We back up along the jetty, getting farther away from Robert but closer to the ocean. Ava screams and grabs Gibson to use him as a human shield. He doesn’t push her away.
“What do we do?” Harper asks, looking between Gibson and Robert. “Seriously, what do we do? He’s right there!”
Yep, I can see that he’s right there.
“Two choices,” I say, and my voice sounds hollow even to my own ears. “We jump and swim or we stand here and get stabbed…with that long blade he has.”
“Swim,” Harper says. “I vote swim.”
It’s okay for her, she’s basically an Olympian.
Robert holds the sword to his side almost casually. It’s about as long as my forearm. I can’t tell if it’s a medieval one or a fake, but it really doesn’t matter.
It can still kill.
“It’ll take him about fifteen minutes to get from here to the other jetty. We need to swim faster than that,” Gibson says.
Of all the terrible ideas we’ve had this weekend, this one wins. Hands down.
I look down at the water. It’s calmer, the storm a distant memory, but waves still crash against the rock. The tide bringing you back to the island as if it’s working with Robert, returning his victims.
There is still room for a lot of error. Like drowning.
“Gibson, have you ever swum it before?” I ask.
“Of course I haven’t.”
“Great.”
“We can do it,” Harper says.
Robert jumps from the last step onto the jetty. His thick boots thunder along the wood. He cricks his neck and lunges forward.
I’d rather drown than be stabbed.
Gasping, I turn. Gibson, Ava and Harper react in the same way. We run the last few steps to the end of the jetty and jump.
The ice-cold water steals my breath as I disappear under.
My clothes are soaked through in an instant. It makes them weigh a ton.
I paddle to the surface. I splutter as my head breaks up through the water. Kicking my legs as hard as I can, I swim away from Robert.
“He’s not following,” Gibson says, swimming beside me. Harper is just in front and Ava on the other side of Gibson.
I take a breath and dive back under, knowing it’s much faster.
My hands cut through the water and shove it behind me. I propel myself forward as if I actually made the swim team at school. I wasn’t fast enough and at the time I wasn’t that bothered.
I now wish I’d gotten in and had a year’s worth of practice behind me. A wave knocks me sideways. I kick above the surface again and paddle out so I don’t slam against the rock that appears to be coming at me.
“He’s gone,” Harper says, taking a quick look over her shoulder.
They’re all farther out than I am. In my haste to get away, I haven’t swum in a straight line; rather, I headed toward the rocks.
Robert must be on his way to the other side.
In the blink of an eye, a wave snatches me. I don’t have time to correct my course before I’m pulled under.
Panic seizes my body as I’m trapped in a current.
I break the surface and gulp a lungful of air. I kick and kick, my arms and legs moving much too quickly to be effective. They ache like hell.
The waves have me.
This can’t be how it ends.
“Paisley!” Gibson shouts.
They’re all so much farther now.
“Go!” I scream, choking as water splashes into my mouth and eyes. “Go!”
They can’t come back for me. It’s too risky.
“Go!”
Gibson turns around and swims, easily catching up to Ava. Harper is a dot to me now.
“Go,” I whisper as a wave carries me away and I slam into the rock face of the island.
I grasp at the jagged surface and manage to claw into a lip. Water splashes around me, but the hands of the current fail to take me back under again.
Pulling myself up, I breathe through my nose until my lungs stop burning. I find a ledge for my feet and stand up, still holding on.
The others are out of sight now.
I pant and rest my forehead against the rock for a second. Robert might think I’m dead when I don’t show up at the other jetty. It would give us an edge. But to get that edge, I have to not die.
If I follow the others, he will find me, but if I go back, I have a chance.
It’s a good thing I chewed all my nails off, or they would have snapped against the rock. I place my foot on a rock, but I slide.
Dangling off a cliff, I clamp my mouth shut so I don’t scream and alert Robert. My feet scramble to find somewhere to rest.
Oh god, come on.
I close my eyes when I realize it’s not going to happen. My hands cramp up, and with shooting pains in my fingers, I drop back into the ocean.
Fight.
Fight.
Fight.
I duck under and kick off the cliff face. My arms and legs work in perfect synchrony as I swim for my life. I stop to let the wave carry me, and when it’s done, I kick harder again. There’s no point in trying to outswim a strong current. It never tires.
It takes me a while; my arms and legs burn with the effort. But I manage to do it. First, I swim out to sea to get out of the current that wants to continuously ram me into rock. Then I turn and swim toward the jetty.
It takes a long time. My muscles ache. My arms are on fire and my clothes weigh me down.
I manage to hold on to the jetty and heave myself up. Once lying down, I stare up at the sky and I give myself a minute to catch my breath and gain an ounce of strength back.
I’m exhausted and just want to stay here forever. I don’t have long. It’s too risky to stay still alone, so I force myself to stand.
My legs feel like jelly as I get to my feet.
Something tickles my face. I wipe it away expecting it to just be water, but my hand is red when I look down. I hit my head for a second time today and clearly I’ve cut myself.
I lift my dripping T-shirt up and use it to press against the gash on my forehead.
If I’m left with a scar, hopefully it’ll be a cool one like Harry Potter’s.
The wound doesn’t bleed for long, so I walk along the jetty and climb the stairs quietly.
