Power Games

by Victoria Fox

  ‘We have to face facts,’ she said. ‘We might not be rescued for a while.’

  Everyone had thought it, and everyone heard what she really meant.

  We might not be rescued at all.

  ‘We have to plan for what’s ahead,’ said Angela. ‘Ways to live, how to get water … Finding proper food and shelter. Staying safe.’

  ‘We’ve got a whole sea of water,’ said Kevin. Angela swore his voice was deeper than it had been when they’d met.

  ‘But we can’t drink it,’ she said. ‘The salt will make you sick.’

  ‘And dehydrated,’ added Eve. ‘You go twice as much to flush the saline out.’

  ‘Boiled water is safe water,’ agreed Angela. ‘We find a source and bring it back.’

  Celeste asked: ‘Where?’

  ‘Animal tracks on the way to the mountain—they’re bound to reach a spring.’

  ‘I’m not volunteering,’ said Tawny, ‘not after what I went through on that scummy pig run.’ The model was squeezing dark berries between her fingers and applying the juice to her lips. Kevin caught her eye and smiled. She smiled back.

  ‘This isn’t a catwalk,’ snapped Eve. ‘No one cares what you look like.’

  ‘What’s wrong with taking a little pride in my appearance?’ said Tawny, fluffing her hair. ‘You could sure do with it, dressing in a tent like a fucking sad sack. Don’t you get hot covered up all the time? No need to be frigid.’

  ‘You’re certainly not.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Do you want me to spell it out?’

  ‘You spelled out enough in that evil write-up of yours. You think you’re smart but you know nothing—’

  ‘I’m surprised you could read it.’

  ‘Whatever, you fat cow.’

  ‘Tawny, shut up,’ said Angela.

  ‘Why me? She started it.’

  ‘I don’t care who started it.’ Angela shot Eve a pointed look. She had to own up to her pregnancy and it had to be soon. ‘Moving on. Shelters. Celeste?’

  ‘I can recreate what I did for Jacob.’

  Tawny scowled. ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Great,’ said Angela, ‘then you can help.’

  ‘I’m not doing it with her. I’ll do it by myself.’

  ‘It’ll take forever,’ said Eve.

  The model shot her a glare. ‘You got someplace else to be?’

  ‘We’d need rope, an axe, proper things to build with,’ said Eve, ‘and if we had all that I’d be assembling a raft and sailing us out of here.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Jacob, ‘rafts! Why didn’t we think of that?’

  Angela let the suggestion hang. In Jacob’s state he wouldn’t be putting a raft together any time soon, but he had to feel useful. The businessman she knew was a trailblazer. He took charge. He acted. He controlled. If things had been different, he would be leading this campaign and fighting every hour to get them home.

  ‘If you didn’t get eaten by sharks, you’d die of thirst,’ Mitch spoke up, ‘and that’s assuming you could make the logs float in the first place.’

  ‘We can always use you as a buoy,’ said Tawny, smiling sweetly at his bald head.

  ‘There aren’t any sharks,’ said Kevin, with a blasé shrug. ‘I haven’t seen any.’

  ‘I saw a shark,’ said Celeste, ‘at night. Two of them.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Tawny.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Kevin, ‘if I saw one I’d just kill it.’

  Eve laughed. ‘I’d love to see that.’

  ‘You’d love to vomit it up in your paper even more,’ crabbed Tawny.

  Bolstered by the model’s defence, Kevin puffed out his chest. Angela noticed the light smattering of hairs there. She had a strong memory of the first time he had taken off his shirt—his torso had been less that of a nineteen-year-old and more that of a child. Now, it was transformed. Taller. Bigger. It looked like he was on steroids.

  ‘Nobody’s going in the ocean,’ said Angela. ‘Those rules still apply.’

  ‘Fuck the rules,’ said Kevin.

  ‘And we’re not building a raft until we’ve built shelters. Is anyone familiar with the weather systems out here?’

  ‘Hot,’ said Tawny, and Kevin sniggered.

  ‘This island, wherever it is, has to have a rainy season,’ Angela said. ‘No way would this vegetation grow unless there was a counterpoint. Judging by the heat we have now, it’s some downpour.’

