“Okay, okay, okay!” I step between them before things take a turn for the even-worse. “I think, Finnley, what we’re all trying to say is that we were worried about you. And yes, that includes Alexa. And we’re just confused about the details of why you wouldn’t tell us, why you wouldn’t even tell Hope, where you were going. Even now, we’re only trying to understand.”
Her eyes are empty again, and yet there’s so much force in them, trained steadily on mine. “I’m a bit fuzzy on the details.” Her voice is as heavy as a sack of gravel, a threadbare one that could spill open at any minute. “I woke up in the night, covered head to toe with ants, and then the next thing I know I’m sitting in a pile of my own vomit, chained to the bottom deck of a ship. Those guys over there busted me out, and they don’t bombard me with questions, and they aren’t the ones who suggested we sail to this island in the first place—so if you’ll excuse me, we’re done here.”
She stalks away from us, joins the guys where they’ve stood all this time, pretending they haven’t heard every single word.
“Well,” Alexa says, “that was delightful.”
I didn’t think it was possible to be more confused than before, but if there’s one thing I’m learning, it’s that possibility won’t be confined to a cage. It will bend bars, break locks, and fly away when you’re not looking.
THIRTY-THREE
OUR BEACH, LIKE every other beautiful and peaceful thing in this world, is not endless.
The boys—and Finnley—set up camp so close our fires practically hiss and spit at each other. I cross my own line in the sand, approach the dark-haired one: he seems to be their leader. He acts like he is, anyway, all attitude and swagger. Hope and Alexa follow me, spears in hand.
“Could you not find anywhere else to settle down?” I say. “You had to plant yourselves this close?”
“Didn’t have to.” He settles more kindling into their fire, keeps his back to me.
“It’s a big beach. Thought you wanted to keep your distance from Wolves.”
He glances over his shoulder. “Never said that. Said we don’t mix well with Wolves.” His gaze flickers to my wrist, where my wolf tattoo would be, if I had one. I pull my arms down to my side, hope I’ve been quick enough to hide my pale, inkless skin.
“Well, you’re pretty much in our camp,” I say. “Isn’t that the definition of mixing?”
One of the other guys, the redhead, comes over to back him up. Together, they are a tall, intimidating force. Alexa and Hope shift forward subtly, so they’re beside me instead of behind. It’s our three to their two—Finnley and Cass keep their distance on the far side of the fire, paying us no attention.
I’m convinced now that the dark-haired guy is their leader. “Way I see it, you’re in our camp,” he says. “And I seem to remember someone drawing a line in the sand, so, no—technically, you’re trespassing.”
I stand a little taller, set my jaw. “We were here first.”
“No one’s telling you you can’t stay.”
His unwavering calm infuriates me. “You show up with Finnley, who’s been missing for two days, and you just—just—expect us to be okay with you sleeping twenty feet away from us? You expect us to feel safe?”
He studies me, sparks and embers flickering in his clear blue eyes. “I don’t expect anyone to feel safe.” His tone chills me.
Because he isn’t afraid. Despite what he just said, he doesn’t seem afraid at all.
What does he know that I don’t?
I match his stare, dare him to say another word. He’s not one to lose a challenge, I see—I’m the first to break. I want to ask: Why are you here? I want to ask: How did you find this place? What do you know?
But in the end, I say nothing. Questions are worthless if you’re not prepared to offer up answers of your own—and I’m not.
“Let’s go,” I say under my breath to Alexa and Hope.
We turn our backs on the guys, and it feels like defeat, like surrender. We cross the line in the sand. We keep our heads high.
We need a breath, and some time to regroup, but this? This is not over.
Hope and Alexa and I set off to find a place that’s better suited for us. Namely, anywhere else. Anywhere but the jungle.
At first, we make a valiant attempt toward optimism: We’ll hardly notice these jagged rocks beneath us if we weave extra mats! and Maybe only the deep-in-the-forest moss is poisonous! and Sure, it’s freezing out on the sand, but look at all those stars!
But our exclamation points leap over the sheer edge of the cliff we come upon and are carried into the jungle by a swarm of dragonflies. On our walk back to our clearing, we veer wide away from the moss, and the rocks that really are quite jagged, wishing we had more layers to wrap ourselves in on this salty-breeze night. It’s so cold the stars start to look like shards of ice that have chipped from the iceberg moon.
Our fire has dwindled to a pile of glowing embers by the time we return. Meanwhile, twenty feet away, the boys have ignited a veritable bonfire.
“Do they have to be so obnoxious?” Alexa says. For someone who, not two hours ago, was upset over one of the so-called obnoxious, she isn’t very eager to go work things out with him. Then again, if my sweet dream ever called me a nightmare, I’d probably react the same.
But he won’t. And even if he was alive, he wouldn’t.
“At least they’re quiet,” Hope says, stoking the embers with some fresh kindling.
I glance at their camp. One shadowy silhouette sits off by himself, and another is horizontal, leaning on one elbow, near the others. Their backs are to us, but it doesn’t make me feel any less observed.
“Too quiet,” I say, lowering my voice to a whisper. “We can hardly talk about how we can hardly talk.”
There’s something unsettling about their commanding—yet undemanding—confidence, even though they seem more than content to keep their distance from us. They’re determined, and determined to keep their secrets. Their camp may be quiet, but the energy coming off it—off them—is like an electric fence: unapproachable and, in this case, unavoidable. One wrong move and zap! No more wrong moves.
But I’m like a moth who can’t turn its eyes away from the light.
And I’m not the only one.
“I just don’t understand the whole . . . Finnley . . . thing.” Hope curls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. I get the sense she wants to say more, but she just sighs, leaving it to us to fill in the hows and whats and whys.
“And, Alexa”—Alexa stiffens at the sound of her name, and I can already predict what Hope will say next—“that was Cass, right? The Cass? From your hallucination?”
Alexa’s jaw twitches, tightens, makes no move toward opening up to spill all her deepest secrets. Which, I conclude, means yes.
“This island is the worst,” she says instead, loud enough the beetles may have heard her all the way back at the temple. The boys shift at the sound of her voice, but otherwise don’t acknowledge her.
Wrong response, apparently.
Alexa is on her feet now, stripping nearly every scrap of fabric from her body.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, as harshly as I can manage. I’m not harsh enough to stop her.