The Missing

by Kiersten Modglin

  “Yes, and we should start building some sort of shelter here. There’s a fallen tree over there”—Harry pointed as he spoke—“so I think if we can drag it over here and rest it against the boulder we slept under last night, we can lay other branches, brush, and leaves on the sides to give us more protection and keep us more concealed. It’ll give us more space, too. So we can all fit inside at night, but we can still keep an eye on the shore and the fire both.”

  “Fine, you guys do that, and I’ll go get more coconuts,” Noah said, jutting a thumb over his shoulder.

  “No, you’re not going back alone,” Harry said.

  He ran his tongue over his teeth. “And who’s going to stop me?”

  “You need help,” I interjected before the argument could catch fire. “You’re going to need to bring a ton back, and you’ll need help carrying them.”

  His thick, black brow raised slightly, the scar just above it wrinkling. “Are you volunteering?”

  My stomach tightened at the thought, but I quickly weighed the alternatives. Harry was the only one who had a vision for the shelter, which only left James and Ava. I didn’t trust Noah and James together even more than I didn’t trust them separately, especially after the note’s revelation, and I definitely didn’t trust him with Ava. That left me.

  “Yes—” I said.

  At the same time Harry said, “No, I can go with him. You don’t have to.”

  “No, you said it yourself… I shouldn’t be in the sun. The forest is the best chance for me to stay in the shade. Besides that, I don’t have a clue how to build a shelter. We need you to do that.”

  He twisted his mouth in contemplation. “I don’t know… I can build the shelter later.” His panic-filled eyes said what he couldn’t articulate into words in front of the present company—that he didn’t trust Noah not to hurt me. But there was no other option.

  “Oh, Jesus, people. Come on. I don’t have all day. The coconut train is leaving. If you’re on it, you’d better keep up.” With that, Noah turned away from us and stalked into the woods.

  I looked at Harry and Ava, nodding affirmatively and hoping I looked surer than I felt. “I’ll be back soon.”

  With that, I jogged across the sand to catch up with my companion, refusing to look behind me.

  I’d be back. I’d see them again.

  I had to believe that, or I was sure my legs would’ve given out then.

  Chapter Nine

  Noah walked through the jungle faster than I’d been expecting. Zigging and zagging between trees and boulders, making no effort to slow down in order for me to keep up. Even so, I was.

  I’d managed to keep pace with him, practically running most of the way.

  “Thank you for letting me come. I know you didn’t want to show us the place.”

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, slowing only slightly at the sound of my panting. “Who says I’m taking you to the right place?”

  My skin chilled, but before I could react, he let out a laugh.

  “Relax. Jeez. You really are paranoid, aren’t you? You and the dream team back there.” The lump in my throat grew larger as I watched his hand trail down his side, toward the outline of the knife in his pocket.

  “We just want everyone to get off the island in one piece, Noah. That’s it. And the only way we can do that is by working together.”

  His mouth upturned slightly, and he whispered, seemingly to himself, “Matibay ang walis, palibhasa'y magkabigkis.”

  I stared up at him. “What does that mean?”

  His dark eyes softened as he looked over at me. “It’s a Filipino proverb. My lola, my grandmother, used to say it. It means a broom is sturdy because it is tightly bound.”

  “What does—"

  “People are stronger when they stand together,” he interrupted. “That’s basically what it means.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling relief. “Yes, well, I agree with your lola then. Did you grow up in the Philippines?”

  “Nah,” he said, “my grandparents moved here before they had my dad. I’ve never even been there, but my parents made sure I was fluent so I could speak to them well.”

  “That’s really nice.” I could finally catch my breath, as his pace had slowed considerably.

  “They both died a few years ago,” he added, his tone grim. “My grandparents.”

  “Oh.” His words caught me off guard. “Noah, I’m so sorry.”

  He gave a stiff nod but didn’t respond. “You know what other phrase I remember her saying all the time?”