  ‘I’ll get started,’ said Celeste. Tawny pulled a face.

  ‘The other thing is to avoid wounds. Scrapes and grazes, open cuts, soak them in salt water. Otherwise, it’s common sense. Go carefully. Never venture into the jungle without shoes and never go in the sea without them, either.’

  ‘In case a shark bites off our toes?’ said Tawny.

  ‘You never heard of jellyfish, anemones?’

  ‘What shoes am I supposed to wear? All mine got frazzled to a crisp!’

  ‘I’m sure you can take someone else’s.’

  ‘Yeah, well, whoever the thief is round here sure thinks so.’

  ‘You’re not still going on about that?’ Eve said. ‘You never brought that necklace in the first place, Tawny. I never even saw you wearing it.’

  ‘I did bring the necklace,’ argued Tawny, ‘and it’s not my fault you were too dumb to notice. Jacob knows it. I wore it at the airport, and I—’

  ‘And it came off in the crash and you haven’t had it since.’

  ‘Bull. I had it after that swamp tried to eat me up. I took it off to wash, and then I took it off at night, and I had it right here next to me—’

  ‘Except you bumped your head when the plane came down and now you can’t be sure what’s what.’

  ‘But you can,’ Tawny threw back, ‘obviously?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  Angela broke it up. ‘Tawny, I don’t know if you had the necklace with you or not and, frankly, I don’t care. What I do care about is accusations flying around without proof. We make enemies of each other and we’ve had it. There is no thief.’

  Tawny turned on Jacob. ‘You saw me wearing it, didn’t you? At Jakarta?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Of course you do. It was you who gave it to me.’

  Kevin was sharpening the end of a stick. He glanced up.

  ‘Help me look for it,’ Tawny said. ‘Now, Jacob, help me look!’

  Jacob stared at her blankly. There was a long and awkward silence. Attempting to smooth over her gaffe, Tawny’s blue eyes scanned the group.

  ‘Whoever it is,’ she said ominously, ‘I’m on to you. I’ll find you out.’

  ‘Maybe it was her,’ said Kevin.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her.’ His voice was dark. ‘The flight attendant.’

  ‘Shut up, Kevin,’ said Eve.

  ‘I’m serious. She’s out there.’ Kevin planted his stick in the sand. ‘There’s something in that jungle. Every one of us feels it.’

  If any of them had spoken out against him, it would have made it better. But nobody did. Mitch’s face was sallow. Celeste wrapped her arms round herself.

  ‘It’s just us,’ said Angela. ‘That woman—she died. There’s no doubt in my mind that she died. It’s just that we haven’t found her yet.’

  ‘Just like they’re looking for us,’ said Kevin. ‘Only we’re not dead.’

  ‘We’re not,’ agreed Angela, ‘but she is.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She would have come across us by now.’

  ‘Who says she hasn’t?’

  The group fell silent.

  ‘We’ve got enough to deal with in the world we can see,’ said Angela, ‘than to start freaking out about the one we can’t. I’m not even going down that road.’

  ‘We shouldn’t walk out there alone,’ said Celeste. ‘Even so.’

  Angela nodded. She held up a lipstick they had exhumed from the
wreck. ‘And if you absolutely have to, X marks the spot.’

  ‘You want us to wear make-up?’ Kevin squawked.

  ‘We cross our path on the trees. That way we’ll always know our way back.’

  ‘What about food?’ asked Jacob.

  Tawny muttered: ‘Why not throw your dick on the fire? A canapé before the main event.’

  ‘Jacob’s right,’ said Angela. ‘We have to get sustenance. Kevin, you tried fishing …’

  ‘I could have a go,’ Jacob said. ‘I’ve always been good.’

  ‘Er, maybe not …’ said Tawny, with a mean laugh.

  ‘Some things you don’t need to be able to see,’ Jacob explained. ‘It’s about feeling. Timing. Since this happened,’ he faltered, ‘since this happened it’s like everything works in a new way. I can hear stuff. Feel stuff. Like my body works different to how it did before … Maybe I’m wrong, but it can’t hurt to try.’

