Destiny Defied (The Destiny Series)

by Marx, J. A.

  “Other nations hold festivals honoring the dead, too.” She selected her own food without hesitation, for once. “During El Dia de Los Muertos, people decorate cemeteries with colorful offerings. Flowers. Food. Toys. Gifts. Candles.”

  Not quite the same concept. Packing eggs inside a tortilla, Isaac brought out the list and logged Hope-oddity number 503.

  After breakfast, he got right to his clean-up duty so the fun could begin. Hope lent a hand, and dish cleaning passed in twice the time.

  “Guess what I just found?” Akiko’s sneezing shook the loft.

  Rounding the counter, Isaac stepped into the living room just as a black snorkel set flew over the loft wall. He caught it and whooped with joy. Akiko bombarded him with other snorkel gear, including flippers. Enough for everyone.

  “Spread, spread, spread the mayo …” GI Jane single-handedly slapped together a takeout lunch.

  You go, girl. Isaac made sure she wore a cover-up shirt then they were out the door like school kids on recess. At the last second, he went back and grabbed the heavy backpack out of the storage room. He needed a dose of adventure, as if this vacation were boring.

  Following Mr. Fletcher’s suggestion, Isaac led his crew west to the aqua bay below Turtle’s Head. An expansive coral reef kept the water placid and alluring. All but Sabio and Jase, who were already testing their snorkels in the water, had flippers that fit. They’d have to tag along with another person to keep up.

  Isaac’s friends were good swimmers, but the thought of Hope in the water spiked his pulse. Should he zip across the island to get lifejackets from the boathouse?

  He pointed at her. “You cannot get wet.”

  “Says who?” She sported the sassiest smirk he’d seen yet, and he realized her naturally rosy lips didn’t need unnatural reddening.

  He wagged a snorkel at her. “I don’t like the unpredictable relationship you have with water.”

  She tipped the snorkel away from her nose. “Life is intrinsically unpredictable, Wild Man. Stop worrying and live a little.” Rejecting his certified regard for her life, she jogged to the water’s edge.

  Why does she make me anxious? Recalling the number of drowning victims he had rescued over the past four years brought him no reassurance. He probably just needed a break from Hope.

  Isaac blew off the unease rising inside.

  Chapter 27

  Exploring marine life delivered Hope from the turmoil in her soul. She doubted the relief would last.

  Polyps adorned the reef in brilliant red, green, and orange. She pointed out the tube coral exploding with translucent orange cylinders. Schools of parrotfish scattered at her intrusion. Below her, a green moray eel meandered across the ocean floor. Less than four meters away, two sea turtles swam into hiding.

  Although it seemed like only seconds had passed, a peek at Sabio’s waterproof watch confirmed the digital hour hand had traveled a full revolution. Isaac, Jase, and Akiko had drifted to another part of the reef, leaving her with the flipper-less sphinx who needed a source of locomotion.

  Wait here, she signaled Sabio before diving to the floor. She surfaced with a starfish and spit out her snorkel. “Meet the amazing Mr. Asteroid of the phylum Echinodermata.”

  Her third eye perceived a disturbance. For real. The silhouetted man, spying. She searched the shoreline.

  Sabio took the starfish from her. “I haven’t seen one of these up close since second grade. What else can you tell me?” The verbal undertones of diversion gave away his attempt to redirect her paranoia.

  Conceding for sanity’s sake, she turned her back to the shore. “The acropora palmate … I mean, elkorn coral …” She decided he’d do better remembering the common names that fit each organism’s appearance.

  Marine life details came fluently, unburying an intelligence she’d previously doubted. Not only did she lecture on marine biology, she granted Sabio an educational tour.

  Clubbed fingers and pillar coral branched majestically off the ocean floor. Her favorite, the yellow and purple sea fans, swayed their sprawling frames, reflecting the sun. A corrugated mountain of candy cane, fire coral, and star coral astounded her with surreal, colorful patterns.

  They emerged, and Sabio coughed out his snorkel. “That last coral looked like a cathedral façade. With stain glass windows. Even spires.”

