For the next few days, Emily was in and out of consciousness as the guards played with and fed Allen. Kyle stayed by her side and helped her drink water and try to eat when she was awake. Even awake though, she was dazed and couldn’t remember where they were. Kyle stopped telling her about the island, it upset her, so he lied and told her they were at the palace.
The morning of the thirteenth day on the island, Emily sat up and looked around. Her fever had broken in the night, and the blisters had either dried up or burst. The skin on her legs, face, neck, and arms was peeling.
“How are you feeling?” Kyle asked, handing her a coconut husk full of water.
“Ok,” she said, her voice cracking. “What day is it?”
“Friday”
“So we’ve been here for six days?”
Kyle pushed the hair off of her shoulder, “Thirteen days.”
“No sign of anyone else?” She sat up and reached out for a banana.
“Nothing, we have a guard on lookout with a bonfire, but so far he hasn’t seen anything,” Kyle explained.
Emily ate in silence and watched Allen playing with Kralen. When she was done, she laid back down, feeling tired again.
“How are you all holding up?” she asked.
“We’re fine.” He smiled.
“Not thirsty?”
He shrugged, “It’s manageable.”
“Hmm, I’m so tired.”
“Then sleep,” he suggested, smiling down at her.
***
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Mark said, frustrated.
“I just need some time alone,” Emily explained, heading out of the cave.
“You have thirty minutes, and I’ll come looking for you.”
“I’m not a child, and there’s nothing on this island to hurt me. Stay here and watch Allen,” she said, and disappeared into the jungle.
Emily walked through the dense trees and looked around. She needed time to think, and the tension in the cave was stifling. She knew the heku were getting thirsty. It’d been three and a half weeks since the shipwreck, and as she was the only adult mortal on the island, she could feel them watching her closely. She knew they wouldn’t attack unless it came down to too much pain, but she wasn’t sure when that would be. She also wasn’t sure she could sustain fourteen thirsty heku and she worried about dying and leaving Allen alone with them.
Emily walked for about an hour and then sat against a tree on the spongy moss. She pulled her knees close to her and wrapped her arms around them, “Where are you, Chev?”
She sighed when she heard footsteps, “What?”
Kyle stepped out from behind a tree and sat by her, “Are you ok?”
“Fine,” she snapped. How hard was it for him to understand that she needed some alone time?
He put his arm around her, “I’m worried about you.”
“Why?”
“The bad dreams. It’s obvious you’re worried about us.”
“Of course I am. How long before you can’t control your thirst anymore?”
He smiled, “A long time, you’re safe here. Look at me.”
She glanced away, fighting back the tears.
Kyle put his hand under her chin and pulled her to face him, “You’re safe.”
“For how long?”
“We can go years without eating, Em.”
“You can… but how long before instincts kick in and …” He cut her off with a kiss. She tried to pull away from him, but he held her tightly. He leaned her back against the soft moss and trapped her wrists above her head with his hand.
“Kyle, stop,” she said, trying to get out from under him. He was kissing her neck softly and using his body weight to hold her down.
“Stop fighting me,” he whispered, before pressing his lips to hers again.
Emily turned her head to the side, “Get off of me.”
In one swift movement, Kyle tore her shirt in half and re-trapped her hands above her head, then began kissing down her neck slowly.
“Don’t do this, please,” she said, as she felt his hand at her back, untying her bikini top.
“Just relax,” he whispered, and then ran his tongue along the vein in her neck. She felt his teeth slowly sinking into the flesh of her neck and then the soothing warmth that came with the feeding process.
Emily knew what she had to do, Kyle had obviously lost control. She shut her eyes and focused. Within seconds, Kyle rolled off of her and writhed in pain. She felt the control. She didn’t want to turn him to ash, but needed to incapacitate him long enough to get away.
She watched as his body shook with the pain and his hands clutched at his chest. He groaned with the burning in his body and she got to her feet. She finally released him and watched as he fell unconscious to the mossy ground.
Emily grabbed her torn shirt and held it against herself as she ran back for the cave. The guards looked at her as she ran in and they got to their feet.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked her.
She took one of their shirts from the bed and turned to the wall, putting it on quickly. The two puncture wounds on her neck didn’t go unnoticed as a small trickle of blood dripped down onto the white shirt.
“Emily,” Mark said, touching her arm.
“Don’t touch me!” she yelled, and he quickly jerked his hand back. She ran over and took Allen from Kralen, and then grabbed a small bunch of bananas with her other hand.
“If anyone follows me… you’ll be ash before you know it,” she said, backing out of the cave.
“Don’t go. Tell me what happened,” Mark said, taking a step towards her.
“Last warning,” she yelled, as she turned toward the trees and ran off.
Emily pulled from her fear and kept running with Allen clutched closely to her side. He asked several times for Kralen, but she ignored his questions and kept moving. She knew she was running north, and kept the steep mountain peek at her right so she wouldn’t end up going in a circle.
***
Kyle stumbled into the cave and fell to his knees a few minutes after she left, “Where is she?”
Mark glared at his Commanding Officer, “What did you do?”
