by Marx, J. A.
“Home, James.” Jase nudged him with his heels.
Home. Struck by a truth denser than a bowling ball, Isaac set his passenger down before he dropped him. “We’re bringing her … home. With us.”
“You just figured that out?”
An overabundance of affection spilled out of Isaac’s soul. Tingling with giddiness, he crouched at the base of the aerial roots. “I wonder what she thinks of me.”
“She doesn’t.”
Dream buster. Isaac wanted to be noticed, something he never thought he’d want from a girl. At least not for another ten years. “So you’ve read her mind?”
“She’s not your normal female, Ize.” Jase hunkered down next to him and removed his shoe. He poked at the red bumps on his foot. “I’ve listened to her talk. She’s doesn’t see us as anything more than friends.”
Six-foot-two and known for his iron will, Isaac couldn’t understand how one woman had so effortlessly wiped him out. He rubbed the mist of longing from his eyes. “Then why is she driving me crazy?”
“Love does that. You’re lucky she’s clueless.”
She’s not alone. “I don’t even know when I started liking her.”
“It was obvious.” Jase put his shoe back on. “That time you came to bed after she smeared you with PBJ, I asked how everything went. You said, ‘perfect.’” He imitated Isaac’s love-struck whisper. “‘Absolutely perfect.’”
She’s fun. She surpasses gorgeous. “She definitely needs me.” Isaac recaptured the feelings he’d blown off that night, and a grand smile crowded his cheeks.
Confusion overrode passion, and he scowled at Jase. “Are you now trying to hook me up with the girl you declared earlier was Caedis’s accomplice?”
“Not exactly. We don’t know her, Ize.”
“I’ll figure her out.” Until he did, he had to hide all hints of his affection—
A hand grabbed Isaac’s hair from behind. “Your lust will kill you.” Caedis wrenched his head into the aerial branches.
Sharp pain stormed his scalp. He seized the fist clutching his hair.
“Ahhh!” Jase punched wildly at the madman.
“Use your knife!” Isaac dug his other hand into his pocket to get his blade.
Jase fumbled for a grip on his pocketknife then stabbed above Isaac’s head.
“Argh!” Caedis let go.
Skull smarting, Isaac floundered to his feet and whipped open his blade.
Dr. Caedis rammed his way through the branches. Naked. Inflamed hack marks and bruises stippled his athletic torso. Leeches feasted on his toned legs.
Isaac doubted the man’s strength but assumed a fighting stance anyway. “How’d you get on this island?”
“Die, you mongrel!” Snarling like a bulldog, Caedis threw a punch.
Isaac ducked, unwilling to stab an unarmed, ailing man. “You’ll never get to her.”
Jase charged in with a dead bamboo shoot and butted the guy.
Shoved against the tree, Caedis exploded with violent cackling. “You mortals have no power over the supreme master!” He thrashed about. Slamming himself into the branches. Bouncing off aerial roots. Spewing nonsense. Delirious.
Containing him was impossible. And probably unnecessary. Infection-induced fever appeared to have the guy on his way to the grave.
Making room for the nude mosher, Isaac thought creatures this deranged only existed in horror movies.
Chapter 57
In the kitchen, Jase hummed to the black sea bass as he trimmed the fish’s fins. Music helped muffle Caedis’s previous freak show, which was stuck on replay in the back of his mind. What a week.
Working alongside him, Chiara positioned the yellow snapper on the cutting board. “Do you always sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to your dinner?”
“I guess riding dolphins changed my view of sea creatures. Speaking of creatures …” Jase wished he could rewind the day. “I feel silly for tragedizing the scorpion sting earlier. Sorry.”
Chiara’s expression didn’t say whether she was ticked off or forgiving, but her friendliness with the knife made his arm hair rise.
She held the yellow snapper by the head and sliced into it behind the gills. “Prickly pear pulp might alleviate the pain.”
Cactus? Who’d a thunk? He’d send the safetyman to the Cay’s organic drugstore first thing after dinner. For now, he had to keep GI Jane talking. “What was in the poultice for Kiko?”
“Stachytarpheta jamaicensis. Cures worms.” Her lips played with an impish grin. “But I got it for his rash.”
