by C. L. Taylor
I look back at Milo, standing on the beach behind a row of banana leaves.
He just wants to talk.
Milo’s eyes don’t leave mine as I walk up the sand towards him, rubbing my hands over my biceps, even though it’s not cold.
‘That’s um…’ I incline my head towards the sentence made out of leaves, ‘interesting.’
He half smiles. ‘Nothing’s ever easy with you, is it, Jess?’
‘Ha! Says you.’
‘So…’ There’s a shift in his expression. The sparkle disappears from his eyes and it’s replaced with a strained seriousness I’ve rarely seen. He’s nervous too. I can tell from the way he’s repeatedly clenching and unclenching his hands. He’s torn. He feels like he should talk to me about what happen to Tom but he’s scared to.
I don’t know what I’ll do if I open up. I could cry, I could rock, I could scream, I could pinch myself, I could run away. Or maybe all of them, one after another. I’ve been holding myself together for so long I’m scared that if I lift the lid on my emotions all the pain and the fear and the guilt I’ve been suppressing will bubble over and scald us both.
‘Milo,’ I say. ‘I’ll talk to you, but not about Tom.’
I can see the relief in his eyes. ‘OK, that’s fine. Whatever you want, Jessie.’
‘Shall we sit down then?’
‘Sure, ’course.’
We pretty much sit where we’re standing – a good foot or so separating us. I run my hands over my hair and squeeze out the seawater. Then, not sure what to do next, I inspect my fingernails. Now we’ve agreed to talk we’ve both been struck dumb.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Milo rub a hand over the back of his neck. ‘There’s um… there’s something we need to clear up.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘I’m not in love with my ex.’
He raises his gaze from the sand and looks at me, as though challenging me to disagree with him.
‘OK.’ I cross my arms over my chest and hang on to my shoulders, suddenly, weirdly aware that, other than a bra and knickers and khaki shorts, we’re pretty much naked. ‘Your sister seems to think you are.’
‘Meg thinks I’m in still love with Bella?’ His brow furrows. ‘But I was the one who split up with her. It wasn’t working. We were arguing all the time and it was stressing me out.’
‘She told Danny that you’re infatuated with her. I think she told Jeffers, too.’
‘Oh God.’ He blows out his cheeks in frustration. ‘Bella was – is – Meg’s best friend. And she’s pissed off with me for dumping her. I guess when we came here, she saw that I was…’ He drifts off, suddenly unable to maintain eye contact with me.
‘That you were what?’
My heart’s thudding against my rib cage and I’m breathing so shallowly I feel faint.
‘That I was…’ He swallows uncomfortably and looks back at me. ‘That I was spending a lot of time with you. And… I guess she… she…’
My stomach lurches uncontrollably. I feel like I want to cry or run or cover my ears and shout LA LA LAH! at the top of my voice but I’m rooted to the spot and I can’t tear my eyes away from him.
‘I guess she…’ He swallows again. ‘I guess she realized that I was… I am…’ He takes a shaky breath. ‘When my mum told me what had happened to Tom, I wanted to get on the Tube and come and see you. I wanted… I just wanted to hold you. I couldn’t bear to think of you going through all that pain on your own.’
I wasn’t alone, I want to tell him. Mum and Dad were with me. But pain isn’t something you can share. You can’t scoop out a handful and let someone else carry it for you. Other people around you may be in pain too and you can cry with them, talk to them and hug them, but your pain is your own.
Milo continues to look at me, his eyes swimming with emotion. If I reached out my right hand I could touch him. That’s all I’d need to do to close the space between us. Reach out a hand. There’s only a foot or so of sand between us but it so easily could be a mile.
Milo seems to sense my hesitancy because his head drops, his shoulders droop and his arms hang limply at his sides. It’s as though something within him has crumpled, pulling his body down along with it.
‘I’m sorry, Jessie. I shouldn’t have put that on you. I know you just see me as a friend and—’
I twist towards him and reach for his hands. As our fingers touch he gasps, his breath juddering in his throat. His eyes search my face, bewildered and uncomprehending.
‘I don’t see you as a friend, Milo.’
It takes a second or two for my words to sink in then his face softens, his lips part, he tips his head down towards mine and he kisses me.
‘You OK?’ Milo asks as we near the island and the small strip of beach appears before us. We’ve swum around the whole island and we’re both exhausted and dehydrated. After the kiss at the cove, and then some more kisses, we waded back into the sea. We set off at a pace, keen to return to the others before the sun set. It didn’t take us long to discover that there was no beach on the other side of the island. It was pretty much one long line of rocks. Milo punched the air. I whooped with relief. No more running. No more creeping around. No more fear. We continued our swim, but at a more leisurely pace. No sign of Jack, Josh or their boat. They’d definitely gone.
‘Jess?’ Milo asks again. ‘You OK?’
OK? I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling once since he kissed me. We lay on the sand in the cove for what felt like for ever, just staring at each other, smiling and chatting, laughing softly. There were moments of silence too when he’d touch a hand to my cheek and shake his head softly as though he couldn’t believe what had happened between us. I couldn’t believe it either. We’d known each other since we were babies and there we were, lying on a soft white Thai beach, arms and legs entwined, looking into each other’s eyes feeling like our lives had just begun. All the fears, all the worries, all the terror I’d felt about letting myself love him had evaporated the moment our lips touched and we kissed.
