Paradise Island: Complete Edition

by DD Cooper

  “Uneventful,” I said. “Until now. Is there something you guys need to ask me?” For some reason, I was very suspicious, but as soon as Jack put his arms around me I felt a little better.

  “Oh, Rory was just wondering if he could come along with us on our trip. He wants to get away as bad as we do, and he asked if he could tag along, until he could find a better place to go.”

  “Oh,” I was relieved it was just that. “It’s fine by me if it’s fine by you. Might make the trip a bit more interesting,” I said and laughed.

  “Are you saying I’m boring?” Jack asked, looking shocked, but obviously faking it.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “But the more the merrier, right?”

  I liked the thought of Rory coming with us, for some reason. I needed someone to talk to, but I wasn’t sure what I could talk to him about. My past probably. Most of my present was spent killing people like Henry, Lucy, Greyson, the mayor, even Crow, it all seemed like a clusterfuck, to use a word that Jack explained to me recently.

  After the three of us ate some sandwiches with tea, I was ready to get back to work, and for his part, Jack helped me pack a couple of things. I packed the journals all in one bag because I didn’t feel like leaving them here all by themselves. Then I changed my mind. Why shouldn’t the journals be left here, where their writer was? I left all the journals except one and lined them up nicely on a bookshelf. I kept the last journal and hid it among my things. I felt safer, better with Josie’s last words close to me, for some reason.

  Rory waved goodbye and said he’d go and pack his own things. I watched him leave and when he was far enough away, I turned to Jack.

  “Lucy’s things. We need to do something about them.”

  “I’ll start a fire,” he said, and at first I thought he meant a bonfire outside, but it was actually the fireplace inside where he lit the fire. “Most of it is clothes, right? We’ll just feed them to the fire one by one.”

  Jack helped me get the luggage in the house and we locked the door behind us. I told him to close the shutters just in case Rory decided to pop back up. We slowly fed the articles of clothing to the fire, making sure not too much smoke was created. When metal button were all that was left of an outfit, we used the fire poker and put them on one side. As I watched one of Lucy’s favorite skirts burn to nothing, I sighed with sadness. Yes, she had done terrible things to me, but I still felt guilty for her death. Jack was the one who pulled the trigger, and I can’t say I thought she didn’t deserve it, but I still felt...I don’t know what I felt anymore. It just didn’t feel right to me that we were burning most of her favorite possessions into the oblivion. It wasn’t like she’d need any of it, but it still felt wrong. As for the leftovers. The suitcase, little trinkets, and metal buttons, Jack put them all in one trash bag and then added more trash to it. He said he was going to drive by a dumpster and just get rid of the things. I doubted anybody would find them, or even if they did that they would figure the stuff belonged to a dead woman.

  I waved at Jack as I watched him ride away with a couple of big bags of trash on the back of his bike. I looked around at the hard concrete deck and really saw how ugly it looked for the first time. It was practical, and useful, but it certainly didn’t improve the look of the property. Thankfully, actors weren’t known for their good tastes, or so Jack told me. I shivered from the cold and closed the sliding doors. I sat down on the couch and rested a bit from all the work. Soon, within hours, we’d be off this island and that was something to look forward to, but being alone in the house, surrounded by graves of the people we murdered, it felt like I’d never be able to escape. I remembered watching a movie with Lucy about a vengeful spirit who tormented her killer until he killed himself by jumping off a cliff. I shivered at the thought, and I knew it wasn’t rational, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Imaginary shadows surrounded me, and one by one I felt all the ghosts surround me, calling me terrible names. Murderer. Whore. Traitor. Liar. Sinner. Hellbitch. Some were said by individuals, most were chanted in unison by all of them. Even Josie, with her swelling belly seemed to join in, blaming me for keeping her murder hidden and burying her killers on top of her.

  “You couldn’t bury them even a couple of feet away?” Josie shrieked, a martini still in her hand just like in the dream. “Is that too much to ask?”

