Illusion

by J. S. Cooper

  “Ready to go to the jungle?” he asked me lightly, and I nodded, grateful that he hadn’t made a comment about my checking him out.

  We walked in silence toward the jungle. I could feel my heart racing as I realized that I was about to enter the unknown. I thought back to one of my history classes where we’d talked about American Indian tribes who had never had contact with Westerners.

  “I really hope we don’t happen upon any native tribes who want to kill us.” I shivered.

  “Don’t be stupid, Bianca.” Jakob shook his head.

  “Fine. I hope we don’t happen upon any native tribes who want to kill you.” I glared at him.

  “Keep your eyes open and your ears keen, then,” he responded pompously. “If anyone is waiting to kill us, it’s Steve.”

  “What do you mean?” I frowned at him, still feeling annoyed by his imperious nature.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll worry about Steve.” He gave me a condescending look. “Just keep your eyes open for water, and your ears as well.” He spoke slowly and arrogantly, and I wondered how I had allowed myself to be even slightly intimate with him. “At the same time, let me know if you see any Indians with bows and arrows.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “I’m an asshole who doesn’t want us to get further dehydrated.”

  “You really think we’re going to find fresh water?”

  “We’re pretty screwed if we don’t.” He looked at me then and sighed. “Please don’t cry.”

  I stared at him for two seconds before ignoring him and increasing my pace. He was such an asshole. Please don’t cry, my ass. I hadn’t cried since we’d been here.

  “Wait up.” He hurried behind me and grabbed my arm. “I told you already that you need to wait for me.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.” I shrugged his hand off. “And the last I heard, we weren’t colonists. We didn’t start a democracy, and I didn’t vote for you to be governor or president.” I gave him a haughty look. “So in case you don’t get it, I’m not listening to what you say.”

  “Bianca,” he started, and half-smiled.

  “What?” I snapped, and then tripped over something and fell to my knees. “Ouch.” I landed on the sand with a thud, my face burning up in shame.

  “You okay?” He reached his hand out to help me up. “I was trying to warn you about that branch.”

  “I’m fine.” I jumped up, ignored his hand, and then brushed the sand off my legs. I looked up and found Jakob staring at me with darkened eyes.

  “Is it going to be like this the whole time we’re here?”

  “We’re not here to repopulate the planet, so I wouldn’t worry about it,” I huffed out, and then paused. “Oh my God, you don’t think we’re here for some secret project? Maybe they want us to start a new colony and repopulate a new population to see if we can survive on another planet.”

  “Another planet?”

  “You know, somewhere other than Earth.”

  “We’re on Earth, Bianca.”

  “Duh. I meant, maybe they plan on sending us to another planet after we have kids.” I sighed as if he were the slow one and then started laughing. “I’m joking, Jakob.”

  I could see his lips trembling as he listened to me, and I could tell that he wanted to join me in my laugh. Finally, he couldn’t stop himself and he started laughing as well. We laughed for a good couple of minutes, and I felt tears running out of my eyes.

  “Okay, I know how ridiculous that sounded,” I finally choked out through laughs. “You should have seen your face when you thought I was being serious.”

  “I’m glad you realized that we don’t have to worry about life on Mars, though I wouldn’t be averse to trying for the kids.” He winked at me, and my face flushed. “What say you?”

  “I say no.” I marched ahead of him, and he grabbed my arm.

  “What are we going to do to get off of the island?” His voice was serious, and I knew that the joking part of the morning was done. “We also need to think about how we’re going to protect ourselves. Just in case.”

  “Oh God, I feel like I’m Katniss and you’re Peeta. Only, I don’t know how to shoot a bow and arrow. Not that I have a bow and arrow, and I don’t think you know how to bake bread.”

  “What?” He looked annoyed. “Who are Katty and Peter?”

  “What?” I responded back at him. “You never saw The Hunger Games movies? I mean, the books were better, but I thought most people saw the movies at least. The second movie was much better than the first one though.”

  “Bianca,” His voice was growing impatient. “I need you to focus on the matter at hand. I don’t know The Hunger Games, and unless that movie is going to provide us with some answers we can use right now, I don’t care to know either.”

  “Well, the main characters were in a similar situation to us, so I was trying to think about what they would do in such a situation.”

  “They were kidnapped and placed on an island as well?”

  “Not exactly.” I made a face. “I mean it’s kind of similar. They knew what they were signing up for, only, they didn’t really know.” I shook my head. “They had no real concept of what they were going to be faced with.”

  “Bianca, I do appreciate the fact that you’re a walking movie machine. You might even be the next Ebert, but right now I don’t give two shits about any of your random movies. This is serious. We need to figure out a plan.”

  “I know that. Trust me, I know that. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’m sorry that you chose to sit at a table with me and now you’ve been dragged into my mess.” I pushed past him and started walking quickly away from him. I hadn’t appreciated his tone or words. Movies were my answers to everything. They always had been. Movies had been my teaching guides as I’d grown up. They were easy to fall back on. I often talked about characters from movies as if they were people I knew in real life.

  “Wait.” His voice wasn’t humorous anymore. “Don’t walk ahead of me.”