After an age we dragged ourselves up and ran, screaming and laughing, into the sea where we played like children, splashing each other and diving under the water to grab each other’s legs. It was only as the sun began to sink in the sky that we realized why we were there in the first place.
‘I’m good,’ I say to Milo now. ‘But I’m starving. I hope Jefferson’s managed to catch something to eat.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
I twist round in the water to look at him. ‘What did you mean?’
‘Are you OK with the others knowing about us?’
The us makes me smile. Among all the laughing and the playing and the kissing we haven’t exactly had ‘the chat’. Neither of us has mentioned the future or what will happen when we get home, but us makes me think that this isn’t a one-off for Milo. It’s not for me either.
‘Yeah.’ I smile. ‘Of course.’
We don’t hold hands as we walk out of the sea on tired legs but we do ‘accidentally’ bump against each other’s shoulders, glancing and grinning and trying not to laugh. Only a fool would fail to notice that something’s going on, but, instead of getting the third degree as we walk up to the others, no one gives us more than a nod in acknowledgement. Meg and Honor are sitting together, leaning against a thick-trunked palm, chatting conspiratorially, Jeffers is over near the rocks, wading in the water with a spear in his hand, and Danny is sitting alone by a fire that wasn’t there when we left. His knees are gathered up to his chest and he’s staring into the flames.
‘All right, Dan,’ Milo says, settling down beside him. ‘We swam round the island. No sign of Jack and Josh, you’ll be pleased to hear.’
He waits for a reaction but none comes. Instead Danny raises his chin to look at me as I pull a T-shirt over my wet bra. The strangest expression crosses his face. I force a smile despite the strange mood that’s radiating from him like a black cloud. ‘You all right?’
&
nbsp; He smiles tightly. ‘Are you?’
I look from him to Milo, but he looks as confused as I feel. What the hell happened while we were gone?
I drift away, towards Meg and Honor. They stop talking as I approach but, unlike Danny, they smile warmly. Well, Honor does. There’s suspicion in Meg’s dark eyes. I ignore it and crouch down. I’m shattered from all the swimming and all I want to do is stretch out on the sand and sleep but I need to find out what’s going on with Danny. Is it something to do with Bella? Does he still think that Milo’s leading me on? But why look so angry with me and not Milo? It doesn’t make sense.
‘You all right?’ Honor asks. ‘You were gone ages. Did you see them? Are they still here?’
I shake my head. ‘Nah, they’ve gone.’
‘Oh thank God.’ She exhales heavily. ‘That’s one less thing to worry about.’
‘Talking of worried…’ I glance back at Danny, who’s still staring into the fire, either listening to Milo talk, or completely ignoring him, I can’t be completely sure. ‘Is he OK?’
‘Yeah, I think so, why?’
‘You sure? Has something happened since we left?’
‘Nothing exciting. Danny swam to the old camp to look for my sunglasses and Jeffers asked him to look for some fishing hooks but he came back empty-handed.’
‘Nothing happened while he was gone?’
‘Not that he mentioned. Why?’
‘He just… He seems a bit off with me, that’s all.’
‘Why would he be off with you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He’s…’ She pauses. ‘He’s not been himself for a few days. He’s really jumpy.’
I look at Danny. His face looks drawn, despite the healthy tan. ‘We’ve only got two more nights here and then we can all go back to normal.’
Go back to normal? I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know about the others but this island has changed me and not just physically – I don’t think twice about stripping down to my bikini anymore. It’s not down to Milo and what happened in the cove either; something shifted in my head before that. Maybe it’s the way we’ve all had to pull together since Jack and Josh appeared. I don’t feel like an outsider anymore. We’re all in this together.
‘Guys!’ Jefferson traipses up the beach with a medium-sized fish hanging from the tip of one finger. As he approaches the fire Danny says something to Milo then scrabbles to his feet and heads off in the other direction.
‘See,’ Honor hisses. ‘He’s not just being weird with you. He’s off with everyone.’
‘I think we should pack up,’ Jefferson announces. ‘Get back to our old camp for the night. It won’t take me five minutes to start another fire.’
Milo shakes his head. ‘We can’t. Danny said it’s been trashed. Those two knobheads couldn’t just leave, could they?’
‘They trashed my camp too,’ Jeffers says miserably.
‘Have you been back there?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. I managed to salvage a few bits and bobs, mostly stuff I’d hung in the trees.’ He nods towards his rucksack. ‘It’s all in there, everything I’ve got left. Everything else was burnt.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s just stuff.’ He shrugs then looks back at Milo. ‘Did they burn all the wood in the old camp?’
‘I don’t think so. Dan said there wasn’t a fire, just a big mess.’
‘No point us chopping down a load of trees here when we can reuse the timber. I think we head back to our old camp through the jungle and get it sorted. It’ll be dark soon so we really need to get going if we want to be set up for the night.’
