“I don’t know much about these things,” I tell him. “But this looks like it’s some sort of live feed?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he says with a sigh. “Only one left now.”
I nod, turning the camera over in my hand. “How did you see it?” It’s covered in some sort of camouflage skin, not black like the others. Then I realize, Derek likely stripped them of whatever camouflage covered them before he demolished them. The other one we found was black, but it was in the middle of a cave, and not surprising that it wasn’t camouflaged like this.
“I wouldn’t have seen it if the snake wasn’t right beside it,” he says. “Any identifying marks at all?”
I turn the camera over in my hand. “Morose enterprises,” I say. “How did Derek find out what he did? Do we know?”
He shakes his head. “No idea. I don’t even know if the guy was in his right mind. All I know is that his words held weight, because there was truth behind them. Some, anyway.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
We walk silently back to the shelter. He takes the snake in one hand, thankfully on the other side of me, and I hold the camera with the other.
There’s one more camera.
But what will happen if we find it?Chapter 2CyHarper’s grown braver on this island. Almost fearless, though not quite. I don’t blame her, though. Stewing wild greens is one thing. Killing rodents and decapitating snakes is another.
I worry what we would do without each other. When she wasn’t here, I know I began to grow into a sort of savage, my hold on reality tenuous at times. I killed men and creatures with my bare hands.
I had to.
Then Harper came, and things began to change. Now that I feel a responsibility to another person, I have to hold tight to what little remains of my civility. The men who were on this island had degenerated to nothing more than creatures. We didn’t talk to one another except to communicate the bare essentials, and before she came, we’d gotten to a place where we were all each other’s enemies.
Don’t get me wrong. The woman never asked me to take care of her. She’s fiercely independent and fully capable of doing many things. Hell, she saved my life when I almost drowned. But it’s my natural instinct to protect her. She’s smaller than I am, and though she’s fit and lithe, she doesn’t have the sheer strength I do. But more importantly, she doesn’t have what it takes to kill if she needs to.
She’ll go far to protect herself, and she has. But kill? She won’t take it that far.
I will. I’ve done it before, and I’d do it again.
I guess you could say we make a good team.
Back in the shelter, she prepares the stew for dinner while I skin the snake. She doesn’t watch me but takes the cut-up meat and places it in the stew without a word or so much as a grimace.
“You told me when we caught our first snake that it made for good eating.”
I smile at her. “I did. You believe that now?”
She smiles back. “I do. Though when I get back home, I’ll never eat another bowl of turtle soup, snake soup, or fish for as long as I live.”
I smile to myself. “You might miss it. And I like that you talk about getting out of here as if it’s a given.”
She nods. “We have to do it. We will do it.”
“Damn right we will.”
She serves the soup, and we follow it with coconut water and meat, but both of us are silent. Pensive. Thinking of what happened today.
Finding one of the cameras is a sobering reminder of how we got here.
“What’s your best theory?” she asks, sitting cross-legged beside me on the floor of our shelter. I let myself take a moment to look her over, from the top of her head to her toes. Wild, auburn waves tied back with a twist-tie thing she made from seaweed, pretty, fathomless green eyes, freckled cheeks, and a body that most models would envy, she looks like something out of a fairy tale. A mermaid turned human.
“Best theory of why we’re here and how we got here?” We’ve discussed the possibilities before, but she likes to bring it up, as if somehow we gain more control over everything by discussing it. I like discussing it, too. Keeps us sane, I guess, or somewhere close to it.
“Military experiment,” I say. I’ve given it some thought. Hell, I’ve spent days upon days going through the possibilities. I hate the thought of anything military-related being the reason for us being here, because I gave my entire life to the American military, and I would’ve laid down my life for my country. But this? This would be a mockery of everything my service stood for. Still, it’s the most plausible explanation.