  Cathedral? Securing her gear on top of her head, she rummaged the mental library for photographs or drawings.

  Sabio emptied his mask of ocean droplets. “What have you read about churches?”

  Her mind stumbled upon an open book. Surprised at the clarity, she read aloud. “Bygone stone structures with stained-glass windows … a steeple—” Her internal eye scrolled down to a puzzling section of text. Was the amnesia playing tricks? “That’s weird.”

  “Are you remembering something?”

  “The page of a textbook. Certain paragraphs are scribbled over.”

  “You mean the text is marked out?”

  “Completely.” She zoomed in on the margin next to the inked-out text. The side notation was in her handwriting.

  Churches function as gathering places for fools and outcasts seeking asylum in myths and folklore. The more enlightened mind pursues credible knowledge over the illusory conjectures of religious balderdash.

  The church-going Foursome didn’t strike her as outcasts or unenlightened. Or were they? Exiled on the Cay?

  “Does the page reference God?” The Ivy Leaguer exuded confidence, not foolishness.

  “Just religion.” She read on.

  Rational people do not waste their intelligence on theology. The statement disputed her evolving belief that theology was worthy of research.

  “A lot of those bygone places are still active houses of worship, Hope. I think your teachers were a bit misled.”

  The implication of manipulation impaled her to the core. Who would’ve messed up her education? Where had she come from? Why was she here? And not dead?

  Unable to shake off the hurt, she wished for one safe, happy memory. None materialized. The memories amnesia had left intact trumpeted their odious existence. She wanted to burn them out of her.

  Combating another obsessive urge to watchdog the shoreline, she locked her gaze on the undulating horizon. “Tell me about your girlfriend.”

  Sabio secured the mask to his head, right above his thick eyebrows. “Stacy’s no longer my girlfriend. We just got engaged.”

  “Engaged in what?”

  He smiled. “To be married.”

  Married struck a bad chord, but she let it pass along with the inked-out text. “What’s she like?”

  A dreamy luster swept over his sober expression. “She’s cute. Smart. Loves life. And she’s my best friend.” He nodded toward his fellow Ohioans. “Those clowns think they’re first. They’re barely a close second. Please don’t tell them.”

  Hope giggled at his feigned begging for secrecy. “I promise.”

  “Stacy rides horses.”

  And he rides motorcycles. She recalled the sentimental description of his Harley.

  “She studies ballet. Listens to classical music. The Romantic Era is her favorite.”

  Hope couldn’t picture him rap dancing to Chopin.

  “Stacy is a major Robert Frost fan. She’s written some poems.”

  Shaking her head, Hope failed to see the logic in his selection of a mate—and this seemingly didn’t bother the computer guru. “Your disjointed association with the fiancée elucidates the phrase opposites attract. Yes?”

  “One could make a case.” He chuckled. “We also play racquetball and go camping. Believe it or not, we cook together. But at the top of the list is our shared faith in Jesus Christ.”

  Fire ignited in her solar plexus. She doubled over into the water. Forcing her head higher, she sucked at the air but caught a mouthful of ocean. She coughed it up, insides constricting. Paddling with one arm, she cradled her front with the other.

  “Hope!” Sabio yelled
.

  Help, she mouthed. Powerless to unfold her legs, she sank.

  Isaac lifted his head from the water to have a look around. Beautiful blue sky. Calming swells. Two agreeable companions. The perfect rehab for a fatigued EMT. He turned around.

  Roughly one hundred meters away, Sabio was pulling at Hope. She had her head in the sea. Struggling.

  Alarm tore through Isaac. Leaving Jase and Akiko, he dug into the waves. Homed in on his patient. Drowning.

  Why is she doing this to me? It might take him over a minute reach them in open water.

  No. He swam faster. Harder.

  A sea creature could’ve bitten her. Maybe a jellyfish.

  He closed in as her face lifted above a swell. Death flooded her expression.

  “Hope!” Strength spent, Isaac gripped the arm she kept pinned to her torso and started pulling her toward shore.

  His fingers felt something foreign binding her waist.

  No. Only his imagination. She has flippers. “Kick your legs!”

