Echoes

by Alice Reeds

  Reluctantly, I followed him, afraid to stay behind, afraid to let him go alone. Just as we were halfway up the cliff, the helicopter flew above our heads and over the island, its sound louder now, more distorted. I noticed it wasn’t flying steadily but swaying from side to side like the pilot was barely about to keep it under control.

  Miles reached the top first and helped me up. The wind was much harsher up here and sent my hair flying in a wild mess all around my head, blinding me in the process.

  Stopping in our tracks, we watched as a dark figure jumped out of the helicopter, a parachute opening a moment later while the helicopter continued its flight and disappeared out of sight as quickly as it had appeared. Silently we watched the parachute slowly descend toward the jungle and then disappear between the trees.

  We scrambled into the jungle toward where the parachute was likely to have landed. Navigating the jungle in the semi-darkness and rain wasn’t easy, but after a couple of minutes we finally spotted a dark figure a good dozen or more feet away from us. He was dressed all in black and tried to fight himself free of the ropes of his parachute in which he seemed to be trapped.

  Miles and I crept a little closer to look at him, see more details and decide what to do next. We hid behind a half wall of bushes.

  “What should we do?” Miles asked quietly, looking at me for a moment before turning back toward the stranger.

  “I think, if we’d want to talk to him, figure out if he’s on our side or against us, now’s the best time,” I said, my eyes glued to the man, the ropes still trapping him in place. “If he tries anything, I can just knock him out.”

  For a moment he considered my words, his eyes still on the stranger, then he finally lightly nodded. “Okay.”

  This was likely a really bad idea, I could feel it, but we had to try. Maybe he was our way out of this mess. Maybe he was here to find us and bring us home. All of this seemed too crazy, impossibly so, but something good had to happen to us sometime.

  The man, whoever he might have been, looked like he was in his thirties. His hair was black and short. He looked Asian, though I couldn’t pinpoint if he was Chinese or Japanese, maybe Vietnamese, I didn’t know.

  Slowly we stepped out from behind the bushes and walked toward him, our steps cautious, our eyes never leaving the stranger. It took him a moment to realize that we were there, his arms finally stilling, his hands still holding on to two of the ropes that had wound around his legs in tight tangles.

  “Thank goodness,” the stranger said, his tone relieved, as he spotted us coming closer. “Could you help me?”

  “Who are you?” I asked instead, the two of us stopping a few steps out of reach from him just to be sure.

  “My name is Dong Ji and I’m here to help you.” I desperately wanted that to be true but left my face unmoved, nothing showing my feelings. The chances of him actually saying the truth were rather less than ideal, even though I wished differently. “I was sent here as part of a rescue mission to find you and get you home. Please, could you help me? I’ll explain everything else later.”

  “How can we be sure you’re not going to kill us the second those ropes are off?” Miles asked, his arms crossed in front of his chest and the skepticism evident in his voice.

  “What reason would I have to kill you? I’ve risked my life to get here, especially in this weather. What sense would it make if I were here to kill you? Please, I promise I’m here to help! Besides, there are two of you, and I’m alone.”

  Miles and I exchanged a look, silently evaluated what we should do, but in the end, even if it was potentially a really stupid idea, we agreed to help Ji. There was a fifty-fifty chance that he said the truth, and I really wanted that fifty percent to be the right one, for this nightmare to be over. If the other fifty percent were right, Ji had said it himself—there were two of us against him.

  Slowly, with combined efforts, we managed to get Ji out of his ropes. The parachute caught in the branches above our heads shielded us from the rain, at least somewhat, which made everything a tiny bit easier. As we worked, Ji told us about how he was supposed to land on the island and then find us so he could help us get back home, leave the island. It sounded so good, finally going home, something I’d dreamed of since day one. Ji seemed nice, calm in the way he spoke, and nothing about him seemed to point toward danger, toward something evil.