Snickering, Jase checked to make sure the Asian wasn’t around to misinterpret her comment.
He returned to his mission and leaned closer. “How were we acting like Omeàlans earlier?”
Her grin vanished. “Accusing me of cruelty.”
Guilty. He sensed her pain. “What’d they accuse you of?”
“Murder. Abuse.” She ripped out the snapper’s backbone. “Violence is illegal in Ohio, right?”
“That kind is.” Wary of her knife skills, Jase stilled his shaking hand enough to clip the fins off the second bass. “Murder? Like who?”
Her grimace labeled him a misery monger. “Miguel. The Nave’s galley cleaner. He was fourteen.”
“How old were you?” Jase discarded the fins.
“Twelve. I liked him.”
Isaac’s gonna flip. “Did ya kiss him?”
She swung the knife up and pressed the flat edge under Jase’s chin.
Not budging, he rolled his eyes to look at her.
“I’d rather be stung ten times by a scorpion than kiss any guy.” She lowered the blade. “Miguel joined the crew on my twelfth birthday. I only knew him for a few months. He could have been just rebelling against Max, but I think he wanted to be my friend. Which was risky.”
Jase wiped the fish-gut splinters off his chin. “How was it risky?”
She glanced over her shoulder, evidently not wanting eavesdroppers. “Whenever my training ended early, I’d secretly meet him at this lagoon surrounded by mangroves. We played with the dolphins and turtles. Dove for clams together. Then he started making gifts.”
Slowly cutting the head off the bass, Jase let his imagination run amok wondering what a hormonal teen would attempt in secret with the likes of Chiara. “What kind of gifts?”
“Woodcarvings. I stored them in my cave. I never understood his motivation, but I didn’t question it in case he stopped carving.”
Jase recognized without difficulty Miguel’s smitten ambition. “So, what happened?”
Stripping out another backbone, she dropped it in the fish-gut pile. “After we disembarked one Sunday, he whispered that he had a special surprise and to meet him. The next day, I paddled into the lagoon and found his canoe. But not him.”
The promise of romance captured Jase. “Did he leave something in the canoe?” A love note? Chocolate kisses?
“I thought he might have.” She laid the prepped fish on a tray. “When I checked, he was lying in it.”
Jase then remembered why she was telling this story, and his romantic mirage poofed into thin air. “Was he dead?”
“Dismembered.”
Reacquainted with the pain in his foot, he took a deep breath and scraped the fish bones into the trashcan. “Was that the boy in your flashback yesterday? When we were with the dolphins?”
“Affirmative.” Her present grief apparently overrode the seriousness of that heinous discovery. She merely shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the Lux killed him. Because of me. Which is what I meant by risky.”
Sorrow wrung Jase’s heart. Last night, she’d said the Lux banned her from socializing with the villagers, around age twelve. Right when she was becoming a woman. Understanding Chiara more every hour, Jase wished he could hug her until her hard heart softened.
“Max blamed me for Miguel’s murder. The villagers believed him.” Her gloomy gaze fell to her hand limply gripping knife. “I knew then that nobody could, or shoul
d, like me.”
Translating no one to mean no man, Jase clanked his blade against hers. “We like you.”
Chiara avoided looking at him. One eyebrow raised then lowered, and she started cleaning the knife.
Dude, don’t forget your mission. He put on his best puppy-dog eyes. “Seriously, princess. Where’d you think we went earlier?”
Drying the knife on the dishtowel, she puffed the bangs off her nose. “Talk about feeling silly. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to ruin anything. I thought—”
A whistled version of the Beatle’s “Love Me Do” announced the safetyman’s intrusion. Opening the cupboard, Isaac collected plates and glasses.
Jase slyly offered his ear, and Chiara finished answering in a whisper. Heartache surpassed his foot pain. He promptly swallowed a brick of guilt and jazzed up his expression to prevent Isaac from getting suspicious.
The birthday girl loaded the knife into its slot on the bamboo rack before facing Isaac. “I need to meet your attacker who claims to know me.”
