by Henry, Jane
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” I tell her, before I bend my mouth to hers and taste her sweet, full lips. “So fucking gorgeous.”
“Mmmm,” she replies. I swallow her moan and walk deeper into the cold water, submerging us up to our waists. I cup her ass in my hands, squeeze, and she opens her mouth, welcoming me to deepen the kiss. I’m teasing her with my tongue when I feel a quick, hard tug on my foot. I break the kiss and stumble, and she nearly topples into the water.
“What the fuck?” Another tug and I’m losing my grip on her. On instinct, I lift her and throw her as far as I can into the water, to the shallower part. To safety.
“Cy!” she screams, when my whole body gets sucked away from her. “Cy!” It’s the last thing I hear as I’m pulled into the cool, dark depths.
Sixteen
Harper
“Cy!” I’m barely holding onto the edge of hysteria as he’s taken from me bodily, sucked right under the depths. He doesn’t go willingly, though, but fights, his powerful, muscled arms rising above the surface as he tries to swim away from whatever’s pulling him.
Whoever? My God. What enemy do we face now?
He surfaces and gasps for air. “Get to the bank!” he says, his words drowning in a terrifying gargling sound as he’s sucked beneath the depths again.
“Oh God, oh God,” I say, looking wildly about me for something, anything at all that I can use to save him. “Cy!”
On the bank I see the huge stick he gave me as a weapon. I swim as fast as I can to retrieve it, my limbs feeling as if they’re made of lead, and hold it in my hands as if it’s my lifeline. He must be getting pulled into some sort of undercurrent or something. I don’t know how this works. We shouldn’t have come here. Or maybe this island is demonic, and the current is meant to kill him. To take him from me.
I won’t let it.
I can see him being bodily pulled to the waterfall itself, the powerful water that crashes into the pool below so hard the spray around it blurs my vision. It will kill him. It will crush his bones and destroy him.
I can’t let that happen.
He’s moving slowly, though, and I realize it’s because he’s fighting it. But Jesus, he’s been underwater so long I wonder how he can breathe.
“Cy!” I scream, running on the bank so that I can reach him with the edge of the stick. He’s such a big guy. Even if he can grab hold, how will I ever pull him out? But I love this man. And I refuse not to fucking try.
His head bobs up and I see him take a huge gulp of air.
“Take hold!” I scream, holding the edge of the stick so that the other end is within his grasp. This has to work. It has to.
“Cy, take hold!” I scream, my voice almost instantly drowned out in the deafening sound of the fall. “Take it!” My voice cracks and I swallow a sob. I need him to live. I need him to survive.
His head rises above the surface again, and he sees it, he sees me. With a massive thrust, he pushes himself forward and his fingertips touch the edge of the branch, only to sink below the surface again. I cry freely, begging for him to help himself, to take the branch and get out from under the current.
I run further down the bank.
“Oh, God, oh please, Cy, please,” I beg, crying freely as I hold the branch and watch him surface again. He reaches for it, and this time he grabs hold. I brace myself so I don’t fall in, but it takes everything I’ve got. I see a thin, but sturdy tree hanging over the water, so I grab hold and anchor myself on it when his second hand wraps around the end of the stick.
“You’ve got it!” I scream. “Pull!”
He’s fighting a losing battle, the current washing over his body with so much force it looks painful, but I’m not letting go. It takes every ounce of strength I have, but I’m not letting go. I can’t. I won’t.
He’s holding on and I know I can pull him to shore, I know it. With a surge of adrenaline and a scream that echoes through the woods instantly drowned out by the terrifying crash of the waterfall, I pull with all my might.
They say that when mothers are in situations where their children are in mortal danger, they can move mountains, lift cars, or run at insane speed. It’s the only possible explanation for what I do next. He’s too big for me to lift and the current too strong, but with what feels to be inhuman strength, my heart pounding in my chest so hard and fast I feel it might split open, I haul him to the shore. When he reaches the edge, he grasps the bank, out of the current now. I sob with relief, as I reach down to him, pulling him onto the bank as he hoists himself up. He pants, coughing, on the shore, and I can only hold him, closing my eyes and weeping for the near loss of him. Long minutes pass with him coughing and wheezing and me crying like a baby, when I realize that his left arm hangs uselessly by his side.
“Cy,” I say, wiping a hand across my eyes. “Your arm.”
His eyes are closed and he’s panting, but he nods. A moment later, he opens his eyes and breathes, “Dislocated, I think. Thank you.”
“Of course,” I say to him. “How could I not try to save you?” And in my head, I tell him the words that well in my soul, that I can’t hold back.
I love you.
“Just like you would’ve done for me,” I say, closing my eyes and holding onto him. He’s belly down on a bed of leaves, and I lay my head on his back, my arms around him. “Just like you would’ve done.” I stand with reluctance, not wanting to let him go. “Let’s get you to the shelter. I need to see to your arm.”
I say see to your arm like I will somehow know what to do to fix a dislocated shoulder. I’m no medic, and the very sight of blood makes me squeamish. I shiver at the thought of having to do something revolting like set his arm, but I’ll do what I have to do to make it better for him.