  “A boat will come at some point to get us,” Ji said as he pulled up his backpack while we stood and watched from a bit of a distance, still not quite sure if trusting him really was a good idea. After everything we’d been through, could anyone fault us? Slowly he rummaged through the backpack, as though searching for something.

  It sounded like it would take a while for that boat to come, but if it was the case, why didn’t he have any supplies with him? Why did they send him alone? Something about this entire situation just didn’t seem right, like he wasn’t telling us the whole truth.

  “Have you found the targets?” a voice asked from the inside of his backpack, the voice distorted but just clear enough for us to make out the words, my blood immediately turning cold. “Do you need more time to eliminate them?” Time seemed to stand still, the air filled with nothing but the sound of the storm and the beating of my heart in my ears, my eyes making contact with Ji.

  I held my breath as the three of us just stood there, my thoughts simultaneously racing faster than seemed possible and not moving at all. I tried to figure out what to do, what to say, what to even think. Ji looked at us, his eyes slowly wandering back and forth, his hand still buried deep within his backpack, the voice not saying any more. The damage was done, Ji’s cover blown.

  Then everything seemed to happen all at once, us taking a step back as Ji pulled out a gun from his backpack and pointed it at us. I didn’t think. Only acted.

  Before Ji could flinch or pull the trigger, I advanced toward him and threw my leg into a high kick, my foot meeting his hand hard enough for him to drop the gun. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on our side, because I very quickly realized that Ji, just like me, had training in martial arts or combat techniques, his moves too fluid and clean, his strength greater than mine.

  I ducked as his fist swung toward my face, my own right one making contact with his side, stealing part of the air from his lung, a groan coming from him. It was a lucky jab, only making him angry instead of weakening him.

  Everything seemed to turn into a blur, my body moving as though on autopilot, my training helping me, my mind focused, my footwork surprisingly good on this slippery grass and uneven dirt. I put up a hard fight, my father’s voice echoing in my mind—failure not acceptable, punishment would await me if I’d lose. I knew this time our lives were on the line, a much steeper price than any other. But Ji was too good, leaving me mostly trying to block his moves and avoid any critical hits.

  I tried another kick, but he stepped backward, avoiding contact skillfully, a devilish grin on his face like he could smell that I wasn’t as skilled as him, a fact I could barely swallow. But then, suddenly he was falling. His body hit the ground, and I expected him to move, roll over, jump back up, but instead he just lay there. Cautiously I stepped toward him, waited to see if he would react. He didn’t. I took another step and then one more until I stood right by him, looking down on his face, but it was as though he was caught in a picture, his eyes wide and unblinking, his mouth lightly open. My gaze shifted to his chest, wanting to see if it was moving, and to my horror I realized that it wasn’t.

  Ji wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing anything at all.

  Ji was dead, the rock beneath his head slowly turning crimson.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Berlin

  Slowly, even though it seemed impossible given how uncomfortable our position was, I drifted toward sleep. I could barely wait for the sweet release into a state in which I didn’t have to think about everything that was happening, could catch just a tiny break and relax. I moved a little closer tow
ard Miles without even opening my eyes and felt myself slipping, falling, the sounds around us turning quieter despite the highway being literally right above us.

  But just there at the edge of my consciousness was a noise. There were a lot of noises, but that noise…it didn’t belong. It wasn’t loud, was almost drowned out by the rumbling highway, but it still caught my attention. The sleep I’d almost slipped into was forgotten, my tiredness took a seat, and instead, my mind switched back into high alert.

  It could be nothing, but it could also be something. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to ignore it. I had to check what it was.

  I opened my eyes and tried to move, just enough so I could look over the barrier behind us, check the two sides of the pathway. I was sure I’d heard a branch snap or something like that, a noise another person must’ve made, or an animal. Looking toward the left, it took me a moment, but there in the white light of the billboard illuminating the path, I saw a person walking toward us.

  But it wasn’t just any person.