  “Are we going to go—”

  “Bianca.” His voice rose. “Enough.”

  “What?” My jaw dropped open in shock. Was he seriously speaking to me as if I were a kid? Again?

  “I said enough. We can’t have you just . . .” He started lecturing me and I felt like a petulant kid as I stood there silently. His lips looked so luscious as he stood there mumbling about something. I’d already tuned him out and was admiring his chest. His abs looked so pronounced, and I had an urge to run my fingers down each ripple. I wonder what he would do if I stepped forward and ran my fingers all the way down? I chastised myself silently at my dirty thoughts. I was about to interrupt him, when I saw something moving in the bushes. I gasped and blinked quickly to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. There were two empty dark eyes staring back at me. I screamed out and the face backed away from sight. My eyes watched the branches shaking in front of me; I felt my heart stop as leaves fell to the ground. I heard a loud thud, and then I screamed again loudly, pushing past Jakob to make my way back to the sandy beach.

  I ran back to the beach as fast as I could, my legs moving swiftly, while my mind thought back to what I’d seen in the bushes. “Bianca, slow down!” He chased after me and grabbed ahold of me when he caught up. “Bianca!”

  “I saw something!” I gasped. “I saw two eyes looking at me.” I stared at him with wide eyes as I tried to control my breathing. “Oh my God, we’re totally going to die.”

  “Bianca!” He took a deep breath and pulled me into his arms. “Take two deep breaths and calm down.”

  “How am I supposed to calm down when Godzilla is on the island with us? Ready to eat me!” My voice was dramatic, and my hands rose to the sides of my face. “I have very sweet blood, you know. Predators can smell me.”

  “Really?” His lips started twitching again.

  “Yes! I eat a lot of chocolate.” I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths. “I’m not going back in there
.” I shook my head and fell to the sand. “I’m not going back. No way, José.”

  “Bianca, I’m sure all you saw was a bug or something. Or maybe it was Steve spying on us.”

  “Steve has blue eyes.” I shook my head. “And I’d like to know what bug has big white irises and black-red eyes?”

  “Black-red eyes?”

  “You know what I mean.” I glared at him.

  “Not really.” He sat down next to me and leaned back. “So you’re too scared to go back into the jungle today?”

  “I don’t want to die today.”

  “So you’d rather die tomorrow?”

  “I’d rather not die.”

  “Bianca.” His voice was serious. “If I could go into the jungle and carry back what we needed without you coming with me, I would. If I felt safe leaving you on the beach by yourself, I would go. Unfortunately, I don’t know where Steve is and I’m scared what he might try to do, especially if he is tracking our movements. We can’t be apart from each other. So I’m going to need you to be a big girl today. I need your help.”

  “You’re such a condescending asshole.”

  “Thank you, but you don’t even know me yet.”

  “I think I do.”

  “I could be a lot worse.” His lips were thin as his eyes stared into mine with an intense light. “I could be more than an asshole.” His voice dropped, and his fingers ran down my arm.

  “Get your fingers off of me.” I shook him off me and moved back.

  “My fingers can’t do as much as other parts of my body,” he said smoothly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I furrowed my eyebrows together, and then my face flushed. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Not as disgusting as I can be.” He leaned toward me, and I was almost positive that he was going to kiss me. Instead, his lips moved to my ear and he whispered softly, “Only, you won’t think I’m being disgusting. You’ll be screaming out my name, begging me to never stop.”

  I jumped up then and walked toward the jungle. “You’re so inappropriate. You know that, right? I just had the fright of my life and you’re trying to seduce me. Let’s go!” I shouted without looking back at him. “If you need my help, let’s go.”

  “I thought that would do the trick.” He jumped up off the ground and laughed. “There’s nothing that scares you more than sex, is there, Bianca?”

  I ignored his question and kept walking. Though he was wrong. Nothing about sex scared me. It was what happened after sex that turned my brain upside down.

  “I don’t know if we’re going to find any water.” I sighed as we kept walking through the shrubbery. “I’m getting tired and thirsty.”

  “I can crack open some coconuts if you want.” Jakob touched my arm. “If we bash them hard enough into the rocks we can split them open. We have to find the green coconuts though, the ones still in the shell. The brown coconuts are hard already.”

  “It’s okay. I can wait a little bit.” I shook my head. “It’s weird that we haven’t seen any trace of Steve, isn’t it?” I stared at the gash on Jakob’s face and bit my lower lip.

  “I guess.” He looked away from me. “Let’s stop for a moment so you can rest.”

  “Thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m the only one who’s exhausted, right?”

  “Let’s stop so we both can rest. Is that better?” He gave me a look that made me feel like a little kid, and I turned away. “Wait here. I’m going to go—”

  “Jakob,” I whispered softly as my eye caught something. “Jakob,” I said again, harder this time, and grabbed his arm. My breathing was coming faster, and my words sounded slightly excited.

  “Yes?”

  “I see something.” I stared ahead, not sure if I was seeing things. I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

  “Not another alien or gorilla.” His eyes twinkled at me.

  “Funny—not.” I glared at him. “I think I see a building.”

  “What?” His eyes narrowed, and he stared at me. “Where?”

