Still, I stood there, in the middle of the path, completely unmoored. My mind spun with possibilities, lies, suspicions. Was Poe responsible for breaking the china? And if so, then why was he launching some big meeting to deal with the situation? Why would he lie like that? Why would he lie about eating that damn lobster?
And then I remembered our conversation on the moored boat that night, when he was so determined to make me believe that someone was after me and he was the only one who recognized it. It wasn’t possible that this was for me, was it? That if I saw him taking charge of the situation, directing people, acting the part of avenging angel, that I’d somehow be impressed?
No. That was way too manipulative, even for someone who’d bought in to the Digger party line.
So why couldn’t I shake my suspicions?
For that kind of vandalism, I’d expect a lover’s reward.
Had he done it hoping I’d…reward him?
A hand clamped down on my wrist. “I need to talk to you,” Poe hissed, and tugged me off the path. I had to almost run to keep up with him, and he pulled me around the back of the main house, away from any open windows, and into the shadow of its walls.
I whipped my arm back and crossed both over my chest. He stood across from me, eyes wide and disbelieving.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped back.
“Why did you do it? It’s not like I care. I’m glad to see that shit gone. But how am I supposed to defend you to the Trust?”
I let out a bark of laughter. “Me? You’re kidding, right?”
“Amy,” he said, “this is no coincidence. Not after our conversations.”
“Oh, I agree,” I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm. “You practically promised me you would. For a reward.”
He did a double take. “You think I did it? That’s ridiculous. I was joking. I have a lot more respect for society property than that.”
“Oh, and I’m just the one who tosses all our traditions to the wind? That’s what you think of me, isn’t it?”
“You hardly even looked at the plate pieces Salt had. You had no interest in checking out the damage. That reeks of guilt to me.”
“George wasn’t interested, either!” I said in my defense. “Because you know what? It’s not a big deal.”
Poe clenched his jaw so tight, his cheekbones stood out like knife blades. “George,” he said, and almost smiled, though it was the scariest smirk I’d ever seen. “Of course. How stupid of me. Especially given the nature of your ‘reward.’ Tell me, was the big plate smash part of the foreplay or just something to pass the time between bouts of mind-blowing in-tomb sex?”
I gasped. Actually gasped. And from the expression that flashed across Poe’s features, he didn’t believe he’d said that, either. But almost before I had a chance to register the look, it was gone, replaced again by the cold, calculating mask.
Every inch of my face burned, but whether with anger, shame, or sadness, I couldn’t tell. I could hardly breathe, could speak not at all.
“What, no denial?” he said in a mocking voice.
“I wouldn’t dignify it with one,” I whispered, since that was the most I could manage. George was right about Poe. He was a jerk. I swallowed, and for a moment I thought I’d never done so before, it was so hard. “But because you’re about to go into that meeting with who knows what kind of theories, let me at least put your mind to rest about one thing: I never touched those goddamn plates in my life.”
And then I was back in the sunlight, back in the compound, surrounded by friends and fellow knights, but a red haze had settled over my vision. I stumbled blindly past them, shook off their hands and Amy-what’s-wrongs? and Are-you-okays? Through the compound, down the path to the beach, where the afternoon sun was already glinting on the water. But I felt cold. My shoes flopped hard against my soles and eventually filled with sand, but I kept running. Through the trees, where pine needles and bits of bark scraped at my ankles, through a grove of mangroves, where I crushed roots in my rush, sloshing through muck and onto another beach. The one where Poe had given me those swimming lessons. I must not be far from the lagoon. At the edge of the water was a large, bulky shape caught upside down between sand and shore. The skiff.
Eyes still stinging with unshed tears, I waded into the water, fully clothed, up to my thighs and yanked at the boat, tugging until I pulled it all the way back onto the shore. I found one oar stuck in the sand nearby, another flung beyond the tidemark close to the path that led back to camp. So this is where Ben and Demetria had come in the previous night. Not far from the second oar was a pile of material. The ruined sea monster costume, currently festooned with buzzing flies. I kept my distance, picturing last night’s scene in the woods.
I piled the oars inside the boat and stood, breathing hard and unsure of what else I could do. Part of me wished I could cry, just get it out, but tears didn’t come. The burning coal inside my chest refused to erupt into outright sobs.
Why? Why can he hurt me so much? Why do I care?
I wandered back up the beach and dropped onto the sand, leaning back against the roots of a tree that skirted the edge of the woods. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, but still, no tears.
I’d been the one saying over and over that I couldn’t take any of this seriously. It shouldn’t bother me in the slightest that he thought I was sleeping with George. It should even work to my benefit—proof indeed that this was nothing more than a Spring Break fling.
And yet, Jesus Christ, it hurt. Not that he figured I’d broken the plates—that would be kind of cool, actually—but that I’d do it behind his back, with another man. After we’d joked about it repeatedly. It was our thing. Like Life Savers.
Our thing! Damn, Amy, get a grip. Jamie Orcutt was a liar, a manipulator, and a jerk. And I didn’t really know anything about him. I didn’t trust him; he didn’t trust me. Malcolm had been right. It was stupid for us to think of getting involved, given our long-standing mutual dislike. At least with George, we’d always been friendly. Now there was a guy you could have a casual affair with.