  Lucy came close to my face, giving me a close-up view of the damage some by the bullet through the head. I closed my eyes and tried to look away but I felt her sour breath on my face. “I’m dead because of you, you little bitch whore! Pretending to be a nice small town girl. Huh! You’re the devil himself.”

  “Sophie, if I’m rotting in the ground, you’re gonna rot with me,” Crow was saying. “Come on girlie, finish what you started before you decided to slip through my fingers. Jump!”

  “Jump!” Joined in Lucy.

  “Jump!” Greyson.

  “Jump!” The mayor.

  “Jump!” Henry, blood gushing out his throat as his flesh burned.

  “Jump!” Josie.

  “JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!” They all chanted in unison, drowning out any thoughts in my head.

  I held my hands over my ears, tears streaming down my face and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Get away! Get away from me! Get away!”

  I felt hands shaking me, and I was afraid to open my eyes, until I heard a familiar voice yelling at me.

  “Sophie! Sophie! Snap out of it,” Jack yelled at me.

  I opened my eyes and everyone else faded from view until the only face I saw was Jack’s. I threw myself into his arms and hugged him as tight as I could. It felt so good to be back in his warm embrace again. To breathe in his smell. I cried and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. “I thought I lost you, Jack,” I whimpered. “I thought I lost you.”

  “What happened, Sophie? What happened to you?”

  I sat back on the couch, reluctant to let go of Jack. He somehow knew and held my hands in his. The warmth was enough to keep me anchored to the here and now.

  “They. Henry. Lucy. Josie. Greyson. The mayor. Crow. They all tried to make me crazy. They told me to jump. To kill myself.”

  Jack held me closer. “Oh, Sophie, this is not good. You’re unraveling.”

  “I think I’ll be okay when I leave this wretched island. They won’t be able to get to me if I’m not here. They’re stuck here, Jack. They’re stuck here forever.”

  Jack shook his head in disbelief, worry, disappointment, or all three. “I’ll make you a cup of tea,” he said. “Hopefully that’ll help you calm down.”

  He went to the kitchenette and I cried after him. “Please don’t leave me,” I wailed. “They’ll get me if I’m alone.” I was too tired to follow Jack to the kitchenette so I turned around to make sure he was really there.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m right here, Sophie. I’ll make everything better, I promise.”

  I smiled weakly in his direction. “Thank you, Jack,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything.”

  After Jack came back with my tea I calmed down a little bit. I felt better as I kept sipping the tea, coming back to myself. “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly feeling rationality return to me. “I don’t know what came over me. You must think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  “No, no. You’ve been through lot. We’ve been through a lot. It’s understandable it’ll get to you eventually. You’re only human.”

  Only human. That much was true. “Still,” I said. “I must have scared you will all my crazy yelling. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Shh,” Jack said as he caressed my shoulder. “There’s no need to apologize. Soon we’ll be off this blasted island and you can forget about all of this.”

  I sighed and hoped he was right. I didn’t know how much more of this island I could take before actually following the advice of hallucinations an jumping. I looked up at Jack and smiled a weak smile. “Thank you,” I said again. “Thank you.�
�� I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, feeling safe in his embrace.

  Chapter Twenty

  The ferry took us away and I looked back on the wretched island and vowed never to return there again. Jack was behind me, his big arms around me keeping me safe and warm. Rory was somewhere else on the ferry, doing god knows what.

  “Do you think it was a good idea to bring him along?” I said.

  Jack was quiet. It was as if he was thinking of the exact words to say. He turned around and once he realized we were alone, he said “Yeah, I think it’s probably the best thing we’ve done so far. Plus, don’t you feel better knowing what he’s up to?”

  I thought about it, and I guess on one level it was true. He knew where Crow was buried so if he felt like it he could tell someone else to look for the body, or send in an anonymous tip, especially if he didn’t get what he asked for from us. But I felt Rory was different. He seemed like he genuinely wanted something else from this life and that made me admire him.

