The Island

Part 5 - 5

Five:

Later that night, JT was in his room. Sitting on his couch bed, he held a childish Rubik's Cube he had found on a shelf. Sitting in an 80's fashioned chair across from him was Emma. "We haven't really talked since we got here." Emma said to JT. "Yeah." JT agreed. "With all that's happened... Geez, what are we going to tell our parents?" There was a silence. JT saw that Emma was staring at the floor. "My parents..." She trailed off. She brought a hand up to her cheek and caught a falling teardrop. "Hey." JT noticed Emma and stood up. He walked over to her side and got down on his left knee. "Shh." He said, grabbing her hand. She lightly sobbed. He looked into Emma's watery eyes. "As long as you're in this room, with me, nothing bad is going to happen. It's my duty to protect you-" "What duty is that?" Emma hissed back. "We're not even together. Hell, we're polar opposites. It's a miracle you convinced Adin to let me come with you. After all that happened-" "That's not important right now." JT interrupted Emma. "All you need to think about is me and us right now." "But how? It's impossible not to think of Adin, who is responsible for it, and the rumors going around. They're all buzzing in my head like a nest of angry bees." Emma held her hands to her head. JT had begun to stare as well; JT felt overwhelming guilt about that night. "Emma," JT asked, observing one of the many wooden bookshelves in the room. "Where were you that night?" "By the fire." Emma quickly replied. "I was with Sara and Andie." JT nodded. "Did you see anything suspicious at the door-" He tried. "No! And I feel stupid I didn't look. If I would have turned around, I would have saw who killed him." Emma sighed. "Can we not talk about this right now? Like you said, let's focus on each other for right now." JT looked back to her and nodded. "Okay." He went back to his spot on his pull-out bed. The ugly yellow sheets more looked like fabric than a blanket. At night, the air in the den was chilled like a freezer. JT thought about another night of shivering in the cold. He had found no other blanket besides the in the entire room and make-shift closet by the door. JT realized who he was sitting in front of. "Oh!" JT said out loud. "What?" Emma said. "By chance, do you have any blankets I could borrow? I've been freezing the last few nights." JT said. "Of course." Emma said, standing up. "Carmen and I always melt in our sleep. Whoever laid the sheets in my room made it impossible to sleep in. It's like a furnace." She began to exit JT's room. "I'll be back in a second." She called to JT as she began down the hall toward her own room. Between her and her own room was a separate hall that was designed exclusively for the den and bathroom. The hall was right above some of the Billiards room and the intersecting hall between the lounge room and the Billiards room plus the dining room. Separating the other bedrooms from the den hall upstairs was the stairs. A balcony overlooked the turn you must make going up and down the stairs. It was the same balcony Randy had saw JT with the black gloves. She saw the wooden stairs beside her. The stairs, now that Emma thought about them, where a bit of an "L" shape. She brushed the thought out of her mind and found her room. She opened the white door and stepped in. Emma approached her bed. Meanwhile in Adin's dad's den, JT went back to the shelf he was looking at earlier. When he first looked at it, he didn't realize what it was. He reached for a yellow-ish gray-ish box that was stashed away in a dusty corner of one of the shelves. He grabbed it and held it up. With his hand he brushed off the dust and beheld the sight of rescue. There, in his hand, was the CB radio. "Escape." He thought. Almost instinctively, he reached for a pair of scissors in a cup on a desk. He put the device down on the same desk and stabbed it. He only managed a scratch. He was unsatisfied; he wanted the thing destroyed. He stared at the radio for a split second, observing it's age. He then suddenly pounded it once with his right fist. The noise was monumental; he'd hoped no one heard it. He looked to the door and decided to make his last few gestures swift. He picked up the device and threw it at the floor. He heard and saw cracks along it's sides. The bottom was starting to fall out too. He reached down to it again and picked it up. With even greater force he smashed the radio against the floor. He felt the floor shake a bit; he was making a riot of a noise. And others were noticing too; he heard footsteps of someone rushing back to his room. In one last dash, he swiped the broken apparatus and hurled it into the closet by the door. As the noise of the final crash faded into echo, Emma appeared in the doorway. "What was that?" She asked. "Are you okay?" "Yeah." JT replied, nodding. "I dropped these scissors." He said, reaching for them. He held them up to show Emma. "And then I stubbed my toe." He pretended to limp. "But you're fine?" She reassured. "Yes." JT nodded. "Okay. I'll go get your blankets." She disappeared again into the hall and left JT in his assigned room. He looked in the darker corner of the closet the smashed radio lied. He looked over it menacingly and smirked. "You're mine." He said audibly. "This is what you made me feel. This is what you drove me to do."