Poe wasn’t fling material.
I leaned my head against the wood and took several long, deep breaths, but the pain in my chest didn’t diminish one iota.
Crap. At this rate, I was going to need another entire Spring Break to get over the heartbreak of this one.
After a while I saw a figure making his way up the beach, but due to the angle of the sun, I couldn’t see him until he’d gotten close enough to speak.
“Hey,” Darren said. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“Just thinking,” I said, hoping my eyes didn’t look too puffy.
He nodded. “Mind if I join you?”
Yes, I thought, but then I remembered the time I’d ditched him to go off hiking with Poe. Remembered what he was dealing with at home. Thought that maybe his little sister wasn’t the only one missing their housekeeper.
“Sure,” I said, and scooted over to give him room to sit between the roots.
He sat and pulled off his backpack. “Bit of drama back at the camp, huh?” He yanked out a Tupperware container filled with a few more of those cupcakes from lunch and a bottle of electric blue sports drink.
“You know I can’t talk about that,” I said with a rueful smile.
He rolled his eyes. “Please. No one was being really quiet about it.”
“True,” I said. I pointed at the sweets. “Gonna share those?” He held the container out to me and I took one. “Thanks. I didn’t get a chance to have dessert at lunch.” I took a big bite. Wow, it was sweet. He uncapped his drink bottle. “Are you going for a blue theme today?” I asked him, pointing at the energy drink.
He shrugged. “Something like that. Maybe I’ll go to Eli after all.”
I laughed and kept munching the cupcake. It really was too sugary and rich for my taste, but I couldn’t very
well not finish it after he’d shared with me. “So, how have you been liking The Count of Monte Cristo?”
“Pretty good. Drink?” I nodded and took the bottle. The cloying taste had made me thirsty. “Makes me want to find a buried treasure, that’s for sure.”
“I know, can you imagine?” I took a huge swig.
“What would you do with a treasure like that?”
“Just what the count did,” I said. “Take revenge on anyone who ever wronged me.” Maybe I’d start with Poe. Or Felicity.
“Oh, you don’t need a treasure to do that,” Darren said.
I giggled. “Experienced in the ways of revenge, are you?”
He smiled. “I try.” We talked about the book for a few minutes more. Darren was a smart cookie. His grasp of literature was pretty well developed for a kid in the early years of high school.
Even the energy drink was too sweet. What I wouldn’t give for some regular water. It was like the more I drank, the thirstier I got. “You know,” I said, “if you’re going to be trapped somewhere, there are worse places than an island in Florida.” Oh, wow. Had I said that out loud?
“Oh, yeah?” Darren said. “Name one.”
“Connecticut in February’s pretty sucky.”
“Anyplace is pretty sucky when you live with two parents who don’t speak to you about what’s going on.”
I stared at him. It was, quite possibly, the most vulnerable statement he’d ever made to me. “Darren, I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t be getting involved, but if you need to—”
He looked away. “Forget it,” he said. “Is that the boat from the skit?”
“Yeah, it must be where Ben and Demetria pulled it up last night.”
“You didn’t get sick, though,” Darren said, abruptly.
I shook my head. “How do you know that?”
He smiled again. “I know all kinds of secrets.”
“Like what?” I laughed again. This kid could actually be kind of charming if he tried.
“Like what they were saying about you in the tomb just now.”
The words took a few seconds to sink into my brain. “How do you know…that?” I repeated, dumbly.
“There are ways into the tomb other than the front door,” was all he said. “I told you, I’ve been here for a while. I’ve seen it all.”
“And you were…” I blinked. The light was starting to hurt my eyes. “Listening?”
“Yep. I listen to a lot of things.”
“What did they say?” I asked, but at that moment, I wasn’t sure I cared. The sun had become too warm, the sand too bright. Where were my sunglasses? Why didn’t I care more?
“That you were the one to break the plates.” He dropped his voice. “But I know that’s not true.”
And for the third time, I pushed the words out, and this time each syllable was a struggle. “How do you know that?”
“Because I did it.”
19. The Other Island
When I opened my eyes, it was dark out. I was lying on my side in the sand, back to a log, mouth filled with cotton balls.
Okay, not that last part, but man, it felt that way. My mind screamed for water. I tried to put a hand to my head, and discovered the following:
1) My hands were bound behind my back.
2) My feet were tied together with thick rope.
3) Every muscle in my body ached.
I shoved myself into a sitting position and my head began pounding so hard I almost lost my cookies into my own lap.
“You’re awake,” said a voice on my left. “Thank God. I was really worried.”
Very gingerly, I turned my head toward the voice, but I saw little more than shapes in the dark. “Darren?”
“Yeah,” he said. “How do you feel? You’ve been out for hours.”
“What happened to us? Where are we?”
“The other island,” he said. The direction of his voice changed, as if he was looking out at our surroundings. “This is where those people have been camping.”
“Are they here? What…happened? I can’t…” Oh God, what had happened to me? I felt like I was covered in bruises. I wanted to throw up. I’d never been so thirsty in my life.
