close I was to being in Nigel’s clutches.
“What do you think he wants?” Serena asks, sobbing.
“I don’t know,” Naomi says. “Ezra, did we do this to him? Did we cause this?”
“Fuck that,” Ezra barks. “He’s batshit fucking crazy. I’m not taking the blame for this.”
Ezra and Naomi bicker for a few minutes, but I barely listen.
“I told you to quit helping him,” she accuses him. “I told you about the way he looked at me.” Eventually, Naomi huffs, and Ezra rises and starts to chop wood, enjoying the knife a little too much considering it was the cause of his amputation. “Don’t worry, Naomi. If he comes near you, I’ll kill him. London, are you okay?” Ezra asks, his voice sounding like it’s in an echo chamber .
The bile lingering in my throat finally rises, and I keel over and vomit the remnants of whatever rodent Micah shoved into my mouth last night, unable to answer him. I cough for a solid five minutes.
A soft hand finally jolts me. Micah rubs my back, then pulls my braid away from my face as I finish the last of my heaving. I didn’t hear him come back…
“Where’s Jade?” Thomas growls, shaking me to my very core. “Where the fuck is she, Ezra?”
Ezra stops chopping, a defensive look in his eyes, gripping his knife and looking just as confused as I am. “I don’t know where the fuck she is. I thought she was with you.”
Thomas takes a menacing step toward him, utterly unbothered by the knife. “What did you do with her?”
Ezra steps up. “Nothing, man. She’s not fucking here, and I haven’t fucking seen her.”
“Jade?” Thomas calls out frantically. “Jade, where are you?”
James stands and cups his hands around his mouth, yelling her name even louder.
My head spins, and I keel over again. Micah hands me a bottle of water. “Jade’s missing, London. You’ve got to pull yourself together.”
I pull my head up, my world completely uneven as his words register, and my stomach tightens all over again as I take tiny sips from the bottle. Micah’s dark eyes are drawn in as he helps me up.
I was alone too… for hours. The message was sent to me. So why didn’t Nigel take me when he had the chance? Unless…
Jade was always the target.
“She was just with me,” Thomas says, visibly shaking. “She was only a minute away from me. I was gathering the last of the wood, and she said she was heading right back here. What was I fucking thinking, letting her go by herself?” I’ve never seen this level of emotion radiate from this big guy, including when he woke up and realized he no longer had a hand.
He begins pacing, unsettling the earth around him .
“She can’t be far. I’ll find her,” Micah says. “I’ll find Nigel, too, and end this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Thomas tells him, stopping in his tracks.
“Me too,” James says next, his jaw tight.
Unsurprisingly, Ezra says nothing.
I watch James, who has displayed no emotion from losing Ollie. Deep down, it’s as if he already knew the outcome and had come to terms with it. All those days he spent searching for him only to end up finding me.
Micah walks over and slaps a hand on Thomas’s back. Only yesterday, Thomas might have tried to pull that hand out of its socket, but now it’s like nothing happened. “Stay here, man. You’re not in any condition to find her, and I need someone to watch over the girls.”
“We can finish the signal fire,” Serena offers.
“Signal fire?” I ask, finally putting the pieces together. All the wood, the flippant comment Micah made earlier about not getting rescued…
“Why are we suddenly building a signal fire?” I ask. The sky is cloudy—heavy and dense. We’ve been stranded for months without using a signal fire as a means of getting located. We even have a flare gun we didn’t bother using because we haven’t seen signs of humanity beyond this group.
James looks at me, his eyes sullen. “Thomas saw an airplane a couple of days ago. It was flying low, like it was looking for something. We want to be prepared in case it comes back.”
Looking for something? The fire?
Or a group of missing teens, perhaps? A plane wreckage deep in the forest? Perhaps the world hasn’t forgotten about us after all.
My mouth gapes open. Micah knew this and didn’t think to tell me? Dread settles in my stomach. I want to have hope, but based on Micah’s reaction, he doesn’t think it matters.
“And you didn’t think to say anything?” I say to no one in particular, but my question is directed at Micah .
“You seemed a bit distracted, London,” James says, glancing between Micah and me.
So he did hear us.
James thinks I’m weak with Micah. He heard me firmly reject him last night, only to hear the passionate sounds of our fucking an hour later.
Thomas continues his pacing around the fire. “Can we talk about this later? We need to find Jade. She’s probably dead already.”
Micah rises and grabs his weaponry, throwing it in a pile, then grabs some canned food and opens it. “We all need to eat. Trust me, we’ll need the upper hand on him.”
Finally, he’s not underestimating him. Nigel is smart, just as Jade had warned us and like I knew the whole time.
Even though I emptied the contents of my stomach mere moments earlier, the sight of that food awakens my hunger. We all help prepare the food and eat it in an unspoken agreement that our time here is ending.
We are clinging to that hope, shoving the food into us as fast as we can. When we finish, Micah flits his eyes to Ezra, who’s busy wiping his mouth.
“Ezra, get ready. You’re coming with James and me. You need to show us where that fucking shithole cave you lived in is.”
Ezra nods, keeping his face neutral. A flash of sorrow hits his eyes—finally, the Ezra I saw back in his cave. His humanity is returning now that he’s among his peers. “Yeah, I’ll show you. Anything I can do to help.”
Unsurprisingly, we all still defer to Micah. Even Ezra doesn’t put up an argument. It makes me so proud to know that despite the darkness inside, his first instinct is to protect people. Even if he doesn’t believe he’s a good person, his actions from the beginning ultimately prove it.
Thomas sits, placing his head in his only hand, looking utterly defeated. All 220 pounds of pure muscle, and Jade has him soft as a puddle. His eyes find his former friend. “She’s probably already dead.”
Micah pulls his pack containing freshwater bottles over his back. “She’s still alive,” he says with confidence of steel .
“How do you know that?” Thomas asks, his eyes red and sullen.
Micah pulls his hood up, shadows haunting his face and every motion tight. “If you were Nigel right now, wouldn’t you want to keep her?”
A shiver courses up my spine, shuddering at the thought of Nigel keeping her.
Micah’s eyes find mine. “London, you good, baby?”
I stand, the canned food helping me regain my strength, and at least for the moment, my mind is clear. “Yeah, I’m good. I’m coming with you. I’m not leaving Jade again.” To my extreme relief, he doesn’t put up an argument. I grab my spear and stand next to him, trying to ignore the wobble in my knees. There is no fucking way I’m separating from him again.
Not ever.
I’d follow him to the ends of the earth if it meant I’d get to stay near him forever. I’ll spend an eternity wherever he wants me to, healing him, doing anything he needs to take his pain away.
Needy, indeed. Because I fucking need Micah Matei.