Before He Was Gone: Starstruck Book 2

by Becky Wicks

  The pills are bright red.

  Red means danger.

  28

  Alyssa

  ‘How hungry are you, Alyssa?’ comes the voice over the megaphone.

  I’ve been standing on a wooden platform on a post in the shallows for forty minutes in the blazing sunshine. Stephanie seems to have adopted some kind of magical yoga pose to keep her balance. Jaxx looks like a statue and even Punk isn’t moving as the camera guys paddle round us on their kayaks.

  Balancing on the post isn’t a problem. Feeling the hot sun scorching my shoulder blades, even through the sunscreen isn’t a problem. It’s the smell of food items brought around to us every so often by Ed Bernstein on a jet ski that’s driving me crazy.

  ‘Not hungry at all,’ I tell him, although we all know that’s a lie. First it was pizza with hot cheese bubbling between islands of pepperoni on a silver plate. Then it was chocolate fondue, hot in its pot. Just a few minutes ago it was tuna steak on a bed of fresh greens with what smelled like sesame and ginger dressing. My mouth’s watering like a drooling dog’s; my stomach’s growling like there’s a pack of something bigger inside, but if we cave in and accept the food items, we miss out on a bigger prize at the end. We have no clue what that is yet.

  ‘It might not even be worth starving over,’ Ed reminds us now. ‘Remember, any of this food is yours at any time, whenever you want to jump down!’ He whizzes round Jaxx with what looks like a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I watch as he wobbles and groans. We’re all ravenous.

  Since Joshua left three days ago we’ve had barely any fresh fish and Stephanie won’t let us kill the chickens yet. It’s literally just been rice and the few coconuts I’ve managed to slash from the trees. Thank god my climbing skills have improved with practice. Tension is high. There’s a huge show of us all banding together as a team, still dancing beneath the trees as Stephanie continues to dazzle Jaxx (and all of us, actually) with her voice, but Punk and I know they’re a tight unit now and will never vote each other out if there’s a choice. The way he follows her around like a puppy dog is kind of endearing.

  A giant splash to my left. Punk’s jumped from his post and is waving his arms around in the water; a pasty white ball in the blue.

  ‘Man down!’ Ed yells from the jet ski, sweeping round to collect him. ‘Turns out Punk’s a man who’ll sacrifice a lot, but never a sirloin steak and French fries. Punk’s out of the game! Who’ll be next?’

  I watch as Punk’s pulled onto the jet ski and sped back to shore. I feel bad for him, knowing he must hate jet skis with a passion. Back on the sand he’s handed the steak that caused his downfall. My stomach growls again as he sinks to the sand with it and starts eating with his hands like a monkey.

  I close my eyes as Ed approaches me a minute later and the smell of garlic bread assaults my nostrils. Block it out.

  ‘Alyssa the Greek,’ he says from beneath me, waving the bread and literally causing me to topple towards it. I catch my balance at the last second. ‘What are your esteemed taste buds craving the most right now?’

  His megaphone is hurting my ears. When I look, a camera is catching my tortured expression, hovering a little longer on my bikini-clad cleavage for good measure. I make a conscious effort to breathe through my mouth and not my nose.

  Joshua, I think in silence, in answer to Ed’s question. My taste buds are craving Joshua. My hands, lips, toes, tongue, all of me wants all of him. Even now.

  ‘You can enjoy this delicious, freshly toasted garlic bread any time you like…’

  Block it out.

  Even now I want him. But am I just deluded? Was it really nothing? I go from yes, to no, to yes, to no, till I want to bash my head on a palm tree. I took myself and the spear, fished for what turned out to be one tiny snapper yesterday, and for two hours as I dove around that reef, following the path and techniques he taught me, all I could think about was what the hell those pills could be for. He’s suffering in silence, which makes me even crazier. I think this is the closest to crazy I’ve possibly ever been.

  ‘You ran away here, didn’t you?’ Stephanie said last night, as we walked to the shore with the dirty cooking pots. ‘To get away from your ex?’

  ‘I told myself that wasn’t the case,’ I said, ‘but maybe I did a little. Idiot, right?’