  “I like him,” I finally said, when I had really made up my mind.

  “I like him, too,” Jack agreed and held me tighter.

  Ferry to train, train to plane, plane.

  This was only my second time on a plane and Jack held my hand as we went for liftoff. Thankfully, this ride was a lot more comfortable, and not just because I had Jack there. It was also because we were in first class. I wondered how I could have survived in anything but.

  I had the window seat, while Jack was right next to me. Behind us Rory was by himself, having bought the two seats. It felt good to be surrounded by people I could trust, at least on some level. After taking some anti-anxiety medication Jack gave to me, I tried to fall asleep. Before, I couldn’t even close my eyes when I was flying, but now that I was in these big comfortable seats, I lost myself in the comfort and fell asleep.

  When next I woke, I was thankful that it was a dreamless sleep. I did not need the dead to haunt me any longer. I woke up alone. Jack wasn’t next to me. I turned around, and neither was Rory. Then I spotted them coming back together from the direction of the restrooms. I slid back to my seat pretending that I had slept all along. I only opened my eyes when I felt Jack sit down next to me.

  “Where were you?” I murmured.

  “Just to the restroom. And to bring you this,” Jack handed me another pillow.

  “I’m pretty comfy as it is, but thanks.”

  I don’t know why I pretended like I hadn’t seen them. I remembered that conversation I overheard as well. Was something going on between the two of them that I wasn’t aware of? I couldn’t possibly think what it was, so instead I went back to sleep, or at least pretended to, to see if I could catch glimpses of secret conversations, but all was awfully quiet, and then I ended up falling asleep for real.

  I hate traveling. If I could stay safely in one place my whole life I would, but the first time I took to the road I needed to get away from Crow. The second time, I needed to get away from that wretched island where all the dead seemed to haunt my every thought. I knew that Jack was different. He was naturally curious about every part of the world, wanting to explore every continent or place that seemed interesting. I hoped we wouldn’t be moving too much, and I hoped that the island that was our destination could end up maybe being our home.

  On the planes, and the rides, Jack kept talking about the beautiful house he had just bought right next to the beach. He said it was big enough for a family of ten, and that thought made me blush. Was Jack thinking of starting a family? I had an irrational fear of getting pregnant, because I didn’t want to bring another life into this world. This world had shown me nothing but cruelty until I met Jack, but even then, why would I subject another soul to even a fraction of the pain I went through? To live is to suffer, isn’t that one of those famous sayings? If I had a child, I wouldn’t want them to suffer. And since it was inevitable that they would, I comforted myself with the idea that I would never have children anyway. But now that I had Jack, it was harder to be so sure. It was defiantly something we needed to talk about.

  On a small plane that only held me, Jack, Rory and the pilot, we finally managed to land on a small airstrip on the island. I braced for impact, sure that we would all burn in flames, sure that the ghosts from the other island would somehow cause it, but no such thing happened.

  A car drive to the house and we were finally there. I held on to Jack tight, gripping his hand as if he was going to slip away from me as sand in the ocean. For his part, he didn’t try to let go as he laughed and unlocked the door with his other hand.

  When we were finally inside I let him go. “Ta da!” he spread his arms out to reveal a beautiful, and very sunny house. With stairs that went up to the second floor. There was a beautiful kitchen, and I even saw a pool out back.

  “Wow,” was all I could say as I made my way around the property.

  Rory put down the little luggage we all had by the door with the help of the driver. I felt a little guilty that I didn’t even offer to help, but I was still a little out of it from the drugs.

  Jack took my hand then and swept me up to the top floor and opened double doors to a very beautiful, and very big master bedroom. He brought me closer to him and I could feel the heat of his body, his familiar smell, and I knew I was home. “Our bedroom, baby,” he whispered in my ear as he kissed my cheek, then my lips. A gentle kiss that turned into a deep erotic kiss that left me without breath for a minute. I could feel Jack harden underneath the shorts he was wearing. I felt myself get wet with desire, but first I needed to feel clean.