  ‘Good,’ said Angela, ‘then that’s settled. The other thing, of course, is meat.’

  ‘That is too gross,’ said Tawny. ‘I am not eating a smelly old pig, especially one that’s been shafted by that toothpick.’ Kevin brandished his stick. ‘It’s not a toothpick,’ he said, in a thick, rough voice. There was a weird moment, gone as soon as it came, where he and Tawny exchanged glances and suddenly they weren’t talking about the stick any more.

  ‘We’re all hungry,’ said Angela, ‘and we need to hunt.’

  Hunt. The word was powerful. Savage.

  If they could do that, what else would they be capable of?

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Kevin, baring his teeth. ‘I’ll hunt.’

  49

  Jakarta

  The man did not like to be asked to complete a job twice. He fulfilled his role and then it was done. To suggest he had not finished the task was an insult.

  Still, Voldan Cane paid the kind of money that helped to soften an insult.

  The man flew into Jakarta airport early morning. It was a clear, hot day, and he was already thinking about the week he would spend on the beach once this hit was wrapped. Since his short-lived affair with Tawny Lascelles, he’d had a renewed appetite for beautiful women, and decided he would indulge in a few as a reward.

  He passed through the airport unnoticed—Noah Lawson wouldn’t have that luxury. Nor would Noah Lawson have an idea where to begin, unlike him.

  The man’s diligent calculations meant he had a target circle of just fifty miles.

  That sure beat the authorities’ sprawling search.

  Admittedly, his boss’s call had come as a surprise. The man had executed the plan according to instructions and he had succeeded. Even if the Challenger wreckage were found, there would be no way of returning it to Cane’s door. Surely the fact it hadn’t was a bonus: no black box to examine, no smelted straighteners to cast misgivings, no bodies to surrender clues. But Cane wanted more. He wanted proof.

  Categorical proof.

  He wanted those bodies photographed, and then disposed of.

  Including Noah Lawson’s.

  Lawson was a nuisance, but he would be easy enough to eradicate.

  And that was what the man was here to do.

  50

  Noah arrived on Maliki Island by boat. Clear green sea glistened in the sun, mottled with bursts of coral and pockets of deep khaki. The land was rugged and piratical. Towering cliffs reached right out into the water, and the beaches were wide swathes of crystal, applauded by swaying palms. The heat was intense.

  This was where the ocean search was being launched, the closest inhabited island to the suspected crash site. Maliki was being kept strictly confidential as the hub of the rescue effort: Noah only knew about it thanks to a friend on the inside, a guy he had shadowed on one of his movies when he’d investigated the role of a government agent. They had stayed in touch, and the instant his decision was made Noah got straight on the phone, explained his interest and promised discretion.

  His buddy had come through. It was a lead, and the best he was going to get.

  The Maliki fisherman took his tip. A crowd of locals was gathered on the pier, wide-eyed, dark-skinned children, by now accustomed to the intrusion. For days they had watched the white men come and go about their operation, and regarded Noah with fascination and a pinch of distrust.

  It was good to be somewhere he wasn’t recognised. Transferring at Jakarta, he had fended off an onslaught of reporters from local news channels, as well as those who had followed him from the States.

  ‘Noah, why are you here? What do you hope to achieve?’

  It was simple.

  People didn’t just disappear.

  Angela was out here somewhere.

  Now all he had to do was find her.

  51

  Day 10

  Kevin’s nose twitched at the ripe, sour scent of pig droppings. He knelt to scoop up a handful. They were warm. Fresh. The animal was close.

  You’re not getting away from me this time …

  He started to run. His body was filled with fuel, his muscles an engine, pistons pumping beneath his skin and his heart galloping fast and strong as a racehorse. Over creeks and logs he leaped, light as a nymph, through the undergrowth that clawed and scratched at his bare back and shoulders, drawing thin lines of blood.

  Up ahead he heard the thunder of frantic hooves. Twice he had come close to spearing a young sow: he would not let her elude him again.