  ‘Nope, I did the same thing. I ran,’ she said, dunking the metal container in the water. ‘But I think maybe I was running towards something. I think about that sometimes. I’ve done everything for my brothers for so long, acting like their mom. I forgot what it was like to just be me. I guess I got a little lost.’

  ‘Well, maybe sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself,’ I said then and she reached for my hand.

  ‘Or someone else.’ She dropped both our pots and sat me down on the sand with her. ‘If you didn’t come here, Alyssa, you wouldn’t have met Joshua. You don’t even know how lucky you are to have found him; I mean, what are the chances, right? Are you going to be with him, when you get out of here?’

  Her words stunned me. ‘You don’t even like Joshua!’ I said, searching her face. ‘And what do you mean, found him?’

  ‘Your soul mate,’ she answered, brushing her long bangs aside.

  ‘Why, ‘cause we have the same birthday?’

  ‘No! I mean, well, who knows? But you say the same things, you think the same things. You’re like magnets - I’ve seen you trying to keep away from him. It’s kinda painful to watch. I can’t imagine how it feels.’

  ‘Joshua doesn’t believe in soul mates,’ I told her as my cheeks flamed in the dark. ‘Do you?’

  She sighed then, stared out at the ocean, played with her necklace. ‘I don’t know what to believe, honestly. My head's all screwed up out here. But I do think there are different kinds of people. People who are meant to make us run, and others who we’re meant to run right into.’

  Ed’s heading for me now.

  ‘Alyssa the Greek – we have a special treat for you,’ he says, on his way back from torturing the others with some ice cream. The unmistakable smell of spaghetti and meatballs is taking over my entire space and my stomach lurches like it’s got a life of its own. My feet are moving without my acceptance. Before I know it I’m in the water next to the jet ski and a camera guy on a kayak is in my face.

  ‘Woman down!’ Ed yells to the others, zooming in to collect me. ‘Turns out Alyssa the Greek can’t resist the taste of Italian. Stephanie and Jaxx, are you planning to join the picnic?’

  He speeds me to the shore, where I’m handed the plate of hot spaghetti and meatballs. Punk looks up at me as I stand dripping beside him. His chin is covered in steak sauce and there are splatters of it on his bare, white chest. In spite of my annoyance at myself I can’t help laughing. ‘This is so stupid,’ I say, rolling my eyes and dropping beside him and attacking the meatballs like my life depends on it.

  ‘Are they good?’ he asks, watching me shovel them ungracefully into my mouth with fingers full of pasta. His own plate has literally been licked clean but he can’t drag his eyes away.

  ‘They could be seasoned better,’ I tell him, squinting in the sun. It’s the truth, but we both start laughing as I offer him one.

  We both eat and watch as Jaxx and Stephanie are tormented with yet more food. To our side I can see the boxes of it they’ve bought over from the staff camp on the speedboat. I bet they’ve got an entire kitchen there. And a branch of McDonalds. It’s weird but the hungrier you get, the more you crave the things you wouldn’t usually want. Junk food mostly. You remember the feeling of not being hungry, more than the enjoyment that comes with actually eating anything good.

  I wonder what Joshua’s eating. He’s probably got his own supply of fish on the grill as we speak. My heart pangs again and I hope he’s OK. I haven’t told anyone about the pills. I contemplated telling the crew, but we’re forbidden to talk to them and no one’s been to collect them. But it’s been three days. Whatever they’re for,
he must be missing them.

  ‘Punk,’ I say, turning to him conspicuously. I look around us, shuffle closer to him on the sand, hiding my mouth behind a handful of spaghetti. ‘We have to agree on the next vote. I have an idea, but you’re going to have to work with me. How are your acting skills?’

  ‘Terrible,’ he replies, biting a meatball in half.

  ‘Well… just try harder,’ I say, swiping at my mouth. ‘Listen. What if Jaxx accidentally overhears us saying we’re going to vote for Stephanie at the next council meeting? What do you think he’d do?’

  Punk narrows his eyes, turns his head to check for the cameras. One is on us, the rest are focused on the others still on their posts. ‘I think he’d give her the immunity charm to keep her in the game,’ he says as the camera guy, sensing strategy talk, comes closer.

