by Sara Saedi
But he replied to the question the same way he did every day.
“No comment, Dr. Weckler.”
The death of his parents was a story he would take to his grave. After tonight, she could badger Maz and Tinka for the answer. Now the only thing left to do was tie up loose ends with Lola, and then, like his mom and dad, he could slip away forever.
Phinn had spent many nights staying awake until the drugs wore off, mulling over ways to set the kids free and get them back to the island in one piece. But eventually he decided there was no plan he could carry out without the cooperation of others. It was time to give up.
Suffering through yet another party in the Clearing wasn’t so rough when you knew it was going to be your last. His plan was so simple, it was a mystery why he hadn’t come up with it before. None of the BioLark staff had a proper view of anything that took place on behind the waterfall in the lagoon. They’d have to stand guard next to it to regulate any activity in its vicinity. He’d seen Micah and Tinka sneak off with each other each night to make out, but they always waited a half hour before they casually broke off from the group. It made him sad that Tinka would have to be the one to discover his body.
In an homage to his parents, Phinn would stand in the lagoon and swallow the rahat pills he’d been hoarding for the past two weeks. Luckily for him, the nurse who administered the kids’ nightly dose wasn’t thorough about making sure they were properly swallowed.
It wouldn’t take long for him to fall asleep and drown in the shallow water of the lagoon. He should have died in the ocean the night that Wylie left him. It would be a fitting end to his story.
Lola might have been more receptive to talking to him if she knew he was minutes from death, but Phinn didn’t want to tell her what he was planning.
“It won’t take long,” he begged. “It’s about the island.”
“Leave us alone,” Maz snapped.
“No,” Phinn said, standing his ground.
“I’ll only be a minute, okay?” Lola relented. Maz glowered, but she told him, “The last thing we need right now is one of those orderlies going crazy with a Taser because you two start punching each other.”
Phinn led Lola toward the lagoon, and away from the rest of the kids.
“You need to replace me,” he said as soon as they were alone.
“What do you mean, ‘replace’ you?” Lola asked.
“If you get back to the island, you’ll need a new leader.”
Lola remained poised. “Last time I checked, you didn’t get a say anymore.”
“You’re the only native resident,” Phinn pointed out stubbornly. “You have the skills and the disposition to be the greatest leader the place has had. And that says a lot coming from someone with my ego.”
Lola shook her head. “The future of Minor Island doesn’t involve you.”
“Exactly,” Phinn said.
Lola let out a frustrated breath. “Look, not that it’s any of your concern, but we already voted. Maz will be in charge of the island and I couldn’t be happier.”
Tinka had told Phinn as much. It was infuriating that the other kids hadn’t come to the same conclusion as him. He didn’t bother extolling Lola’s virtues or listing off the bevy of reasons she was qualified for the job. He considered it an insult to tell her everything she already knew to be true about herself. Plus, he didn’t have the time.
“Who would cook the meals?” she asked.
“Wylie. Someone, anyone. You can even train Maz to do it. You’ll figure it out. You make some mean chipney onion cakes, but the island can live without them.”
“It’s not that simple anymore,” Lola said. She looked close to tears. And then, without her knowing they’d be the last words he’d ever hear: “You were my friend, Phinn. You left me on a boat to die.”
Phinn’s guilt overcame him. It must have seemed preposterous to be giving her advice, but he needed to get his affairs in order and do what was best for the island.
“I’m sorry,” Phinn said. “And you can ignore me all you want, but you know I’m right about this,” he said before Lola walked away without a response. He watched her return to Maz. The questioning look of anger on his former best friend’s face told him it was time.
Four of the rahat pills were easily swallowed down without water, but Phinn needed to cup fluid from the lagoon to take the rest. He walked toward the waterfall where no one would be able to see him, and turned back to get one last look at Wylie. She wasn’t smiling anymore. The same vacant look he’d gotten used to had repossessed her face. He was mad at himself for looking at her. He wanted to remember the girl who beamed the first time he gave her parvaz and they soared through the sky above Brooklyn together.
Before he could close his eyes and focus his mind on that image, he noticed Bandit standing on the deck above the Clearing. Phinn watched as Bandit flung one leg over the railing and looked out at his friends. Phinn was instantly consumed with dread. He sloshed his way through the water, and stepped out of the lagoon, as Bandit placed a finger in his mouth and whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention.
“Guess what today is?” he yelled. “It’s my eighteenth birthday, and no one here got me a cake.”
Phinn knew what was going to happen before anyone else seemed to. Phinn had forgotten that Bandit was barely a month shy of becoming an adult when he whisked him to the island. His time was up. He wouldn’t get to return home and stay young forever. The deck was high enough that if Bandit jumped off, he would be dead from the impact of hitting the ground.
Phinn refused to outlive Bandit.
Phinn flew toward the deck.
Bandit jumped.
Phinn caught him.
He was kicking and screaming at Phinn to let him go by the time they landed on the ground.
“I didn’t want to be saved!” he screamed. “I wanted to die! My life is over anyway.”