  Helping drag her from the other side, Sabio looked whiter than soap. “I said the Name.”

  Hope’s fetal clutching and violent wheezing slashed open Isaac’s memory of the report from the waterhole. Abdominal spasms.

  The ocean grew murky. The Cay shrank from his reach. An invisible resistance, a predator guarding its prey.

  Battlefield. Steeling himself against the weirdness, he towed Hope across the bay. An unarmed retaliation. Bullied by images of past victims he couldn’t protect.

  “Lord, help us,” Sabio cried.

  The murk lifted, and Isaac’s feet touched sand. Just ahead, Turtle’s Head stood like a fortress.

  They ferried Hope through the shallows. Wheezing, she dropped to her hands and knees and pitched aside her mask. Safe.

  Catching his breath, Isaac checked on his friend.

  Sabio’s body heaved with every breath. “I saw blood. A corpse.” His whisper quivered.

  I think I finally get you. Isaac guided the wobbling scholar out of the water, the brilliant Ivy Leaguer whose gift of logic left no room for hallucination.

  “I thought she was dead. Like at Cornell.” Sabio swallowed a single sob. “I’ve never prayed so hard.” He shed his gear then trudged up the beach toward the trees.

  Whatever was hounding Hope had established its ominous influence on the island. Its unearthly plot to steal a life had failed—this time.

  Isaac was fighting a battle out of his league yet in his ballpark. He vowed to combat the onslaught of abuse until all were free.

  Entertained but dissatisfied, Lord Vétis leered at the convalescing trio from behind a web of foliage. He hadn’t expected anyone to come to Goatee’s aid.

  Isaac’s remarkable, high-speed swim across the bay impressed Vétis as much as it infuriated him. He used to swim with that level of skill, a champion in the water. But never to save people. Isaac’s persistence in acting as Riki’s guardian exasperated him.

  “Hostility. Fear,” he prayed. Gripping his golden scarab beetle in one hand, he fired off flaming thoughts of division and devastation.

  Protection for the indestructible Riki Hammad was of no concern, and her comfort defiled unholy justice. Her generous guardians, on the other hand, needed to be harrowed and weakened for the hour of judgment. None deserved peace of mind.

  “Let them bleed.” Vétis’s prayers bloated with rage, a necessity for victory.

  Pressed against the stony beach, Hope’s shins ached. Her insides sprang about like caged volleyballs in a hurricane. Muscle function, sluggish.

  Isaac crouched in front of her. “What happened out there?”

  Drained by the maddening mental blankness, she stared at the ground. Her lying third eye had made her look like a fool. How could she explain what she didn’t understand? “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  He yanked her chin up, and she bit her tongue. “Don’t lie.”

  The taste of bloody saliva seeped down her throat. She tried to run from his stoning gaze, but her feet never answered the command.

  Throwing aside his snorkel and mask, Isaac raked his fingers over his scalp.

  I’ve ruined our humane connection. If she had Swedish Fish, she’d make a peace offering. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, Wild Man. Sorry.”

  She let her attention gravitate toward something familiar and soothing. The ocean. She didn’t blame it for the attack any more than she blamed yesterday’s attack on the waterhole.

  “I forgive you, Hope. Sorry I got carried away.” He invaded her peripheral vision. “Why do you try so hard to hide what’s going on with you?”

  She’d expected punishment, not warmth. And especially not an apology. Facing herself more toward the sea, she sighed. “Scared, I guess.” And you intimidate me.

  “Scared of what?”

  Her toes wiggled like panicking tadpoles. “I wish I understood myself.”

  Did she think revealing her debilitated mind could reconnect her to the alpha dog? Tonight, I sleep in a cave.

  His finger brushed her arm. “What happened in the bay wasn’t your fault. Don’t let my heartless reaction destroy your trust.”

  Rubbing the spot he’d touched, she wished she could absorb his elusive peace. “Trusting anything right now is difficult with everything inside me malfunctioning.” She avoided his dissecting gaze. “But I’m trying. And I will win this in the end.” I think.

  She removed her T-shirt and squeezed out the excess water before getting up.