  ‘But if Stephanie has the charm, and instead we vote Jaxx…’

  ‘He’s out of the game,’ Punk finishes for me, and his face breaks into a grin.

  ‘Well, not exactly. Jaxx has to battle Joshua first,’ I follow. ‘And Joshua has to win. But either way, we split them up and get rid of the immunity charm. Joshua will vote Jaxx after what he just did. And he knows I know that. He knows I’ll vote Jaxx too. And sitting out there on that island, Punk, he’s probably guessed I’ll ask you to do the same.’

  ‘You guys know each other pretty well,’ Punk says with a half smile and a raised eyebrow.

  ‘I know a few things,’ I say with a sigh.

  I shuffle away from him again as a blast from a cannon and some kind of hooter indicates the challenge time is up. They’ve lasted an hour on their posts. Stephanie and Jaxx are the only ones who’ll get to enjoy whatever prize could be better than steak and spaghetti with meatballs.

  I watch them speeding in on the back of the jet ski, blazing in on a stream of glory. Right now, I don’t even care. I’m full for the first time in days and I also have another plan forming in my head. This one, I won’t be sharing with Punk.

  29

  Joshua

  The rock lobster was easy to catch. The reef here is ten times better than the one out from camp and with the full moon, I could see even without a mask. Thank god they gave me a spear here, too. Every time I throw it I picture Jaxx’s face, so even when I miss a fish I don’t really care.

  I should’ve known he’d screw me over. The jock probably never had any intention of us both seeing this through to the end. Still, at least I can fend for myself out here without dealing with any of that bullshit - even if the sudden distance from Alyssa hit me harder than I thought it would. She had every right to question me and lashing out at her like that was a total dick-move. I was angry and embarrassed. But I can’t think about that right now. I have a chance to toughen the hell up on my own out here and close this thing. I have to.

  ‘Want some lobster?’ I say to the camera guy. He's yawning on the sand as I wade out of the water, but as usual he ignores me.

  Asylum Island reminds me of some post apocalyptic world from a sci-fi movie. I have to admit it’s beautiful, though. It’s a tiny curve of sand down the path from the waterfall. It was blocked off before. In the sunlight it’s like some kind of fairy tale set, mixed with all the tropical island images you could Google search. There’s whiter sand than on the other side, but it’s too small to have been a good base for all of us.

  I already started the fire. I sit down and lay the lobster over a makeshift grill I constructed from washed up pebbles and stones. My head hurts from being under the water so long, diving down to depths I probably shouldn’t have without a tank. At least, I hope that’s all it is. I never really know anymore.

  I’m about to reach for the lobster when another movement to my left along the tree line makes me turn. How many damn cameras do they need?

  But it’s not another camera.

  Alyssa’s hurrying towards me in her pantsuit blazer and bikini, barefoot over the rocks and across the sand. I stand in shock, almost rub my eyes as she reaches me. ‘What the…’

  She puts a finger over her lips to sssh me, as if the camera guy hasn’t perked up at her presence anyway.

  ‘They don’t know I’m gone,’ she says. Her hair is wilder than ever; her skin in the moonlight is almost glittering. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I whisper loudly as she puts her hand to my torso to catch her breath. ‘Alyssa, you’re breaking every rule in the book!’

  ‘Am I?’ she says, looking up at me. Her touch is soaring through me. She’s hot and her eyes are steely as the palm leaves sway behind her, making the scene more surreal. I take her hand, lead her back towards the ocean. My heart’s going wild in my chest.

  ‘There’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t visit Asylum Island if I know where it is,’ she tells me, stopping at the shoreline. ‘It’s just that most people don’t know where it is.’

  I’m about to tell her she needs to leave; that they’ll kick her off the show, when she reaches into the pocket of the blazer, pulls something out.

  I freeze.

  Her eyes are scanning my face. ‘What are they for?’ she asks, holding up my pills.

  I can't even speak. I can't even breathe. ‘Where did you find them?’ I manage eventually.

  ‘They fell out of your jeans…’

  ‘Did you tell anyone?’