Phinn pressed his arms down in an effort to soothe him. The kids were already surrounding them.
“Your life isn’t over,” Phinn told him, practically yelling to make himself heard. “You’re going to see your mom again. She’s clean and sober now. She spends every day walking around the city, putting up flyers with your picture on them. You’ll go home to her, and you’ll get to grow up. You’ll meet someone and fall in love and get married and have kids who think their dad hung the stars and moon. And you’ll tell them bedtime stories about the island. Your life isn’t over, Bandit. It’s just beginning.”
The BioLark orderlies pulled Phinn off of Bandit before he could respond. Olivia mumbled something about placing him on suicide watch, and the staff dragged him away.
To everyone else, it looked like Phinn had saved Bandit’s life, but it was the other way around. Phinn was supposed to be sinking in the lagoon right now. The few rahat pills he’d taken made him feel groggy, but the high dose of parvaz from this morning still hadn’t worn off. Phinn allowed his body to rise up to the ceiling. He watched as the kids below him shrank in size. From his vantage point, he could no longer tell if they were looking at him like a hero or a traitor.
It didn’t matter either way. He didn’t break Bandit’s fall to win friends or regain his popularity. He did it because the world needed Bandit in it. Death wasn’t better than old age. And now he was still alive, too.
As Phinn did a back flip in the sky, he felt something tumble out of his pocket and rain down on the Clearing. It was the ten leftover rahat pills he’d worked so hard to save. But he didn’t feel like he needed them anymore.
Your life isn’t over, he told himself. It’s just beginning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
punchbowl
they stared at each other across the table like they did every day. Wylie’s thoughts, whirling around her head like cars stuck at a rotary, barred her from repeating her mantras. She liked to go blank duri
ng the therapy sessions with Olivia, but lately, that was impossible. Lola was pregnant. Over the past few days, her belly had protruded into the shape of an igloo, making the pregnancy common knowledge. Maz spent most of his free time with his hand pressed against her belly, hoping the baby would greet him with a kick and give them a sign that everything was going to be okay. The rest of the kids, through their haze of pills and clinical depression, didn’t know whether to be happy for Lola or upset. Phinn’s rules were still ingrained in them, and some couldn’t reconcile the pregnancy with the oath they’d taken never to reproduce. But most of the girls, Wylie included, thought Lola was a hero for doing what she wanted with her body.
“Are you going to take Lola’s baby away from her?” Wylie asked Olivia.
“Wow. She actually speaks,” Olivia replied.
“Answer me. Are you ever going to let us go?”
Olivia nodded. “Eventually. You’ve been kept from your families for long enough. I look forward to the day when I can return you to them. I know your dad will be especially grateful. He’d hate the idea of Phinn being responsible for your disappearance.”
“I don’t like being here with Phinn,” Wylie confessed. “It makes me uncomfortable.”
She didn’t know why the words came out of her mouth, but it felt good to say them.
“Why?” Olivia asked.
“Because . . . I used to love him. And seeing him every day reminds me how naïve I was. How easily I can fall for someone just because they shower me with compliments and call me ‘porcelain.’ I don’t like feeling that way.”
Olivia leaned back in her seat and gave Wylie a smile that wasn’t part of her usual repertoire. It wasn’t condescending or manic or vindictive. It almost seemed sympathetic.
“No one does,” Olivia said. “At least you broke up with him. You were the one who walked away. I got dumped and tossed on a boat. He told me I was going to be too old for him. He was right.”
“How did you get over it?”
Wylie wasn’t sure what she was doing. Why was it suddenly so easy to open up to this woman?
“I threw myself into work. Medical school helped. I was so busy I didn’t have enough time to think about him. I don’t know what hurt more: losing him or not being allowed to live on the island.”
Wylie realized Olivia had no one else she could talk to about these things either. Gregory had shut her out of his life. She probably didn’t have any girlfriends she could grab martinis with and wax poetic about that seventeen-year-old boy who kicked her off a tropical island where no one got older.
“Is all of this your revenge, then?” Wylie asked.
Olivia shook her head. “I didn’t want my pain to be for nothing. I want to help people. The medical advancements we could make here are unprecedented. We’re doing important work.”
The monitor started to beep loudly. Wylie’s heart rate had gone up. She’d nearly lost count of how many days remained before she turned eighteen. Who would she be if she never returned to Minor Island? In one corner, there was Olivia, a woman so preoccupied with her youth that she’d spent her entire fortune trying to reclaim it. In the other corner stood her dad, a man who had to bury his past in order to function. They’d both lost a piece of themselves in the process.
“Phinn said once that I was beyond compare,” Olivia confessed. “How do you say that to someone and then send them away?”
Wylie didn’t have the heart to tell her that “beyond compare” was his favorite compliment, and one he’d given to Wylie and Tinka and probably a dozen other girls. It meant absolutely nothing. She didn’t mention that she’d also worn the tiny mirror that was now strung around Olivia’s neck. Phinn’s family heirloom had made the rounds.
“After you left, did you ever meet anyone else you cared about as much?” Wylie asked, genuinely curious.
