“What is?” I ask. We reach the clearing that opens to the waterfall, and she smiles at me.
“Realizing your sorry ass needed discipline and doing what it takes to get there.”
I shrug. “Part of growing up, isn’t it?”
She nods. “I guess, yeah.”
“So this waterfall is fresh water?”
I nod. “Most waterfalls are,” I tell her.
“I thought most of the water on earth was saltwater?”
“It is. Only like three percent is fresh.”
“Huh. So this doesn’t flow from the ocean, then, clearly.”
“Nope.”
Turning to face the waterfall, she breathes in a deep, cleansing breath, then lets it out again slowly. “Wow, I forgot how pretty it is in here.” A shadow crosses her eyes, but she doesn’t say more than that.
I take her hand. This is the place where I found her. It’s also the place where she was attacked. I doubt she’s forgotten, and I bet she has mixed feelings about it.
If I have anything to do with this, we’ll make a better memory here, just the two of us.
“What is it?” she asks.
“I want you to remember this waterfall,” I tell her, tugging her over to me. “How pretty it was. How wild and untamed.” I pull her hand to my mouth and kiss the back of her slender fingers. “Like you.”
She gives me a shy smile and bites her lip. “Like me?” she asks teasingly. “Do you really think you haven’t tamed me yet?”
I tug a strand of her wild hair and smile. “Not even close, babe.”
“Good,” she says with a twinkle in her eye I’m all too familiar with. She takes a step closer to me and encircles my neck with her arms, drawing me near.
“Kiss me,” she whispers.
I cluck my tongue warningly. “Hmm. Seems a girl who’s due a spanking should be watching her mouth a little more.”
Her full lips turn downward into a pout. “I thought you forgot about that.”
“I told you, I have an excellent memory.”
“But you should conserve your energy,” she says. “If we have no food…”
“Oh, I can conserve my energy just fine,” I tell her. “I’ll nap later.”
“Cy—oh, look!” she points eagerly above, and I look to where she points. It’s one lone bird, flapping its wings mightily. Only one, but it’s one of the larger ones we’ve captured for food. She used to turn her nose up at it but has since learned to appreciate any and all sources of food.
But without a gun, I can’t capture it. “It’s a good sign, anyway,” I tell her, when she gasps out loud.
“What?”
“It just… it just vanished,” she says in a whisper. “It was… it was flying, and then, it was just… gone, like it was a… I don’t know, like I was watching a movie and then someone hit the off switch or something.”
I don’t respond at first.
“You don’t believe me,” she says so quietly, it’s almost to herself.
“Naw, babe. It isn’t that at all. The problem is, I totally believe you.”
She raises one brow, giving me a quizzical look. “What?”
I hold her to me, tip my finger under her chin, and raise her eyes to mine. “Something is off about this island. I don’t believe in many supernatural things. Ghosts. Spirits. Whatever. If I did, I would say that I believe something weird is happening here. That the island is somehow responsible for what happens.”
I close my eyes when my memory is assaulted by a flashback so vivid, I can’t stop it.
Six of us. All of us taken. In a room, bound, while images are portrayed on screens. In front of us? I can’t remember. All of us, aboard a plane. Drugged.
“What is it? Cy?”
I shake my head and open my eyes, looking around me. “We were taken here,” I tell her. “But I don’t remember how or why. A few things came back to me, but…” the memory is fading again. “And you know things don’t add up on this island. You know there’s something behind why we’re here.”
She frowns. I think she’s finally starting to see that I have a point. “Things like what?”
“Like the way we feel about each other,” I tell her. “Our insane attraction. I can’t control myself half the time, and neither can you.” She doesn’t deny it.
“The way the other men went slowly insane. The way you ended up here and there was no reason why or how.”
Her eyes grow wide and frightened as I go on. “The fact that I knew there would be no food after the storm, and how it all just vanished. No fruit scattered on the ground or dead fish floating in the water. Nothing. Gone.”
I hold her hand and gently squeeze. “What you just saw now. A bird that was here one minute and gone the next. Does that make any fucking sense to you?”
She swallows hard. “Not much of it does. But if there… was… something… supernatural or something, what could we do to stop it?”