  Raising his spear, Kevin smashed through the bush, his sneakers too tight to contain his splurge from a size eight to twelve, but it didn’t matter, the discomfort was secondary, a mere glitch against the adrenalin.

  The pig came into view. Its rear end was massive, its haunches formidable, a swinging black tail swishing between sturdy legs. This was no sow, and it was no baby—this was an adult boar, and an angry one at that.

  Kevin pulled back. He watched the animal disappear through a screen of jade, listening until the panicked thump had receded into the distance.

  He narrowed his eyes at the still-shivering foliage.

  Next time, he thought. I’ll get you next time.

  Something was happening to Kevin Chase.

  And it was happening quickly.

  His body was changing. His voice was deepening. Hair was sprouting in new, secret places: there was stubble on his chin, fuzz across his chest and on his arms and legs, and a bristly trail that ran into his shorts. He was growing—at least an inch or two taller from when they had arrived, his chest bulking and his biceps popping.

  Tattoos that had once occupied the entire circumference of a spindly arm were now like paint flecks splashed on a wall. The clothes he had worn through the crash were too small, like clothes he had worn when he was thirteen. It was as if he had reacted to a chemical stimulus, bursting out of his shell, furious as the Hulk.

  The thing was, it felt good.

  It felt fucking good.

  After years lagging behind in his girlish, weakened body, it felt unbelievable.

  Kevin was becoming the man he had always wanted to be—a man like Jacob Lyle, and in such inverse correlation with Jacob’s predicament it was as if he had robbed Jacob’s status and made it all his own. As if they had swopped roles.

  Yesterday, Kevin had taken a leak in the makeshift jungle latrine.

  No way, man.

  In the space of three days, his cock had grown by as many centimetres. He had blinked, awed, at the nest of pubic hair surrounding it—no longer the half-assed wisps of old, but a proper, thick covering, dense and matted, spreading down the insides of his thighs. His hands, as they cradled this new and incredible appendage, were broad and veined, the wrists smattered with fur that turned amber in the sun.

  Kevin had peed proudly, spraying the shrubs with a mighty, virile jet, and laughing, throwing his head back and embracing the breadth of the sky.

  Every second he could feel himself pushing at the boundaries of his new skin, primed to get bigger still, splitting through fibres like d
ental floss. Every hour he consulted the contents of his pants, and every hour it seemed to have lengthened.

  It must be the island. Something in the air, or some fruit he had eaten, something that had magical, potent powers. But he could not think what he had been exposed to that the others had not. And it wasn’t just a physical metamorphosis—it was mental, too. Kevin, on the cusp of twenty, had spent all his teens being thrust this way and that, all for the interests of another: Sketch, his management, his mom, the fans … Suddenly, it was about him. He was the powerful one, nobody else.

  All the girls he had struggled with, all the rejections and taunts that Sandi had thrown his way—if only they could see him now!

  Tawny had noticed. He had seen it in the supermodel’s eyes. Desire.

  The promise of that mystical prize called sex.

  He had thought she and Jacob had something going, but the Casanova whom Kevin had held in such regard now seemed a smaller man than him. He bet Jacob’s dick wasn’t as big as his. He bet Jacob couldn’t hunt pigs, even if he could see.

  Whatever Jacob had, it wasn’t enough to satisfy Tawny.

  Kevin could satisfy her. He had no doubts about that.

  Now, he could achieve anything.

  He had arrived—and the world had better watch out.

  52

  Day 11

  Jacob was knee-deep in the lagoon.

  By now he could pick out the form of things, like concentrating on a developing photograph and figuring the shapes before they appeared: the mountains that climbed either side of the cove, and the difference between sea and sky.

  If he stayed still long enough, he would feel a swish at his ankles, the flick of a tail or the fluid rush as something passed by his leg. The bigger fish caused vibrations when they were inches away: these were the ones to go for. He learned stealth, then with keen reflex to plunge his stick into the water. Hours passed between hooks, but it was worth the wait. Not just the promise of sleeping on a full belly, but the instant of triumph that accompanied a catch: the flipping, frippery body that was pulled from the water, held on the point of the harpoon, a silver, twitching trophy.