His whistle lost altitude. “Can you help me set the table?” Isaac grabbed handfuls of silverware out of the drawer.
“Fickle,” she muttered, picking up the stack of plates.
Because of you. Jase placed the last prepped fish on the tray and limped dinner out to the back porch. He slid the door shut behind him. Set the tray on the grill stand.
With one hand, Akiko was scraping off blackened shreds of dinners past. His other hand was pressed to his cheek, holding the petit cloth pillow full of boiled leaves Chiara had made. “What exactly happened between you guys and Caedis?”
Jase took in the peaceful tempo of the lapping waves. “One second he was the wicked witch. The next, he hip-hopped like the scarecrow on ecstasy. Isaac said he was more of a casualty than a threat. He’ll probably rot to death in the jungle.”
“Charming depiction.” Sabio’s tone rang with rebuke. Lounging on a chair, the scholar had a Bible open on one knee and his journal balanced on the other. “Did you get info out of her?”
“Plenty.” Jase wished they could’ve experienced the little girl behind Chiara’s leathery façade. “She was too embarrassed to say she thought we were making birthday gifts.”
Sabio and Akiko looked crushed, knocked off their warpath.
Which was how Jase had felt when she’d whispered it to him. “Another childhood fantasy mangled by our accusations.”
Innocent? Guilty? Everything in him said to believe her.
I should’ve taken Caedis out. Isaac set up clinic in the bathroom. He shined the flashlight on Sabio’s itchy back and examined the two cuts. “How’s the headache.”
“The pain has shrunk from merciless to bearable.” Facing the wall, the scholar looked over his shoulder at his mirrored reflection. “The cuts feel two inches deep.”
The ultimate damage could have been a ton worse. Isaac attributed his recovery to one thing. Prayer. Now that his friend’s traumatized psyche had somewhat healed, Isaac had to bring closure to Sabio’s coldhearted blame. Linking Chiara to Caedis’s villainy had planted doubts in Akiko and Jase.
“Still think she’s involved?” Isaac uncapped the ointment.
“Nope. I overreacted. But …”
He applied ointment to one cut. “You believe Caedis knows her.”
“Ninety percent sure.”
“A patron of the Nave?”
Sabio gritted his teeth against the apparent sting. “Caedis is more than a demonic rich scum. He’s operating with purpose.”
“Or delusion.” Isaac turned off the flashlight. “Can you translate Nave del Piacere?”
Fluency in Spanish and Latin should help the scholar convert the Italian.
“Pleasure Ship.”
Offended by wordplay, Isaac regretted asking. He stomped to the kitchen and returned the flashlight to the hook.
Chiara was stashing clean plates in the cupboard. “Today was amazingly special.”
Isaac shook his head. How could she brand a day of accusations and a lunatic pursuing her as special? On her birthday, of all days. He had fond childhood memories of playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey and eating his mother’s double chocolate cake every year. Chiara’s first birthday cake had been an improvised fruit stack.
While she transformed the couch into a bed, Isaac locked both sliding doors. No sign of the nude mosher.
Sabio pulled up next to him. “Think she’s open to apologies?” he whispered.
The guilt in the scholar’s eyes moved Isaac. “Just ask for her forgiveness.”
“Yeah.” Stepping to the end of the peninsula, Sabio cleared his throat. “Chiara?”
She hugged the pillow, pawing the carpet with one foot. “I have no way to pay you back for the unrestrained kindness.”
Isaac swapped questioning looks with Sabio. Was she talking to them or God? Unrestrained was a weighty qualifier.
Chiara tossed the pillow on the couch then plopped onto a cushion. “You’ve tolerated my rudeness. You’ve seen me at my worst. You know my unspeakable secrets. Yet, you still associate with me. I’m indebted.”
Not an easy act to follow. Isaac raised an eyebrow at the scholar.
Sabio took a step in her direction. “I’m sorry I accused you of conspiring with Caedis.”
After fluffing the pillow she reclined into it. “Torture has that affect on people.”
Shaken by her odd justification of Sabio’s misbehavior, Isaac joined his friend near the hallway. “Might be safer if you slept in the bunkroom again. In case Dr. Caedis drops by.”