But I’ve grown stronger on this island. I’m not the woman I was before I got here. I have eaten insects and even the disgusting rodents, and turtle soup. I’ve been fucked—repeatedly— by a barbarian of a man.
I will do what I have to.
He gets to his feet, still coughing and sputtering. I let him hold onto me for support as we grab our clothes from the bank and head back to the shelter.
“The knife. Don’t forget the knife,” he says. I grab it and he reaches for it.
He holds it with his good hand and tucks it into the loop at his waist. The walk back seems longer, and more arduous, both of us exhausted after the ordeal.
“It came out of nowhere,” he says in surprise. “One minute I was holding you and the water was still, the next, I was trapped in a current.”
“God. I didn’t know what was happening when you suddenly threw me like that.”
“I wanted to get you away from the current.”
I nod. “Thank you. It worked.”
“If you hadn’t saved me,” he says, pausing just long enough to pull me to him and kiss my forehead fiercely. “Thank you.”
I kiss him back, my lips brushing his cheek. “You’re welcome.”
It feels good to not be the one who always needs rescuing. To be the one that can actually do some saving, too, and I’m glad he’s not too proud to admit it.
He slows when we near the shelter. “Something isn’t right,” he says.
I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but I know by now to trust his intuition. That said, there are lots of things that aren’t right here, so I’m not sure what this particular concern is.
“Yeah? What?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s a sixth sense or something.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickles. “You don’t have the stick,” he says. “Get one to defend yourself if necessary.”
In silence, I do what he says, grabbing a stout stick from the ground, and hold it like a baseball bat. He pushes open the door to our shelter, but there’s no one in there. It doesn’t surprise me. Even if there are others on this island, I don’t expect anyone to be willing to take on a man like Cy.
We go in, and I know he’s right. Some
thing’s off. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. It takes us a moment before we realize what the problem is, and it dawns on us both at once.
“The food,” I say, at the very same time he says, “Motherfucker.”
I want to cry all over again. All the food that we spent all that time gathering for us. Gone. I go through the places where we hid it, under leaves and clothing. Shitty hiding places if you know where to look. We were only trying to get it out of the immediate line of vision.
“My God,” I breathe. “My God.”
“Son of a fucking bitch,” he fumes. “It’s fucking gone.”
Even with his arm hanging by his side, useless, he’s scarier than any other guy I’ve met. Intimidating. Ferocious.
We look everywhere, but it’s clear that even our more clever hidden supplies have been ravaged.
Someone’s watching us.
I hear a snapping of branches outside our door.
It takes a while for me to snap, but when I do, I do.
“I’ll kill them,” I say. “Kill them!”
I lift up his club, the mammoth one as big as my damn thigh, but with the furious outrage making my blood boil in my veins, I yank open the door. Cy’s on the far end of the shelter near the bedding where we hid the coconuts, and he can’t reach me.
“Stay here!” he shouts, but I’m already gone. The door swings crazily open, and I leap into the forest. I will kill them. Kill them.
“Come out!” I scream. “You goddamn thief. Show your face!”
Not surprisingly, no one responds to the welcome. I swing the club as hard as I can, striking a nearby tree so viciously tingles race up both my arms. I start when I hear a thud. I look around me, surprised to see coconuts on the ground.
What the fuck?
What the fuck?
As happy as I am to see some food, I drag my eyes away from the ground and shield my vision as I look far beyond where we are.
“Where are you?” I scream. “Where the fuck are you?”
Nothing. Not a sound. Not a bird twittering in the sky or a rustle of wind in the trees.
“Get your ass back here.”
I turn to see a furious-looking Cy standing in the doorway.
“I will kill them,” I fume. “I will beat his sorry ass until he—”
“Get back here.” I know that look, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it makes me squirm a little.
“He took our food,” I say, as angry as a disgruntled child who lost her turn on the merry-go-round. “Took our food.”
“Clearly.”
Then I remember. “But look!” I run to the tree, and he groans. I’m in trouble, and I know it, but I don’t care right now.
“Coconuts, Cy.”
I hold up several large, round coconuts in my hands. “I was so mad I whacked the tree with the stick, and these fell down.”
He shakes his head. “They weren’t there before.”
“I know,” I say, shaking my head.
“Hit it again,” he says, pointing the hand of his good finger toward the tree trunk.
“Good idea.” I lift the club off the ground, and before I do, I look to the top of the tree. “You see any coconuts?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
I rear back and swing the club with all my might. Coconuts scatter to the ground at my feet.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Are they… is it some sort of an optical illusion? Are we somehow not able to see them but they are actually there?”
“Looks like it,” he says. “Harper?”
“Yeah?”
I turn to look at him. “I need you to help me with my shoulder. I’m useless like this. Gotta get the ball back into the socket.”
Oh God, oh ew.
I look at his helplessly dangling limb and swallow hard. “Of course, I can,” I say, even though the very thought makes me want to vomit. “Yeah, sure.”
