Finding Lily

17- Alex

My mother named me after her favorite flower. A spiritual woman, she kept white lilies planted in our backyard to keep the demons away. It was a symbol of purity, she said. Of protection.

One day, she picked off a pedal and pressed it into a necklace that she gave to me on my tenth birthday. She promised that it would shield me from evil.

It didn't. Each time someone was taken from me, the flower that lived in my soul lost a petal. No matter how religiously I cared for it, the lost beauty wouldn't come back. Eventually, I lost another, and then another, until nothing but the stem remained.

The necklace hadn't stopped the demons from taking over my soul. I was no longer that kind and innocent girl my mother had raised.

I was a murderer.

So when Luke suggested that I was still Lily, I shook my head. "Please don't say that name."

It was too painful. Attached to that name was a list of people I'd lost. In order to move on, I only looked forward.

Luke nodded slowly. He looked like he wanted to say something else. His lips were pursed and the intensity hadn't yet left from his eyes. I hadn't responded to that other thing he said. That he cared about me. It didn't mean much, since so many people who had 'cared' were now gone.

"There's a chance Jane's on this island." He said finally.

"She's dead."

"She might not be."

"Luke." I narrowed my eyes at him. "We're not talking about the past, ok? What's done is done."

His lips shut tight again. He knew what my file said. He must know why I wouldn't want to talk about it.

"Ok. I'm sorry." He conceded.

I looked around the forest, surprised that no one had overheard our argument. Apparently, they lost us a long time ago. We were alone.

I ripped off the remaining gauze from my wound, throwing the shredded fabric onto a pile in the dirt. Luke closed the distance between us and as soon as it was uncovered, his hand was gently touching my arm while he examined it.

"It's gonna get infected."

Somehow, with the salt water, dirt, and lack of proper medical supplies, I wasn't surprised. Antibacterial cream, gauze, and some pills weren't gonna be enough to keep it clean. Maybe delay the infection a bit but not stop it completely. Luke took out my clothes that he'd gathered from the beach and threw them to me. Since they were damp, I struggled to put them on.

"You said you can get us off the island, right?" I looked up at him when I was dressed.

"Yeah."

"Let's stop stalling then." I suggested. "We'll gather some intel and let him know we're almost ready to go."

"Sounds good to me."

***

We waited until it rained. It didn't happen until the sun was down. I'd put more cream on my wound, but it didn't matter. It kept getting wet. It kept getting dirty.

We decided to go to the caves. To hide out there until the morning and use the cover to help us sleep. I argued that it was the most obvious place for us to hide. Ray would no doubt send people over there to pull us out. Luke disagreed. He didn't think Ray was taking us seriously yet. Instead, he assumed Ray was toying with us, letting us think we were safe, letting us dick around until we got lazy and made a mistake.

"I'll keep watch." Luke sat against a wall close to the entrance of the cave so he could look out. His legs were outstretched, the length of them almost blocking the entire width of our new sleep quarters. It was a smaller space than we were used to. The ground was unforgiving and full of rocks, a stark contrast to the sand that we'd laid on the night before.