“Shhh,” he whispered, his voice closer now. “Stop talking.”
Okay, think. Forget the pounding in your head. We’d been kidnapped. We’d been kidnapped by insane, violent, paranoid conspiracy theorists who thought that we were responsible for all the evils of the world. And Darren was just a kid, pretriarch or not.
“How did we get here?” I whispered back.
“The boat. You don’t remember?”
I shook my head, and was rewarded with even more acute pain. It felt like my skull was being crushed between two sharp stones. Had they come up behind us on the beach and hit me over the head? I wished I could feel around for bumps or cuts. I slowly tilted my head toward my shoulder, and felt like the contents were sloshing out of my temple. My hair, crusted with something chunky and smelly, pressed against my cheek. Oh, no. Vomit.
“I can’t remember anything. How many of them were there?” All of a sudden, even worse fears clawed their way into my muddled mind. Darren said I’d been out for hours. Plenty enough time for them to—bile rose in my throat, and I remembered Brandon’s words from long ago.
Stop overthinking.
There was no time to be afraid, or freak out about what had already happened. We needed to get out of here. I needed to keep Darren and me as safe as possible until we were rescued. Surely the Diggers would have noticed by now that I was gone. Even if Darren’s own parents didn’t much worry about his whereabouts, my friends would expect me to be back by evening. It wasn’t that big of an island, and I’d never been one for wandering around after dark. Except, that’s exactly what I’d been doing the past few days, wasn’t it? At least, that was the story I’d let the Diggirls believe while I made out with Poe.
Or maybe they all believed Poe’s theory about me breaking the plates and thought I’d taken off. Of course, how could I take off? Where would I go in a place surrounded by water?
“Amy?” Darren’s voice came out of the darkness. “Have you fallen asleep again?”
He’d never answered my question about the number of our attackers. And…yeah, now I could remember. He said he’d been the one who’d broken the plates.
“This would be the third time, you know,” he continued. “Which is pretty tiresome.”
I remained silent. He’d never said we’d been kidnapped.
“This isn’t at all like I thought it would be.”
I swallowed, tried to work up some saliva in my mouth. I tested the strength of my bonds. There wasn’t any give at all.
“It’s just so…fucking…frustrating,” he said. “Nothing’s gone right.”
After that, he was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d given up on talking to me. Finally, I decided to speak up. “Darren…” I rasped.
“Yeah?”
And once I started, I couldn’t stop. “What did you do?”
“They were supposed to still be here. But the fuckers up and left. The Diggers were supposed to find you here and blame the guys on the island.”
“Find me?” I said, a sob rising in my throat. “Like…my body?”
“Jeez, no!” His tone was offended. “But it took forever to row out here. And then you wouldn’t wake up. You were so heavy, I couldn’t even get us to the camp. And now it turns out they aren’t even here. Cowards.”
“What did you do…to me?” I was too groggy. There was no filter between my mouth and my brain. “I was nice to you.”
He didn’t respond. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have the energy. And it would have split my skull in two.
“So now I have no idea what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”
“How about untie me?” I said, hating the pleading note in my voice. I’d been drugged. I could hardly move; it was the only explanation. I’d been drugged. Four years of watching m
y drinks at every frat party I’d ever attended, and I’d wound up roofied by a fourteen-year-old with Gatorade and access to his mother’s medicine cabinet. If this kid had so much as laid a finger where it didn’t belong I’d tear him limb from limb.
As soon as I sobered up. For now, though, I rasped my wrists against each other, trying to work the knots loose, to no avail. My skin screamed as the rope tugged against sensitive nerve endings. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God oh God…I pushed back against the waves of panic in my battered brain.
“You’ve done the whole initiation thing,” he said suddenly. “What am I doing wrong?”
“What?” I whispered. “This isn’t anything like initiation.” That had been all fun and games. Yeah, there had been a few moments here and there that scared the heck out of me, but now, now that I knew what true terror was, Poe and his shenanigans with water guns and coffins seemed like child’s play. “Please untie me.” Please please please please please. I rubbed my feet past each other, and the skin on my calves must be tougher or something, since it didn’t hurt quite as much. Was I creating any give at all?
I wondered if the others were looking for me. How well did sound carry across the water? Would they hear me if I screamed?
I tried it. “HELP!”
Within moments, Darren had me pinned against the sand, my shoulder blades twisting in agony under the pressure of my bound position.
“Ow!” I sobbed. “Please, please, get off me, you’re going to break my arms, get off me! Please!”
“Shut up,” he said, but he let me go.
“Darren, this isn’t a joke,” I said, my face still in the sand. “Untie me. Let’s go back.”
“My dad said they used to play games like this all the time,” he said, as if in argument. “Kidnapping, hostage situations…”
“Games?” I croaked. Okay, clearly Rose & Grave was a little different in the olden days. But I didn’t think Darren had any idea what he was talking about. For all I knew, his dad had just puffed up tales about a few rousing rounds of Capture the Flag. “No, not like this.” Nothing like this, I swear. “Please untie me.”
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