I ignored the blatant assumption because I was entirely too happy to allow any negativity into my headspace. “Next week!” I announced, launching forward so that water splashed everywhere, though neither of us cared because we were too busy laughing and kissing. Too busy in love. “Next week. Can we go next week?”
“I think we can. I have a few things to do at work, so I’ll have to work virtually, but if you’re okay with that, I’ll tell everyone to get the flights booked.”
I pressed my lips to his, breathing in his scent. The truth was, of course, I didn’t want him to work. I wanted him to enjoy his time with me. To relax. To live in the moment. But that wasn’t my husband. Work would always be his mistress and, as long as he didn’t have another mistress, I’d learned to be okay with it.
As okay with it as I could be.
“Book ’em, baby. Let’s go.” His eyes darkened with unexpected desire, and he kissed me harder, his arms snaking around me as my heart thundered in my chest. It was as if I could already feel the sun on my skin.
Three days later, after the flights had been scheduled and the plans had been confirmed, I was repacking our suitcases, working through loads of laundry and the dry cleaning I’d picked up that morning.
When I stuck my hand down inside of the front of Barrett’s bag, my fingers connected with something unfamiliar. What is this?
I could’ve sworn I’d unpacked his bag completely the last time we returned from a trip. I latched onto the thin, folded paper and pulled it from his bag, my stomach tightening with worry.
As I unfolded it, a strange sense of foreboding came over me. On one side, there was a hand drawn heart.
On the other, a single sentence:
I can kill your wife for you.
Chapter Six
PRESENT DAY
THE ISLAND
By the time the sun had set that first night, we were all varying degrees of exhausted, dehydrated, and terrified. For a while, I think we all believed the boat might turn around, or that they’d come back with a new boat and had simply forgotten to mention that they were leaving and would return, but as the sky lit up with pinks and oranges of the setting sun, finally dimming to a pale gray dusk, there was no longer any denying what had happened.
We’d been left.
Abandoned.
And we had no idea why.
We’d tried using our phones over and over, but quickly gave in to the fact that none of us had any service, and, at someone’s advisement—I couldn’t even remember who at that point, it was all such a blur—we had agreed to keep our phones off, to conserve their batteries on the off chance we found an area with service.
That was about all we’d agreed upon.
Having no one to turn our anger toward, we first turned on each other, scattering to different points of the stretch of sand to vent our frustrations. Noah, the cocky, almost-lifeguard man I’d spoken to on the boat for some time, had spent quite a bit of time in the water, until the current became so strong he couldn’t swim it. The other man, the blond one who’d urinated on the trees upon our arrival was called James, and he hadn’t spoken much to any of us. He just drifted back toward the edge of the trees to be alone. I’d seen him gathering sticks at one point, though I wasn’t sure if he was planning to build shelter, a fire, or beat us with them.
Ava was the young woman who’d nearly passed out, overcome by sudden dizziness upon our arrival, and Harry was the thin man with glasses who’d stayed close to me when I was trying to keep her conscious. But now that she was awake and calm, even they’d spread out, each of us keeping our distance from the others.
I think, even then, even in the early days when we had no idea what was going on, all of us sensed that we may not be able to trust each other like we wanted to. Because, with no one else there to doubt, we were left with no choice but to doubt each other.
As the gray sky turned to almost total darkness, the only light coming from the reflection of the moon on the stormy sea, we found our way back to each other, almost all at once.
“What are we supposed to do?” The question came from Noah, the not-really lifeguard, and he made no effort to hide the fear and uncertainty in his tone.
“We need to find shelter for the night,” Harry—glasses—said, taking the lead of the group. “At least at the edge of the forest, so we’re somewhat hidden from the elements. Tomorrow, we’ll have to look for supplies to construct a fire and figure out a way to desalinate some water or find a stream of some sort. We’ll need a real shelter, too.”
The rest of the group must’ve been staring at him in the strange way that I was, because his gaze danced between each of us and, ultimately, landed on me. “Don’t stare at me like I have three heads. It’s basic stuff. I read a lot of survival books.”
I didn’t nod, but he didn’t wait for me to. It all felt strange. Thinking about tomorrow and any sort of future on the island was…impossible. We had to wake up from this nightmare. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be long term.
He glanced up at the sky. “We’re lucky it’s a clear night, so we have some moonlight to work under. If we can find a space between some trees where we can all sort of huddle together, take shifts where some of us stay awake, that’s our safest option right now.”
“But why are we here?” Ava demanded, voicing