  No way. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be—

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Island

  Wordlessly, we raided Ji of everything he had with him. Trying to look anywhere but at his face, we took his backpack and his gun. As we worked, the rain slowly stopped, though the sky remained dark, leaving the possibility that it could rain again soon.

  Miles offered to drag Ji away, hide his body somewhere in between some bushes and out of view. I didn’t trust my voice, so I merely nodded and refused to watch him do it, to even so much as look in Ji’s direction while I knew he was still there. Instead, I pulled my legs up close to me and put my head in my hands. While we’d taken Ji’s things, the adrenaline still circulating through my system, my mind occupied, I’d managed to not think about what actually happened. But now I couldn’t stop.

  I couldn’t believe what I’d done, couldn’t stop thinking about it once I started. It was like a movie snippet crashing through my mind, tormenting me, replaying over and over again. No matter how much I tried to push it away, I couldn’t do it. It’d been my fault. He was dead because of me, because I killed him. My body began to shiver, though I didn’t feel cold on the outside, but rather on the inside.

  “What have I done?” I muttered quietly, nothing more than a whisper, the words barely passing my lips. “I broke it, the one rule we vowed never to break. Oh God, what have I done? I killed him, I really did.”

  Tears streamed down my cheeks and a deep sob shuddered my body. I could feel my control, the very one usually made of steel, drift away out of reach, like water slipping away through my fingers. My mind changed from panic to nothing and back to panic with every passing second. I couldn’t finish a single thought before it was gone again, replaced by another. The world turned blurry, out of focus, nothing mattered anymore, the damage done, irreversible.

  If my father ever found out what I’d done, I didn’t even want to consider the consequences, didn’t want to imagine his anger and disappointment, didn’t want to imagine what he’d say or do.

  “Fiona, hey,” Miles said softly, calmly, though with the faintest note of confusion and worry. I hadn’t even noticed that he was back. “What are you talking about? What rule?”

  “Never to use our abilities t-to ha-a-rm another person, only as me-ea-ns of self-defense or during ring fights,” I stuttered. It was hard to speak because I couldn’t stop sobbing and crying like a baby. I was the embodiment of everything my father loathed in that moment, showing weakness so openly, crying, embarrassing myself.

  “Fiona, hey, look at me,” Miles said gently. I raised my head, but my eyes stayed cast downward. He took my face into his hands, swiped away my tears with his thumbs. His touch was ever gentle, slow and soft. Miles’s voice was so calm, sounded so appealing, it forced me to finally look up at him, into those infinite eyes of his. “Don’t beat yourself up about this. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  His words made me wonder, frown in confusion, because they didn’t make any sense at all. “How can you say that?”

  “Because it was an accident,” he told me. I saw no fear, no lies, in his eyes. “You didn’t mean to kill him. You were just defending us. And Ji didn’t come in peace. He came to kill us the way they killed the others. What you did was save us. You saved us from landing in that pit just like the four before us. And you stood up for us, for yourself, just like I always said you were able to, even though he was a male authority figure, kinda.”

  I could hear his words, I knew what they meant, but it was like my brain was filled with a thick mist that I could hardly see through. All my thoughts moved slowly, so painfully slowly.

  “But I still killed him!”

  “What are you talking about? You didn’t kill him, Fiona. He stumbled and fell while he tried to dodge your kick. You had nothing to do with it. You tried to save us. What you did was noble, and his death isn’t on you.”

  “But…”

  “No but,” he interrupted before I could say any more. “You saw danger, and you reacted. You risked your own life to save the both of us. That he fell and broke his skull, it was an accident, no one’s fault but his, if even that. What matters is that we are still alive, that we are unharmed. You’re okay, right?”

  I had no idea if I was okay, physically or mentally. I was sure I’d have a few bruises to show for this, but they weren’t anything I hadn’t dealt with before. I shrugged. Thinking was still hard, my thoughts racing, my emotions all over the place, but I still tried to consider what Miles had said. Was it true, or possible, that Ji had simply fallen by mistake, that there was no blood on my hands after all? Could it be, or was Miles just saying it to make me feel better?

