Vicious Memories

Chapter 80

"A storm is coming," Alice said.

I could feel it in the encroaching heaviness of the air, see it in the haze hanging like a specter to the southwest, smell it in the dense and cloying currents of the wind. The exuberant promise of rain tinged every aspect of dawn.

Hold it together just a while longer, I told myself.

Lack of sleep aside, I felt better than I had any right to. Some combination of the diet and exercise here had returned my body to a form it felt more natural in. Fit and strong, it was an upward trend that was the exact opposite of my mental state. The past two weeks had been taxing enough to splinter even the toughest minds.

Alice pointed at the clearing. "Mads is bringing out breakfast already."

"We shouldn't waste her culinary efforts."

The two of us joined the growing group of villagers in the clearing, the number increasing by increments of six. We all knew it might be our last breakfast.

Once we had eaten as much as we could stomach, I took Alice's hands in my own and pulled her closer, feeling the calluses on her palms, the fingers that I knew were even more capable than my own. I was overcome with a wash of affection very much like the wave that had crashed over my head after I'd woken up on the beach. The threat of drowning was no less real now.

"Be careful," I said.

The yellow ring at the center of her eyes rotated and expanded, a nuclear explosion. "I'm always careful. I'll just ask a couple innocent questions and check a few things. We'll meet in an hour."

"Good. Then we'll get Arun and Gabriel."

"Piece of cake."

The press of her lips on mine was brief but firm. I could sense the people around us stop and stare.

"I wouldn't mind a piece of cake," I said, my lips tingling. "If we get off the island."

"When we get off the island," she corrected.