Olivia shook her head. “Love is never forever. Love has a finite conclusion. Whether it’s death or divorce or boredom, there is always going to be pain at the end. I never wanted to feel that way again.”
There was something about Olivia that Wylie recognized in herself. The way she’d taken her hurt and made a shield out of it. The way she kept anyone else who wanted to get close to her at a safe distance. She knew it was crazy, and she wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but part of her understood Olivia’s views on love.
“I think you’re right. I think the worst thing we can do is trust people just because we want to believe they love us. That’s what I did with Phinn.”
Olivia nodded. “I may be a lot older than you, but we’re not that different.”
“I guess not.”
Olivia unhooked Wylie from the heart monitor and said there was something she wanted to show her in the employee wing of BioLark. The staff had taken to referring to that portion of the building as the “forbidden side.” It was off limits to the kids and only accessible with an ID tag. Wylie had seen parts of the wing on the day they’d arrived in BioLark, but she hadn’t been back since. The blinding fluorescent lights and the tap-tap of Olivia’s heels hitting the ground in a frenetic rhythm raised her anxiety despite the rahat in her system. She had no idea where they were going.
The hallways were endless. They turned left and then right and then left again. She lost track of how they’d gotten here and wasn’t sure she’d be able to find her way back to the other side of the lab on her own. Then Olivia hit a button on the wall and two giant doors swung open. She guided Wylie through the entrance and quickened her pace, making the tap-tap sounds grow closer together. There was an excitement to her gait that reminded Wylie of the day Phinn had first brought her to the island. Maybe they were going to Olivia’s office so Wylie could test out her sofa cushions and they could dig into pints of ice cream and talk more about boys.
“We’re here,” Olivia announced, as she opened a door to a hospital room.
Dr. Jay was real. He was not a figment of Wylie’s imagination. And he was lying in a hospital bed with his eyes closed.
“What happened to him?” Wylie asked.
“He betrayed me. Just like Phinn. Just like everyone does,” Olivia said. “I know why he brought you here, Wylie. He was asking too many questions and gave himself away.”
“You’re wrong,” Wylie lied. “We were the ones he was tricking.”
Olivia stifled a laugh. “It’s sweet to watch you defend him, but I don’t buy it. You’re the same girl who ignored me for weeks, and just tried to bond with me over Phinn. You might as well wear a T-shirt that says ‘I have ulterior motives.’”
Plastic tubes poked out of Dr. Jay’s nose and his chest slowly moved up and down. If it wasn’t for that, he would have appeared peaceful and content. But instead, he looked like he was a prisoner in his own body.
I tried to help you, Wylie could picture him saying. I’m so sorry.
Hot tears raced down her face. Wylie tried to get rid of them, but it felt like a pipe had burst in her tear duct. The combination of relief and terror were difficult to reconcile—relief that her intuition had been right about Dr. Jay, terror over what had happened to him.
“What did you do to him?” Wylie managed to ask.
“He’s in a medically induced coma,” Olivia replied calmly.
The tears came even faster, but Wylie used them to her advantage. She flung her body over Dr. Jay’s hospital bed, and sobbed dramatically, hoping to distract Olivia in the process. She glimpsed Dr. Jay’s forearms, but they were scrubbed clean. There were no traces of the ink he’d used to scribble down notes on the island. Wylie remembered that he was left handed, so she grabbed his right hand and grazed her finger on the palm.
“It’s not right what you’re doing!” she screamed at Olivia. “He’s a good person. You didn’t have to hurt him!”
“I had no choice,” Olivia said, coldly. “Accept your fate, Wylie. You’re not getting out of h
ere. But you don’t have to worry about Lola or her baby. I’ll take good care of them.”
Wylie wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted by threats. She quickly separated Dr. Jay’s fingers, making it seem like she wanted to interlace them with her own, and that’s when she spotted the words scribbled between his index and middle fingers. The ink was smudged and faded, but Wylie could still string together the phrase:
Quiet at the punchbowl
She used the clamminess of her palm to smudge up the ink further, so that Olivia would never see it.
Wylie wiped away her tears and followed Olivia out of the room. This time, they took a shorter route out of the staff quarters that led them straight to the deck where the dining room was located.
Quiet at the punchbowl. Wylie wasn’t sure what it meant, but she assumed Dr. Jay was deliberately vague with his note. He didn’t want Olivia or anyone else at BioLark to know that he was trying to give their lab rats a clue.
A punchbowl conjured up images of a high school dance. It was the place for teenagers to mill around awkwardly, while watching everyone else enjoy themselves. What did it mean in the context of BioLark? Wylie assumed it was a clue that he’d recently discovered or one he’d kept to himself for insurance purposes.
Olivia escorted her to the dining room in time for dinner. They usually served sandwiches on stale bread accompanied by an overripe banana or canned pineapple. She took her regular seat across from Hopper and hoped he wouldn’t be able to tell that she’d been crying. Wylie worried he’d resort to violence if he learned about Dr. Jay’s coma.