  Whoever Ji really was, he hadn’t come to help us. He’d come to kill us. He had a gun, and he’d threatened us. I’d had no other choice but to act, right?

  It took me another handful of minutes to fully calm down, to regain control, but I managed to do it with Miles’s help. He told me everything was all right; that what I’d done was right, that I hadn’t done anything wrong because it was either him or us. And to be honest, as harsh as it probably sounded, I valued Miles’s life, and mine, over that of a killer. I didn’t break my father’s rule because I acted to defend us, him and me, two lives in exchange for one. It didn’t make it fair, but we were innocent and he was the evil in this equation.

  It didn’t change the fact that I attacked him, that I broke a rule I swore never to break, but did I have another choice? No. I did what I had to do, so maybe it was okay. Maybe I would be okay, hadn’t brought disgrace on myself. I saved us, just like any other person would do.

  …

  No way. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real.

  “Miles.” I spoke as quietly as possible and shook him just enough to wake him, careful not to hurt him. “Miles, wake up.”

  Slowly his eyes blinked open and he looked around, confused, as though he couldn’t remember where he was. He turned his head back toward me, his eyes oddly empty but also endlessly tired.

  “Fiona, what’s—”

  “They’re here. They found us again. We need to go.”

  …

  “How about we look through the backpack?” Miles offered with an encouraging smile. “Maybe there’s something useful in there.”

  “I’d really dig some answers right about now,” I said with a huff, my mood a little better. I was trying, doing my best, and I appreciated Miles’s effort to take my mind off of what happened. “Like who he worked for, who brought him here, and who wants us dead.”

  I doubted his backpack would contain a work contract or a pretty little memo written on a sticky note that would spell all the answers out for us, but there had to be something. Miles got up and fetched the backpack, sat down opposite to me cross legged, and then reached inside.

  “Does that thing work?” I asked while I watched Miles turn Ji’s phone or radio, whatever it was, around in his h
and. It was chunky and matte black with a few keys and a small screen. Miles pressed a couple of the buttons, touched the screen, but nothing seemed to happen.

  “I guess he must’ve done something to disable it,” he said with a sigh. That was just our luck. Disappointing, but nothing we could do about it. Really, I shouldn’t have been so surprised; it only made sense for Ji to kill any chance for us to escape when he wasn’t sure if he’d make it. “Would’ve been too easy, wouldn’t it? Dead end.” With that, Miles placed the thing on the ground next to him and returned to the backpack.

  It was large and black, similar to those that hikers use, with enough space for both his parachute and whatever else he had with him. Miles looked it over, then turned the backpack upside down, and shook it so everything fell out onto the space between us.

  There was a black shirt, a tiny med-kit, goggles like those you’d wear for diving, three pairs of black rubber gloves, and two cylindrical, transparent tubes that could fit in the palm of your hand.

  I inspected them a little closer. They seemed to be made of plastic, and a small strip of paper was glued to each of them.

  “What the…?” I said and showed Miles the tubes. Each of them was marked with our name, gender, and age. Miles looked from the tubes up to me.

  “I told you that he wasn’t here to help us,” he said and continued looking through the stuff. I put the tubes aside and picked up something that looked like a black hair dryer. There were only two buttons on its hilt: one to turn it on and one to turn it off. Feeling brave I turned the thing on and pointed it at my forearm, which could’ve been a truly stupid idea.

  Suddenly, I didn’t see my skin anymore. Instead I saw all the veins running though my arm, the strings and muscles. My eyes widened in response, and my breathing hitched briefly. I’d never seen something like this. It wasn’t a portable x-ray or anything I could name. It didn’t show me my bones, just what lay underneath my skin.

  “Now that’s freaky,” Miles said when he noticed what I was doing. “I wonder what that’s for.”