“I said… where is she?” he snapped.
“She left, and threatened to turn anyone to ash that followed her,” Kralen said, standing beside Mark.
“How could you?” Mark asked, accusingly.
Kyle straightened up and ignored the lingering burning pain, “I am still your Commanding Officer, and you will treat me as such.”
“Yes, Sir,” Mark said, his voice full of loathing.
“Now, go find her,” he ordered, but none of them stood. “Now!”
Still none moved.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, angrily.
“Yes we did. But, we aren’t going to bring her back here, so you can do what you want with her,” Mark told him, and sat down on the cave ground.
***
As far as Emily could tell, she’d been moving quickly through the forest for a few hours. She could see the sun touching the horizon, and she knew in the dark she wouldn’t be able to move as fast.
“Ew,” Allen said, holding his nose.
Emily smelled it too, a sharp, stinging scent. After sitting Allen down and giving him a banana to eat, she wrinkled her nose and looked around for the offensive smell. She knelt down by a large yellow flower and smelled its petals, wincing at the repugnant aroma. Suddenly, she had an idea. She dipped her fingers into yellow goo in its center and began rubbing it onto her skin. Once she was covered in the flower’s nectar, she moved to Allen and did the same with him, even slicking back his black hair with it.
“No, that smells,” he said, fighting her.
“Don’t fight me Allen, not now,” she said, and covered every inch of him with the nectar.
By the time she covered them in the stinky mess, she finally felt that maybe their scent was masked. She took Allen’s hand, and the bunch of bananas, and k
ept walking. When Allen got tired, she carried him, afraid to stop moving. By morning, she came to the northern beach and headed back toward the rocky cliffs. She was hoping to find another cave they could stay in until help arrived, if help arrived.
Allen was awake again and eating a banana as he followed Emily up the rocky cliffs. She could see a shadow above that she hoped was some kind of shelter. She also saw that the face of the cliff was full of the smelly yellow flowers.
***
“Then I’ll go find her myself,” Kyle said, and started for the mouth of the cave, but found his way blocked by his own cavalry.
“We think you better stay right here,” one of the recruits said to him.
“I’m ordering you to let me by.”
“That’s funny, because it seems all rules are null and void out here,” Mark said, and crossed his arms.
“She can get hurt out there,” he snapped at them.
“She could get hurt here, too,” Kralen said, not moving from the cave entrance.
“When we get back, you are all released from the Cavalry,” Kyle yelled, and sat down against the wall.
“I think not… I think once we tell the Elders what we saw, it’s you that will be released,” Mark said.
“However,” Kralen added, “as a unit, we stick together. So if you want to sit calmly and wait for a rescue, then we may keep it between us.”
Kyle nodded, he knew they had won. He sat quietly in the cave and watched the other guards closely.
The rain stopped just as the sun rose above the ocean. The cave had been quiet all night. As the Cavalry kept an eye on him, Kyle stayed against the wall. There was some lingering burning in his chest.
“Someone’s coming,” Mark said, standing up.
“Maybe she came back,” Kyle stood up and gasped, wide eyed, when Chevalier appeared.
Chevalier smiled when he saw them, “Finally!”
His smile fell when he looked around at the serious faces, most of them watching the ground. Chevalier looked around the cave and reached down to pick up the torn shirt from the floor. He saw the two palm leaf beds and turned to Kyle, “Where’s Emily?”
“She took off yesterday morning with Allen,” Kyle said, avoiding Chevalier’s eyes.
He took a step toward Kyle, “Why did she leave?”
Kyle looked over at Mark, “We aren’t sure.”
“You aren’t sure? Then what? You just let her go?” Chevalier asked, suspiciously.
“She threatened to turn us to ash if she saw us,” Kralen added.
“You are keeping something from me, and I will find out,” he hissed.
The guards all looked at one another nervously.
“First, find her. She can’t be that hard to track,” he ordered, and Kyle and the guards scattered across the island.
Chevalier picked up her scent just outside of the cave and followed it as it wound through the trees. He had to move slowly, too fast and he risked losing her scent. He came to a small clearing and saw where the grass was pushed down. He frowned and grabbed her bikini top from the moss. He tucked it into his pocket and scanned the clearing. Once he found no other scent trail, he surmised that she must have headed back to the cave.
Chevalier heard a voice on the wind saying they found her trail going north. He quickly arrived at the cave and passed it, following the scent of the other heku. By late afternoon, he caught up with them as they walked around an area full of flowers.
“Why have you stopped?” he asked, still suspicious of them all.
“We lost her scent,” one of them said.
Chevalier inhaled deeply and could smell the faint trace of her. He walked north and lost the scent, growling in frustration, “She can’t just disappear.”
“We just need to find her scent again. It has to be around here somewhere. Even Allen is old enough to leave a trace,” Mark said, obviously irritated.
“If she’s alive,” Chevalier said, turning to him.
“She’s alive,” Mark assured him.
“You better hope so, and you also better hope she tells me what happened. It’d be a lot easier than if I have to force it out of you,” he said, heading off to the north to see if he could find her scent again.