He chuckles. “Brave girl. You’re white as a ghost. But I promise it isn’t as hard as you might think.”
“Hard? No. Gross? Yep.”
He sets his jaw. “You can do this. I know you can. You’re my girl, and you’re not scared of fucking anything.”
I feel a surge of pride at that. I swallow hard and nod.
“Let’s do it.”
“Take hold of my wrist.”
I do, steadying myself with both feet planted on the ground, knees bent.
He gives me directions, and I do it on autopilot, lifting his wrist and rotating his arm. He hisses but doesn’t make another sound, though the beads of sweat along his brow tell me it hurts like hell. Finally, he nods, swings his arm around, grimacing, then nods again.
“Good. You did it.”
“Does it still hurt?”
He shakes his head, but his breathing is labored, so I’m not sure he’s telling me the truth. We gather up the coconuts together and bring them inside the shelter.
“You know,” I say thoughtfully. “Do you think that… that the other food items are somehow also an optical illusion?”
I frown at Cy, and he shrugs. “Worth looking, now, isn’t it?” But it’s hard to find places where the food used to be, without any colorful indication that the food was there. The forest is a camouflage of greens and browns, and though we think we remember the places where we’ve gathered fruit, everything seems weirdly muted.
“We’re tired and thirsty,” Cy says. “Let’s get some food and water.”
But when we go back, the coconuts are gone, too.
“Son of a bitch,” Cy says. But that’s all he says. He takes the club from the ground and whacks it against the tree so hard I wince myself. Even hungry and injured, he’s so strong I wouldn’t want to be his enemy. A handful of coconuts fall, but it’s clear that whatever’s up there is reaching its limit.
We crack open a few and drink greedily from the water, eating the coconut meat voraciously. I’ve always liked fresh coconut, but this seems like the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.
“Mmmm,” I say. “God, this is good.”
He nods, and as we eat our food, he starts talking to me in a low voice.
“We need to find him. Them,” he says. “They’re hiding somewhere, and it’s essential we find them.”
“I agree.”
In a whisper, he continues. “I think we should bait him.”
I nod slowly. “Oh?”
“Yes,” he says. “They will want you. Young woman. Beautiful. Strong.” His eyes light up when he talks of me, and it makes me feel a little bashful and shy.
“Thank you.”
He leans down and kisses first one cheek, then the next, before he brushes his lips across mine.
“I love you, Harper.”
I swallow hard. “And I love you, Cy.”
I know I do. I’ve known this for a while.
“I want you to know I will never, ever put you in danger. Do you know that?”
“Of course,” I tell him. I know it down to my bones. “And I trust you.”
He nods. “Good. Because what we’re going to do next isn’t easy. But it’s as important as everything else we’ve done so far for survival.”
I nod. He speaks in my ear.
“I’m going to pretend to go hunting, or to be looking for food. We have to pretend to get into a fight. I want you alone in here. I’m going to make it clear that all the weapons are gone, except I’ll leave you with a knife. Okay?”
I nod.
“And once they’re here, I’ll be back.”
I don’t ask him what he’ll do after that. I’m not sure I want to know. I have no doubt that he’ll kill them. And even though not too long ago I was a reasonable, rational human who abided by the law and thought things like murder weren’t acceptable, I nod. Accepting. Agreeing. I’m already a goddamn accomplice.
He kneels in front of me and pulls me to his chest, giving me a hug so fierce I can’t breathe.
“I love you,” he whispers in my ear. “Y
ou saved my life today.”
“And I love you,” I whisper back. “You’re welcome.”
And then he’s chuckling and kissing me, and I swear, that barbaric alpha male’s eyes are actually glistening. He’s moved. We both know that we’ve been leading up to this, skirting around the danger that others on this island pose, but we both know it’s time to face it head on now. It has to happen.
He closes his eyes. “Forgive me for this,” he says.
“Knock it off,” I whisper.
He grins at me and whispers back, “I haven’t forgotten that spanking you earned.”
“No pardon granted for saving your life?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
My body tingles and I want him to do more than kiss me right here, right now, but we’ve got a job to do. I know he feels the same when he groans and pulls away from me with obvious reluctance.
He puts his mouth up to my ear and whispers, “There’s a knife under my pillow. Use it.” Then he’s on his feet, his face contorted in anger.
“That’s it!” he says, so loudly I jump, I know this is part of the act, but I still don’t like the way it feels when he’s yelling at me like this. “I told you not to go out there. I told you not to leave the food. And you did it anyway. I’m out of here.” He won’t look me in the eyes, and I hate how that makes me feel. He turns from me and stalks toward the door, wrenches it open, and stands in the doorway looking at me.
“Go then! You only think of yourself anyway!” I scream, trying to come up with some kind of reason for our fake fight. I feel the lie in those words though. He isn’t selfish at all. He’s been so good to me. I swallow the lump in my throat that’s threatening to choke me. He isn’t selfish, and I love him.
“You can stay here. I’m out of here. You think you can fend for yourself? Fine then. Do it!”
And then he’s gone. Even though he’s acting, this feels more real than I imagined. It feels… God, awful.