  Hopping up with her, he pointed to the clammy rag. “Wear it.”

  A little voice told her to defy his order. Instead, she put on the shirt. Hope had absolutely no reason to rebel against the Ohioans, and every reason to comply.

  Chapter 28

  I let her down. Isaac wanted to kick himself for treating Hope so harshly, especially after hearing her actually admit she was scared. Not to mention her sobbing confession on the couch that had kept him awake last night wondering about her home life.

  Despite his erring ways, her fighter instinct shined forth. … I will win this in the end. He liked her even more for not wallowing in self-pity. And next time, he’d bring lifejackets.

  Carrying the heavy backpack to the base of Turtle’s Head, he eyeballed the one-hundred-fifty-foot high cliff wall.

  Sabio covertly gestured toward their female companion. “Sure you want to do this?”

  “Positive.” Isaac aggressively countered fear whenever possible. Besides, water had furnished the settings for Hope’s accidents, not dry land.

  Opening the backpack, he expected the hardware to be with the rope. No problem. A run back to the bungalow to fetch it would help alleviate wrought up energy.

  He tossed one of the two-way radios at Akiko. “Carry the climbing rope up to Turtle’s Head for me. I’ll meet you up there.”

  On his way to the trail, Isaac brushed his gaze over Hope. I’ll never hurt you again.

  If he were in charge, Akiko would completely banish Hope for wrenching Sabio’s sympathy with her drowning act. Her effective display of all-out endurance ensnared his friend’s support, but Akiko saw through her charade. Any normal girl would’ve freaked out.

  As he left to run the rope up to the cliff, Hope went to explore the cave. Fortunately, she’d have to go do something girly while they rappelled.

  Akiko summited the Head. Leaving the rope at the base of a small tree near the giant kapok, he continued to the edge where he espied Jase and Sabio throwing small stones, probably at the scorpions. The sight of those mini-beasts had made his toes recoil.

  He searched the shoreline before activating the two-way. “Sabio. I’ve got a full view of the beach. I don’t see Hope. Over.” Realizing he had the defective unit, Akiko slapped it to loosen the transmitter button.

  “Roger that. We’ll investigate.”

  He had checked out the cave earlier with Jase. Without a flashlight, they could only observe the front area. Nothing of interest that could occupy anyone for t
hat long.

  “Kiko …!” Sabio sounded troubled.

  “Ohhhh, stank!” Jase cried in the background.

  “Tie off the rope and throw down the end. She’s free soloing directly below you.”

  What? Akiko’s pulse spazzed out. Flattening himself near the edge, he peered down the face of the cliff at the Cay’s first potential fatality. How’d she climb so fast? Barefooted! Had amnesia erased her judgment in using aid-climbing techniques to scale a towering cliff?

  No hospital. Rushing to anchor the rope, he whispered into the unit, “The EMT’s gonna dirty his pants.”

  “Don’t tell Isaac she climbed.”

  Akiko tied the knot and dragged the rope to the edge.

  Two yards below, Hope was unquestionably stuck, a precarious predicament that clashed with her happy mood. “Morning, Kiko.”

  Her plump, rosy lips and high cheekbones registered for the first time. Not a single blemish. Glistening sweat accentuated her muscular biceps and thighs.

  What magic had been blinding him to her beauty queen features? Even his friends who always noticed hot chicks hadn’t said anything.

  You’re a witch. Akiko let the rope unravel toward the beach. “Grab on. I’ll help you up.”

  “Could be the amnesia, but I don’t recall requesting assistance.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You could fall.”

  He kept an eye out over his shoulder for Isaac … who’d been staring at Hope all morning. In fact, Isaac blushed every time she called him Wild Man. Was he falling in love with GI Jane?

  No way. The safetyman’s PhD design for a future mate exceeded the norm. Hope fell way short of measuring up to Isaac’s radical standards for a mate.

  “Help her up,” Sabio’s voice blared over the radio.

  Akiko seized the two-way. “I’m working on it.” He slapped the thing to loosen the stuck transmission button so Sabio wouldn’t hear any inappropriate dialogue. Then he swung the rope into Hope.