Chevalier found a few broken branches and smelled them. There was still no sign of Emily or Allen, just a horribly strong smell that assaulted his acute senses and made him recoil from the branch. Having no other options, he followed the broken branches until his eye caught something on a bush. He reached down and picked up a banana peel. He smelled it and again caught the stench.
“Mark?” he called, and waited for the heku to arrive.
“Yes, Sir?” Mark asked, walking up to the Elder.
“She’s masked her scent with this,” he said, holding out the banana peel. Mark smelled the peel and dropped it, his nose wrinkled.
“That’s awful.”
“Yes but it’s working. It’s coming from those yellow flowers that are all over the island. Now we’re tracking a smell that is everywhere,” he sighed.
Mark winced, “How do we track that?”
“We don’t,” Chevalier hissed. “Tell me what happened. It had to have been bad for Emily to go to these extremes.”
Mark looked squarely at the Elder, “You can punish me after we find her, but I’m not saying a thing.”
Night fell on the island and a strong wind came up from the ocean, making tracking nearly impossible. Chevalier could hear the heku around him calling for Emily. He hoped she would hear them and try to ash one, then they could at least know a general location.
***
Emily curled up next to Allen under the small overhang. The wind was fierce and she felt the toddler shiver in the cold. She unbuttoned her shirt, and pulled him close to her, wrapping it around him so her body could keep him warm. They had grown used to the smell, and there were enough flowers around that they could keep themselves covered. The nectar turned sticky after a few hours, and after lying on the dirt floor, both of them were brown from the gooey mud. She hoped that would help them, a kind of camouflage.
She cringed as her stomach growled. They had so few bananas that she hadn’t eaten since she left the cave three days before. Allen complained, but she rationed him to two a day. She hoped the wind might knock some more down off of the high branches. There was a fresh stream nearby that poured directly into the ocean, now they just needed more food.
Emily hadn’t been able to sleep. She spent the nights holding onto Allen and listening to the sounds of the trees. As soon as she started to drift off, she would hear a twig break or a bird chirp and the fear would keep her awake. During the day, they played different games Emily would make up with twigs and rocks. Allen asked often why they couldn’t go back to Kralen, but she had no good explanation for his young understanding.
“Emmmmily,” she heard a heku yell in the distance.
Emily’s body tensed and she reached over to cover Allen’s mouth as he stirred. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she fought to control her breathing, unsure if they could pick up her trace from it. She wasn’t surprised they came looking for her, but she couldn’t risk letting them know where they were. She was on an island full of thirsty heku.
“Emmmmily, we’re rescued!” she heard another voice call from far away. A ruse, she was sure, a ploy to get her to reveal her location, and it wasn’t going to work. She felt Allen wake up and try to talk, but she kept her hand over his mouth and softly shushed him.
Allen fell back asleep and Emily heard no other voices through the rest of the night. She jumped several times as she heard noises nearby. When the sun came up, she sat up stiffly and looked around the tiny area. She cursed herself for not seeking better shelter, but at the time, this was all she could see. A rock overhang kept them from the sun and rain, but it wasn’t as hidden as she first thought it was.
When Allen woke up, she handed him a banana, “You stay here, ok?”
He nodded.
; “Promise me, don’t move at all,” she whispered.
Again Allen nodded.
“Stay here and I’ll give you another banana,” she promised, smiling at him and trying to sound as calm as she could.
After she was sure he would stay, she crawled out of the safety of the overhang and into the trees. She hoped that on her knees, she wouldn’t be seen if the heku were close by. The stream suddenly seemed too far away as she crouched low in the brush and tried to get to it quickly. Emily froze when she heard footsteps just on the other side of a row of bushes. She fell flat against the ground and listened.
“We haven’t seen anything since the footprints on the north beach,” one of the heku said.
“Keep looking,” Kyle replied, and she heard them walk off away from her.
She waited a few minutes and then finally made it to the stream. She slipped off her shirt and dipped it into the water, soaking it. The trip back to Allen seemed to take forever, and she was relieved when she saw him sitting where she told him to stay. He was building something out of the remaining bananas.
“Mommy!” he shouted, and she quickly went to him.
“Shhhhh, Allen, we have to whisper,” she said, quietly.
Allen tilted his head back and opened his mouth as she squeezed the water from her shirt into it. He drank until the shirt was no longer full of water, and then she pulled on the cold shirt. Her fingers ran across the Equites crest on the pocket and her heart sank. She wondered if she would ever see Chevalier again, if she would see the palace or the stables.
“Emily!” she heard someone call from above her on the cliff. She quickly covered Allen’s mouth and looked up. Whoever was calling her was standing on the rock outcropping over their heads. She held her breath and wondered if she should ash him. It sounded like Kralen, but she couldn’t be sure. She knew if she ashed him, she would have to kill him. A warning would only tell the others her location.
She heard more footsteps on the rocks above her.
“I thought I smelled something, but now it’s gone,” the voice said.
“Was it her?” Kyle asked, and she heard him walk to the edge of the outcropping.
Encala Page 7