  “What’s that?”

  He stopped abruptly, turning to face me. “Huwag kang magtiwala sa di mo kilala.” I waited for him to explain, watching something deep in his eyes darken. “Don’t trust strangers.”

  My breath caught, and he registered the panic on my face before snickering. “Relax, Ace, if I wanted to kill you, I already would’ve.” His eyes slid down the length of my exposed body, and I wrapped the thin sarong around me with a shiver. “For now, you’re more useful to me alive.”

  “Why do you do that?” I asked when he turned to walk away and I quickly regained my composure.

  “Do what?”

  “Why do you choose to be such an ass? You were kind to me on the boat…kinder. We’re all just trying to survive here. Why are you purposefully making it more difficult?”

  “I’m not trying to make anything more difficult, I’m just not interested in making friends like the rest of you. I’m trying to get the hell out of here.”

  “And what do you think the rest of us are doing?”

  “Well, it looks a lot like you’re preparing for sleepaway camp, as if our parents are coming back next week to pick us up. As if none of this is real. You aren’t taking this seriously enough. Any of you. We can’t make friends here. We can’t build a shelter and pretend we just have to weather the storm. We have to figure out what’s going on.”

  “No one’s pretending this is anything less than incredibly dangerous, Noah. We know this is real and we know we have to find a way off the island, but the only way to do that is to work together. Making enemies out of each other will only make it worse.”

  “But we’re already enemies, don’t you see that?” he asked, no anger in his voice, just curiosity. “You saw the note… We’re going to have to kill each other eventually. Or let nature do the dirty work. Either way, I have no interest in getting close to anyone because I fully intend to make sure I’m the one getting off of this island.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” I said softly. “We would never hurt you, Noah.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Please. That’s a lie, and we both know it. You would if it meant you were going to die otherwise, as you should. It’s every man—woman, I guess—for themselves out here.”

  “I don’t believe that. People are generally good if you give them a chance.”

  “Believe whatever you want,” he said, “but I’m going to do the same. And, I hate to break it to you, but our beliefs starkly contradict each other.”

  “Well, I want us all to make it home. I know we have family waiting for us…” I tried to appeal to his humanity, if there was even a shred of it to be found. “Who’s waiting for you?”

  His shoulders tensed. “Look, what do you not get about the fact that I don’t want to be best buds?”

  “I do get that. What I don’t get is why that means we have to be enemies instead. I, for one, think we don’t have to be either.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and I resisted the urge to look over at him, letting him process what I’d said and hoping somehow, I’d managed to get through to him.

  “Look, you already have Too Tall and Princess Knives-A-Lot to help you with whatever friendship complex you seem to have. Can we just…not talk? We’re almost there anyway. Keep up.” With that, he picked up his pace, and I was forced to run to stay with him, my breathlessness keeping me from talking any more.

  “Slow…down…” I
begged, my chest growing tight as I tried to move faster when he disappeared behind a tree.

  “Keep up,” I heard his voice in the distance. He sounded so far away. Suddenly, black dots began to fill my vision, and I stopped in my tracks, trying to make sense of what was happening. My lungs burned for the air I couldn’t seem to suck in fast enough. I clutched my chest, trying to ease the pain as I felt my knees go weak.

  “Noah…” I said, or tried to… I couldn’t tell. I felt my legs give way, and seconds later, my body connected with the ground with a loud thud. Darkness found me all at once.

  Chapter Ten

  When I came to, I saw tree branches stretching upward, the small sliver of blue sky and clouds peeking through. As the memory of what had happened came back to me slowly, I tried to sit up, to decide where I was and what direction I’d come from. Had he left me? Would I find my way back?

  As I moved, a sharp pain tore through my skull, making me gasp.

  “Whoa, hold on…” I heard a voice—Noah’s voice—say, though I couldn’t make out where he was. Had he hurt me somehow? Had he made this happen?