  ‘No!’ She steps forward, but I catch her by the wrist as the camera guy creeps closer. I snatch the bottle from her, throw it to the sand. I haven’t taken them for days – I don’t know if it’s them that are making me weaker. Damn it, why wasn’t I more careful?

  ‘What are they for?’ she says again. She’s staring at me now like she pities me already and I can’t look back at her.

  ‘Are you going to use this against me, when you all vote me out again?’ I say, turning to the water, feeling my body turn rigid.

  ‘I’m not voting you out,’ she says, looking around her at the camera. She lowers her voice. ‘But Joshua, you lied when you said there was nothing wrong with you. This is not part of the game. Why did you lie to me?’

  I say nothing, but she takes off the blazer, throws it to the sand and steps into the water. ‘Swim with me, now,’ she orders and I stare at her as she wades out into the shallows, her silhouette lit by the moon. How is she doing this to me?

  She turns around. ‘Joshua.’

  ‘You need to go,’ I say, clenching my fits to my side.

  ‘I’m not going.’ She wades back towards me quickly, steps back to the sand and folds her arms in front of me. Her eyes are narrowed now. ‘Do the people at home know what’s going on?’ she says. ‘Joshua, does everyone know what’s going on except me? They cast you in this show for drama, didn’t they? Is there some secret that’s making me look like an idiot for not knowing?’ Her voice is cracking, though she’s trying to be strong. My heart breaks.

  ‘No,’ I tell her truthfully.

  ‘Then what are the pills for? How serious is it?’

  I breathe out heavily through my nose. I want to tell her. It’s getting out of my control, all of this.

  ‘Swim with me,’ she orders again, and this time she drags me by the hand till we’re waist deep and she’s swimming into the starlight and I can’t do anything but follow her. The camera guy has already gone to get a kayak.

  ‘You don’t want to let anyone close to you and you don’t want any ties,’ she says, treading water in front of me now. Her hair is a fan in the water; her eyes are shining. ‘It’s too late, Joshua. We’re tied now.’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ I say, hearing my own voice crack.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ she says fiercely, taking me by the shoulders. ‘I know you’re pushing me away because you’re sick…’

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ I tell her. My words come out thick; they feel heavy. My heart’s still thumping as she holds onto me and I realize she can’t touch the bottom. The camera guy is on his way now, paddling fast.

  ‘I know you’re afraid,’ she says, spotting him
but keeping her grip. ‘We can talk about projections and what’s not real while we’re here, but this… this is real… whatever’s hurting you. And so are we.’

  I’m kissing her before I can stop, hands around her waist. Hot tears are lodging in my throat. ‘Why don’t you just give up on me?’ I manage. She runs her hands up my back, puts her fingers in my new fuzz of hair and clenches it till our foreheads are pressed together.

  ‘I’ll lose this game if I have to, but I won’t lose you,’ she says, locking her legs around my middle. ‘Not now.’

  ‘What if you don’t have a choice?’

  She pulls me tighter to her. ‘Tell me the truth, Joshua.’

  ‘I want to,’ I tell her now, pressing my mouth to hers. ‘Baby, I want to.’

  ‘Then why can’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated.’ It’s the truth. No one knows; no one but Evan, and that one support group I went to once – the one I left halfway through because I couldn’t stand the thought of ending up like any of them.

  ‘You’re not…’ Alyssa trails off and I see the pain in her eyes as she moves her head back. ‘You’re not dying or anything, are you?’

  Adrenaline almost makes me laugh as I kiss her again, shake my head. My eyes dart to the camera and I swim with her away from it. They can hear us, I know it. ‘No, I’m not dying,’ I say, pulling her to me again. ‘But this isn’t the place. I can’t bring this into the game, Alyssa, I can’t, not with you, not with anyone. I’ll tell you everything when we’re out of here, I promise, but right now I can’t…’

  ‘I understand you can’t tell me now, Joshua, I lived with cameras in my face for a year, I get that! But you were the one who said all we have is now. You told me no more secrets…’

  ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry,’ I start but she’s kissing my forehead, my nose, my mouth and I know it has to be over; the running, the denial. She was right before - I did it with Harri and it hurt us both.