  I gave him one last kiss as I slowly let go of him. “I need to take a shower, and then we can have some fun.”

  “Guys,” we heard Rory yell from downstairs and we both went to the top of the railing and looked down.

  Rory was smiling. “I’m gonna get a ride to town since the taxi is already here. I’ll go exploring for a bit, and let you guys have some privacy,” he winked as he said that last thing and I couldn’t help but blush.

  With that, we were alone in the house.

  “I’m thinking I should join you in that shower,” Jack said as he held me closer.

  “No objections here,” I said and smiled seductively.

  After the shower we helped dry each other off, but before I had a chance to put any clothes on, Jack was already semi hard. His dick brushed against my belly as he held me closer. “Uh uh,” he whispered. “You’re not gonna need any clothes for this next part.”

  I lost myself in him as he guided me back to that big bed. The linens smelled fresh and clean as I laid down on my back and waited for Jack to join me. It didn’t take long until, with my eyes closed, I felt his lips on my left nipple. “Mmm,” I moaned and didn’t open my eyes. The desire between my legs was building with every kiss, and as he finally reached that place with his mouth, I could almost explode in ecstasy. And then I felt him enter me and I gasped at the size, at the length and the thickness. “Oh, God, Jack,” I moaned as I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with Jack. He kissed me deep as he entered me deeper. I held on for dear life as he made love to me. I lost myself in his body as he lost himself in mine. We made love until we could not move any longer and we collapsed in each other’s arms, sweaty with the sweet, sticky substance that sex produced. We laid, entangled together for awhile until we did it again and again.

  I fell asleep in his arms. The lovemaking and the jetlag finally catching up to me.

  When I woke the sun was almost setting in the horizon and Jack was naked right next to me. He was still asleep. I gently kissed him on the cheek and ached as his lips went up in a smile with his eyes still closed.

  “I love you, Sophie,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” I said as I kissed him again, this time gently on the lips.

  He opened his eyes and stretched out his muscles, showing off his perfect chest and arms. Then he got out of bed, stark naked, showing off his perfect everything else. I admired his back an
d ass as I watched him go to the bathroom. What a gorgeous man, I thought as he disappeared around the corner. I got up and searched for my underwear and finally found them and was putting them on when Jack came back into the bedroom. He put his arms around me from behind. One hand going down my barely there panties and one hand squeezing my boobs. He kissed my neck and I shivered with anticipation as I felt his hardness behind me.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered in my ear and kissed me deep.

  I lost myself in him again and quickly took off my panties. It seemed like we weren’t done just yet.

  Later we were properly dressed and made our way together to the big kitchen to make something to eat. I looked out back where the pool was and saw Rory laying down, catching the last rays of the sun. He only had a speedo on and he had a pretty nice body.

  I opened the doors as Jack went into the kitchen to find us something to drink. Naturally he had already paid people to fill up the house with enough food and drink for weeks.

  “We’re making something to eat, wanna join us before you become roast beef?” I said and giggled.

  Rory took off the sunglasses he wore and looked up at me with a big smile on his face. “Food sounds good,” he said, and got up quickly and followed me back inside.

  Jack laughed when he saw what Rory was wearing. “You’re a braver man than me,” he said and laughed.

  “I don’t know why you Americans are so opposed to speedos,” Rory said. “It’s perfectly acceptable attire for a man on the beach. Or by the pool. Or any body of water really.”

  All three of us laughed for a bit before we remembered why we were there in the first place. Drinks. Food.

  “Did you find us anything?” I asked Jack.

  “Oh yeah,” Jack chuckled a bit and I couldn’t help but think he was cute.

  After we ate sandwiches made with very fresh bread and condiments, and drank soda (for me) and beers for the guys, we made our way outside and sat by the pool. It was already dark and the stars were coming out, winking into existence one by one, or at least that’s how it seemed to me, until the sky was full of them.