‘I’m in.’ Meg gets to her feet and holds out a hand to Honor.
‘Yeah.’ She nods. ‘Me too.’
As Milo gets to his feet he glances at me. ‘Coming?’
I nod and take the hand he offers me, but as I try and get to my feet my legs wobble beneath me and I plop back down again.
Milo smiles. ‘Is our Olympic swimmer tired by any chance?’
‘Shattered. But I can’t leave you guys to do all the hard work.’
‘Tell you what,’ Jeffers says. ‘Why don’t you stay here with the rucksacks? That way we’ll all make it through the jungle a bit quicker. We’ll pop back and grab them when we’re done. Have a nap,’ he adds. ‘You look shattered.’
‘Danny!’ Honor shouts. ‘We’re going to the old camp. Are you coming?’
Danny doesn’t reply. He’s standing at the water’s edge at the far end of the beach staring down at his feet.
‘Leave him.’ Jeffers touches her on the shoulder. ‘He’s in a weird mood. Coming, Milo?’
He nods. ‘You guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up.’
We both watch as Jeffers and Honor disappear into the jungle. Meg, trailing behind, turns to look back at us. Her eyes dart from Milo to me and she frowns, then swiftly turns and runs to rejoin the others.
‘She knows,’ I say.
‘Of course she does.’
‘She doesn’t look happy about it.’
‘She’ll get used to it.’ He bends down to kiss me. ‘I wish I could stay here, with you.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Because some of us aren’t slackers!’ We both laugh then he kisses me again and stands up. ‘Seriously, though. Do you want me to stay?’
‘No.’ I smile up at him. ‘I’ll be fine. I just need a half-hour nap.’
He reaches round, pulls a thin blanket from his rucksack and hands it to me.
‘Just don’t sleep too close to the fire.’ A split second after he says the word ‘fire’ he widens his eyes in horror as the implications of what he just said sink in.
‘It’s fine.’ I reach up and squeeze his fingers. ‘I know what you meant.’
Chapter 26
DANNY
Danny stares down at his feet, his stomach hollowing and twisting like a shell. It’s gone, the message in the sand.
One of you will die.
Of course it has. It’s been washed away by the sea. Or was it even there in the first place? It was, he knows it was. He wouldn’t have rushed over to Honor and Meg, his heart in his throat and his forehead beaded with sweat, if there wasn’t anything to panic about. But when he’d reached them and they’d both looked up with alarm written all over their faces he’d found that he couldn’t speak. He had a choice – tell them the truth and terrify them or keep it to himself and deal with it. But he hadn’t dealt with it, had he? He’d plonked himself down by the fire and stared into the flames hoping an answer would magically come to him. He could tell Jeffers, of course. That was the first thought that leapt into his brain. But Jeffers would immediately take charge, making decisions and telling Danny what to do like he was a little school kid who couldn’t do anything for himself. No, he wouldn’t tell Jeffers. He wouldn’t tell anyone until he knew who he could trust. He’d keep it to himself and work out who was behind it.
Only the message had unnerved him so much he couldn’t think straight.
One of you will die.
Die. Not fall in a pit with a snake, not wake in the night covered in spiders, not fall off a cliff before dawn. Die.
It wasn’t a vague threat; it was a message meant for him. Your greatest fear is coming true next, Danny. Honor’s going to die.
Two nights, that’s how long they had left before help would arrive. Just two nights, forty-eight hours. It was nothing; a weekend would pass in a heartbeat back at home. One minute he’d be traipsing out of the school gates then he’d blink (or at least it would feel that way), and he’d be traipsing back in again. Forty-eight hours on the island was a different matter. So much could happen in such a small passage of time, so much had already happened.
How would they try and kill her? he wonders. Drown her? He won’t let her go into the sea alone. Burn her? He turns instinctively to look at Jessie, curled up near the fire. He can’t even begin to imagine what she went through. And he doesn’t want to. Besid
es, she’s one of the suspects.
Might they stab her? Hack her to death? The thought of anything, anything, happening to his girlfriend makes him want to vomit with fear.
The answer is not to sleep. He’ll sit by the fire and stay awake for forty-eight hours, keeping watch until someone comes to rescue them.
As he stares down at the sand he suddenly becomes aware of how rapidly his heart is beating in his chest and of the blood thumping in his ears. He looks at his hands. They’re trembling uncontrollably.
Breathe, he tells himself. Breathe, it’s just a panic attack.
But then his vision starts to blur and he’s hot, so hot and sweaty he feels as though his skin is wrapped in clingfilm and it’s tightening around his chest and his heart is beating faster and faster and faster. He drops to his knees and splashes seawater onto his face, but as he closes his eyes all he can see is Anuman’s face, his skin leathery and grey, pulled tight over his bones and his jaw, slack and open, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
Death is the one thing you can’t control.
The tremors in Danny’s hands grow stronger as he presses them against his own face and his fingertips tap, tap, tap on his cheekbones and temples. His arms begin to vibrate, his shoulders shake and his whole body quivers and quakes as his vision blurs and his heart throws itself against his rib cage, beating faster and faster and faster.