  I tried to push up farther, but my head began to spin and my vision blurred, so I gave in and allowed myself to collapse once more. “What happened—”

  I felt a hand on my arm, and when I turned my head slightly, I saw him sitting next to me. His chest was bare, his face solemn as he stared down at me, sliding one hand under my head. “You’re dehydrated,” he said. “Here, drink this…” He lifted a coconut to my lips, and I had no choice but to drink on command, allowing him to pour small amounts of the lukewarm liquid into my mouth, swallowing as quickly as I could. After a few drinks, he stopped. “Don’t try to sit up just yet. I think you may have hit your head when you collapsed.”

  I moved a hand to my chest, remembering the pain, and realized there was some sort of fabric covering me. Noah’s T-shirt.

  I grasped some of the fabric between my fingers as it sank in and, as it must’ve registered on my face, he cleared his throat. “Don’t read too much into it,” he said firmly. “Your skin’s burning badly, and I need your help carrying these back.” He gestured toward the pile of coconuts next to my feet, at least ten of them, but I couldn’t keep my head up long enough to count. Suddenly, the sound I was hearing hit me, and I realized what I’d just seen. “Water?” I asked, looking up once more.

  “There’s a waterfall,” he confirmed, almost hesitantly. My mouth became dry at the thought. “Here, have some more.” He lifted my head again—I’d almost forgotten his hand was still resting under my neck—and placed the coconut to my lips.

  I sucked the liquid down obediently, the warm, sweet water suddenly heavy on my tongue. “Can we drink the water?” I asked when I’d swallowed the latest gulp.

  He shook his head, looking to his right, where I knew the waterfall must be. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I have no idea if it’s safe.” He rolled his eyes, the wrinkle between them deepening. His next sentence was hesitant, as if it physically pained him to say the words. “Harry would know.”

  I couldn’t hide the grin that grew, almost forcefully, on my lips. Upon seeing it, he scowled.

  “What?”

  “It’s just…that’s the first time I’ve heard you call any of us by our actual names and not a nickname.”

  His gaze narrowed at me, the dark brown of his eyes locking on mine. “Yeah, well my throat’s too dry to call him Captain Smarty Pants every time.” With that, he lifted the coconut to his own lips and drained the remaining liquid.

  I tried to sit up again, wanting desperately to see the water I could hear splashing over the falls ahead. I took it slow, relieved not to feel my head spinning as soon as I’d moved. The black dots in my vision didn’t return. I pushed farther, sitting up slowly, and felt his hand on my back as he laid the coconut down. He studied me.

  “You good?”

  I nodded, inhaling deeply at the sight of the waterfall ahead. It was smaller than I’d been expecting, the water cascading over the top of the cliff coming in three small streams rather than a large powerful gush. The forest wrapped itself like a cocoon around the waterfall, leaving just a few feet of bare ground encircling the body of water on every side. Red flowers bloomed near the water closest to the fall, and the trees drooped over the small lake, making a sort of dome over the top.

  I tried to catch my breath as I stared at the crystal-clear blue water just feet from me, my body physically aching to touch it.

  “Did you know this was here?” I managed to squeak out.

  His reply was a stiff nod.

  “You knew we were all dehydrating, and you didn’t say anything about the fact that you’d found a lake?”

  “Calm down, Officer,” he said, looking toward the water. “I planned to tell you all, but when I came back, I saw the note. That changed my mind. And, it’s not like I let you dehydrate. I brought back coconuts so everyone could get a drink. I was just trying to decide what I wanted to do about this place…”

  “That’s why you didn’t want to bring us back here… Why you insisted we stay near the beach…” The realization hit me with a sudden weight, and anger bubbled in my belly. “You were actually considering letting us die? Keeping this place to yourself?”

  “You mean you weren’t?” he demanded defiantly. “Not even a little bit?”

  “No!” I said quickly. “No, not even a little bit. There’s no way I would’ve kept this place from anyone.”

