Vicious Memories

Chapter 97

We emerged in a confused cluster.

Shadows milled around the cliff, fearlessly toeing the edge as they dropped the rope ladders we'd created earlier in the day. A complex double knot, when yanked to the side, would cause them to come undone and fall to the floor, effectively cutting off any followers.

"Stop where you are!"

A voice lashed out of the darkness, but we didn't heed it, recognizing that there was only one person on the island who dropped the 'r' from the end of their words.

"Cooper," Arun said, "it's us. Scott's been injured."

"I'm fine," Scott insisted for the fifth time.

Cooper emerged from the gloom, his frown as lopsided as the smile he generally wore. Mohammed and Tana were right behind him, and they hurried to take Scott and help him over to the cliff.

"They wanted to leave." Mads joined us. "But I said no. Absolutement pas."

"That she did."

"Do not patronize me, Cooper."

"I wasn't... you know the word patronizing?"

"Et c'est reparti! Je te l'ai dit..."

"Enough." Gabriel stood at the very edge of the cliff, his toes hanging over the jagged corner of rock. "We don't have time for this. We need to go."

My quick count of the villagers didn't make it past two dozen. How many lost was that? Six? Ten? Beyond us all five sets of ropes sat snugly around rough rocks protruding from the ground. After following the ladders to the clear ground below we could sprint across the open field and into the jungle. Off in the distance, the second monkeypod tree waited for us, nothing more than a tall patch of black against the dark jungle behind it.

Then what? Head south and follow the beach, but to where? All our options from that point were the same: run and hide, then fight, then run and hide.

"I have the gun," I said, causing two dozen heads to snap up. "It came flying over the rock wall." I approached Gabriel and lowered my voice so that only he could hear my next words. "Bev threw it to me. I don't know why."

The sky finally grew weary of its assault on the island, and the rain started to let up. Behind the clouds, the sun would have just dipped beyond the horizon. All around us the sounds of the jungle began to return. Crickets rubbed their legs together and moths beat their wings double-time. Distant bats shrieked and rose into the air, lured out by the early arrival of darkness.

And above it all there was breathing.

Air pumped in and out of our lungs, furnace bellows and ceiling fans and leaf blowers all wrapped into one loud machine. We all gasped for air in time with each other, ticking along to the steady tempo of a metronome.

"Does it work?" Gabriel asked. His eyes bored into me like two black holes, exerting their own gravitational pull.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," I repeated firmly, "I am."

He unslung the pack from his shoulders without further comment, twisting around to open the flap. After a few seconds he straightened up with a full box of ammunition sitting in his hand like a pile of precious jewels. I ejected the ammo clip from the handle of the gun to count the remaining rounds.

"They're coming," Tana warned, her voice dancing on the verge of panic.

I concentrated, filtering through the sound of the rain, blocking out the ragged breathing of the villagers, and found that it was just possible to hear the whisper and swish of feet sliding through wet grass. I felt it as a prickle on my skin the way a child sometimes feels the presence of monsters watching from the unknowable dark.