  “Look.” I pointed to a spot between a gathering of trees. “Over there.” His face turned to look in the direction I was pointing, and I saw him looking hard.

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Look between the two trees.” I grabbed him again. “I think there’s some sort of shack. It’s covered in shrubbery, but there’s a small window. Do you see it now?”

  “I see it.” He nodded and started walking. “Let’s go check it out.”

  I wanted to grab him again and tell him to stop. We didn’t know what it was or who was there, and I was scared. I wished I hadn’t complained now. I wished we had kept walking. I would have felt safer. Now I felt anxious and scared. What was waiting for us in the cabin? I took a deep breath and tried not to start screaming. What if Steve was in there with a gun?

  The shack in front of us was small and wooden. It would have looked comfortable in the middle of a horror movie, a fact I kept to myself as we walked toward it. My heart was beating rapidly, and I could feel the fear in the tips of my fingers and bottoms of my feet. My face was flushed with heat, and I followed behind Jakob, scared of what we were about to see.

  “Do you think someone lives here?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know.” His voice was stiff, and I had a feeling that he was as shocked as I was. “I’m surprised that there’s a shack here. We’ve seen no other signs of the island being inhabited, aside from Steve showing up.”

  “And this one looks like they tried to hide it. There’s shrubbery all over the front and back.”

  “Yeah, it looks like they tried to camouflage it.” He looked back toward me. “Stand back while I go in. If you hear me shout, run back to the beach.”

  “And do what?” I mumbled, but he didn’t answer.

  I watched as he opened the door to the shack and took a step in. I followed him slowly, not wanting him to go in alone and not wanting to stand outside by myself. While I was worried about what was in the shack, I was also worried about the creature I had seen in the trees earlier.

  “Jakob,” I spoke softly as I stepped into the sparse shack.

  “Someone’s been waiting for us to find this place.” He looked at me with a thoughtful expression.

  “Huh?” I stared at him in confusion. “Do you think it was Steve?”

  “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Look.” He pointed to the corner of the room at a table.

  On the small wooden table, there were two white envelopes. One envelope was addressed to Jakob, and the other envelope was addressed to me, Bianca London. I froze as I stared at the envelopes.

  “Here you go.” He handed me my envelope.

  I opened it slowly and read. My fingers trembled as I read the short message, and I felt my heart stop.

  “What does yours say?” Jakob’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “I, uh . . .” My voice shook, and I looked up at him with wide eyes.

  “Mine says, “ ‘Everyone has a price. Every action has a consequence.’ ” He frowned and looked at me.

  “ ‘Your life may be saved in death.’ ” My voice trembled, and I pressed my palm to my forehead to reassure myself that everything was okay.

  The letter was printed on the same paper as the first note that had arrived at my apartment a week ago. My skin felt cold even though the sun was extremely hot outside, and the hairs on my arm stood on end as I shivered. I reread the note, trying to figure out if there was a clue I had missed on the page.

  What was the connection between this note and the one I’d received before? What was I being saved from? Who was doing this to me? And why bring me here with Jakob? Why leave him a note as well? I didn’t understand him. Some parts of the day, he was light and friendly, while at other times, he seemed guarded and thoughtful. There was a look in his eye that scared me—a look that said no matter how long we spent together, he would still have his walls up.

  A part of me was hurt that he seemed so closed off. I felt s
tupid for being hurt. Rationally, I knew that I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me, yet it was still hard for me to let go of the fact that I wanted to feel closer to him. I’d already opened up to him partially about my past. Yes, I hadn’t told him the whole truth, but he knew more than anyone else. I’d told him more than I’d even told Rosie. And then there was the attraction I felt to him. Sexually, there was a magnetism to him that made me want to touch him and feel him on top of me. When he touched me, my skin lit up like a stove that had just been turned on. I craved his touch. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to feel him inside me. My time on the island was bringing out very primal urges in me. I felt like I was living each hour as if it were my last. For the most part, I enjoyed our banter. I felt like he really cared about me. I could see the concern for my safety in his eyes, and I could hear it in his voice. I knew that he legitimately felt something for me. I just wished that he trusted me as much as I’d already trusted me.

  “Are you okay?” His voice interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up to see him frowning.

  “The letter just took me aback.” I nodded slowly, not ready to tell him about the other note I’d received. Not until I felt like I was getting more from him.

  “I understand.” He sighed. “We will get to the bottom of this.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Do you think we’re going to die?”

  “Only if we have to kill each other.” His words were soft, and I froze.

  “I’m confused.” I spoke slowly, as if I were just now thinking about the question I was about to ask.

  “About what?”

  “Why would they leave you a note?” I scratched my head. “I mean, it just doesn’t add up. They see you with me once at a coffee shop and all of a sudden you’re prime suspect number two?” I licked my lips and studied his face carefully. I could see throbbing in his throat as he stared back at me. “What’s the point of leaving you a letter? And such a deep letter as well?”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds in silence, and I could tell that Jakob was thinking hard about something. I knew this was the turning point for us. He needed to tell me more than he already had, which was really nothing. I hadn’t wanted to push him when we’d first arrived, but now that we’d been here for a few days, I needed more.