  He pressed his lips together. “Well, pardon the hell out of me for not being Mother Theresa. What am I keeping from them, really? We don’t even know if it’d be safe to drink.”

  “But Harry will know. You’re right about that,” I said. “And besides, even if we can’t drink it straight, surely we can boil it. We can use it to bathe, to clean wounds. They have to know about this place.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s your secret now. I can’t keep you from telling it, I guess, but all I’ll say is that you need to think about who you trust here. You may be an angel, but not everyone here is. We could keep this place to ourselves. Bring back coconuts daily, sure, but never let them anywhere near here.”

  “You’re not going to stop me from telling them?” I stared at him, trying to determine whether or not he was joking.

  “Would I have just saved your life if I planned to kill you to keep this a secret? I could’ve just left you on the forest floor when you collapsed. I could’ve dropped you in the lake and let you drown while you were unconscious. Instead, I carried you here and nursed you back to health. Does that sound like someone planning to hurt you?”

  Something about the way he said the words made me think he’d actively weighed those options before deciding what to do. “You carried me?”

  “Well, you didn’t fly.”

  I felt warmth spread through my stomach. “Why would you do that? What happened to every man for himself?”

  He groaned, standing up and refusing to meet my eye. “Yeah, well, don’t make me regret it. Come on, we need to get these coconuts back to the beach before The Professor and Warrior Princess come looking for us.”

  I started to stand, taking it slow, but losing my balance anyway. His hand shot out, catching me before I could fall and bringing me to his side. “Easy does it…” he whispered.

  A smile spread to my lips again, and it didn’t go unnoticed. “What?” he asked, steadying me before taking his shirt from my arms and lifting it above my head. “Here, let’s get this on you before you burn even more.”

  “You’d better be careful, Noah,” I said as he slid the white T-shirt over my body. “Someone might actually think you’re a good guy or something.”

  He smirked again, his cool eyes meeting mine. I watched his gaze fall to my lips, the moment frozen between us so quickly I forgot to breathe. He leaned in, and I felt my heart flutter. I should’ve stopped it, but I was exhausted, dehydrated, and delirious. I felt powerless to do or say anything as his lips inched towar
d mine. My eyes closed, waiting for the connection.

  “Maybe that’s exactly what I want them to think.” I felt his breath on my lips, suddenly chilled by his words. When I opened my eyes, he’d backed up again, his lips upturned with amusement.

  My face burned with outright embarrassment as I bent to grab the coconuts from the ground, unable to say a word about what had happened. To my relief, Noah didn’t either. Instead, we loaded our arms with the coconuts, and I waited for him to lead the way back to camp.

  Most of the way, we didn’t speak, and I didn’t bother trying to keep up with him as my legs burned from the snail’s pace I seemed barely able to maintain. When we’d been walking so long I was half sure he’d changed his mind about leaving me on the forest floor and was just waiting for me to collapse again, I began hearing the roar of the ocean waves and feeling the warm, salty breeze that could only come from being near the shore.

  Noah turned to me, one brow raised, his voice low. “Tell them what I showed you if you want, I won’t stop you, but hear me out first: if anyone does decide they want to take the rest of us out, that place is ours. Yours and mine. It’s safe. We have shelter there, water, food. I’m not proposing we let anyone dehydrate, but what I’m saying is that we keep our secret for a while until we get our bearings. Until we figure out who’s on whose side here. We don’t really know these people. We don’t know that we can trust them.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust you either.”

  “Fair enough,” he said with the bow of his head, “but I did show you the place to save your life. I protected you when I could’ve easily not. Would you bet your life on the fact that they’d do the same?”

  I paused, thinking through what he’d said, but eventually I shook my head. “I’d want them to tell me if the situation were reversed. It’s not fair. We have to be honest with each other.”

  He scoffed. “Do you really believe everyone here is being honest with each other?”