“Let him come.” She pulled the sheet over her head. “I have a few things to say to him.”
Intrepid. Another apparent byproduct of surviving Omeàla.
Retreating to the bunkroom, Isaac considered setting up the defective two-way like a baby monitor. Instead, he settled on his pillow and stared at the upper bunk and deliberated the unfavorable design of their sleeping quarters. Another set of bunks would satisfy his security needs.
Chiara had proved her strength while rappelling the other day. Dr. Caedis on the other hand was unbalanced, disturbed, volatile, but pathetically frail. Should the doctor break in, Chiara would prevail.
I hope. Isaac couldn’t afford to let this concern give him a sleepless night.
Returning from the bathroom, Akiko shut the door and clamored up the far bunk. The poultice he’d kept against one cheek all evening had made no noticeable difference. “What if he breaks in?”
Isaac flipped off the lamp. “She could outrun him if she had to.”
“I couldn’t.” Jase moaned. “My whole leg is numb. It’s swollen.”
“Take a pill.” Rolling onto his side, Isaac imagined himself showing Chiara Shadi Spencer a marvelous new world. In the middle of planning how to make her dreams come true, his ambition stumbled into fear. “Reality check. Who’s on her side?”
“I believe in GI Jane,” Jase whispered.
“Count me in.” Sabio’s endorsement measured double. “Kiko?”
“My parents are gonna croak at the sight of her.”
Isaac fired a look through the dark at the Asian.
The real test of acceptance would come Friday when their mentor picked them up. Mr. Fletcher would be a good indicator for everybody back home.
“I can’t believe I’m in love.”
“Neither can we,” three drowsy voices whispered together. Their snoring followed.
Visible in the dim moonlight, the bunkroom door opened little by little, and Isaac clutched his knife.
Chiara, wrapped in a bed sheet, tiptoed in and huddled in the corner.
Isaac merely listened and watched, not wanting to scare her away. Knife in hand, he fell asleep.
Vétis pressed the wet rag against his burning forehead and commanded earthly forces to reverse time by five days. He had left the musician and Goatee positioned as bait. Then he killed Isaac. How? He couldn’t recall. Strangled? Stabbed? The afternoon had flown by.
>
The jury in his head now rightly accused him of fear. From day one, awareness of Riki’s lethal skills had kept Vétis at bay. By starting this wretched week over, he could tie her up before she regained consciousness. He would then reinvent terror.
But he must find her before the mongrels did.
Staggering across the moonlit beach, he searched for Riki’s unconscious body amid the wreckage. Mammoth leeches swam across the sand. Tribes of monkeys overturned debris. Vétis crawled among them like a hunting dog, camouflaged by his own cloaking thoughts.
Choking on a stench of justice, he peered skyward at a descending whiteness. He stood and scorned the jury of pearly beings.
“God cannot survive without me!”
Running into the ocean to meet Captain Carreau and the Emma-O, Vétis convulsed. Salty waves sank their teeth into his sores.
A juryman swept over him, lifting the last sliver of mercy from his heart. God’s total absence claimed Vétis’s mind.
He never saw the single fin.
Chapter 58
Thursday, May 31
Jase awoke without pain. Unwrapping his foot, he wiggled his numb big toe. The swelling was down. Awesome.
A syncopated rhythm pulsed in his head. He dressed quietly so not to disturb his roommates then rescued his guitar from its case. Humming softly, he tiptoed into the main room.
The still-life symphony on the table brought him to a halt. Jase had to forklift his jaw off the floor. “Chiara?”
He spotted the bedding folded and stacked in the corner by the couch. Surely, that proved she voluntarily got out of bed. Besides, Caedis had to be rotting somewhere. I hope. After searching the kitchen and deck, he rushed back to the bunkroom.
“Get up!” He returned the guitar to its case.
Akiko covered his head with a pillow. “No more birthday cakes.”
Jase smacked each bunk. “You’ve gotta see this for yourself. Chiara’s gone.” Shouldn’t have added that last part, but it did get them moving faster.
His friends dove out of the bunks and into their shorts before a clock could tock. They tailgated him into the kitchen.