Crouching down as I near the top, I look around for Robert.
There is no one as far as I can see. Which is not necessarily a good thing.
For the first time, I feel so completely alone. I want to cry.
There’s no one here to help me, to save me if Robert circles back. It’s just me alone. One-on-one…and he has a sword. It would hardly be a fair fight.
Liam and Reeve are also out here alone. I have to assume that Malcolm is alive and by himself too.
Where would they go if they were looking for the rest of us?
Is it even smart to go running around searching for them?
Maybe not, when I know the general direction Robert was coming from after he moved the jammer.
Gibson was putting finding the jammer ahead of finding his best friend. I should do the same.
I run from the gate behind the entrance to a roller coaster.
Something is bothering me, and I can’t quite place it.
I don’t have time to sit down and make a list and work through it the way I usually do. What I need to do now is act.
We have to get service back to the island so we can call for help.
I move to a tree, and then another.
Every step I take I drip water, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. It’s cold. The sun is beating down rays of fire anyway. It won’t be long until I dry and warm up.
I run from the tree to a food cart and crouch down.
Footsteps hit the asphalt behind me. I stand, spinning around, ready to confront whoever’s coming.
“Paisley, thank god!” Liam says, wrapping me in a bear hug.
Relief floods my veins as I fall into his embrace.
“Hey, you’re wet and you’re bleeding. Jeez, what happened to you?”
I’m shivering as Liam lets me go. He doesn’t seem to care that he now has a wet patch on his T-shirt. “Been in the sea.”
He frowns. “Why?”
He asks as if he thinks I went for a nice dip. I shove my frustration away.
“Robert chased us down to the jetty and we had no other choice.”
Liam looks around. “We? Where’s everyone else? Oh, please don’t tell me…”
“No, they’re alive. Gibson, Ava, and Harper. At least, they were. They went ahead. I came back because I got stuck in a current and didn’t have time to get around the other side. I don’t know if they made it.” My vision blurs as my eyes fill with unshed tears.
“They left you?”
He sounds furious and was a bit too loud. I look over my shoulder. We’re still alone.
“They didn’t have a choice.”
“They’re going to the other jetty?”
I nod. “Where were you?”
“Haunted house for ages, then looking for you. We heard screaming and found Kenna. She’s dead.”
“Yeah, I saw.”
“You were there?”
“It was me and Gibson you heard in there. Not Kenna.”
He shakes his head, brows furrowed. “Harper was gone when I got out. I lost Reeve in the house, so I went and checked on Ava. She was gone too, but I’m glad she and Harper turned up with you. Jesus, Paisley.” He runs his hands through this hair. “I—I don’t know where Reeve is or if he’s even alive.”
“He’ll be okay. Have you seen Malcolm?”
“No,” he says. “Why didn’t Ava warn us?”
“Gibson and I found Harper when we got out of the house. We all went to check on Ava because she wasn’t responding on the radio. She was hiding in the kitchen.”
His jaw goes slack. “That little coward.”
“It doesn’t matter now. We need to get out of here, Liam. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“I haven’t seen the jammer.”
“We found it, but Robert came for us. When we went back, he’d moved it. I saw the direction he came from and think it’s got to be that way.”
He blinks twice, taking in the information. “Okay, show me where. You’re shivering. We can go to the hotel first.”
I shake my head and start walking. Liam follows. “I’m fine. I don’t need to get changed.”
“He’s wearing a creepy-ass mask,” he says.
“You saw him?”
“Why do you think I’m hiding over here?” He winces. “Doesn’t seem like a smart move to try taking him on alone. Not when he has a knife.”
“Yeah, well, he’s upgraded now. I got the knife when he grabbed me.”
“What?” Liam asks a little too loudly, grabbing my hand. “I’m sorry, he got you?”
“In the haunted house, yeah.” I blow out a breath. “So much has happened, Liam. My mind is spinning.”
“Well, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“Physically, I’m fine. The rest…I’m sure a therapist will spend hours working that out in the future.”
He blows out a sigh of regret. “I’m so sorry I left you. I won’t do that again.”
“You did nothing wrong. I was with Gibson, and we got split up in the house. I don’t recommend going in there to hide from a killer, by the way.”
Liam laughs and quickly covers his mouth with his fist. “Sorry. Weird time to find something funny.”
“Perfect time, actually. Laugh or cry, right.”
“How did you and Gibson get split?”
I shrug. “We were being chased, the killer was between me and Gibson. I couldn’t get to the door where he’d just gone.”
“So the killer was closer to Gibson at the time but came for you?”
“We were kind of in a triangle, each of us standing at one point. But yeah, he was closer to Gibson.” I frown. “Why wouldn’t he take out the biggest threat first?”
Liam slowly shakes his head. “No. No, he wouldn’t. Would he?”
I give Liam a look. “We scratched Gibson and Reeve off the list when we saw the killer walking while we were all together.”
“That was before we knew Camilla was in on this. I mean, she had to know Robert was behind it, and they were talking right before he decided she was in his way. That has to mean she was somehow involved.”
“Maybe. Or perhaps she only suspected. He did murder her. Are you saying you think all four of them are in on it?” I ask. “Camilla, Robert, Gibson, and Reeve? No. Surely not all of them.”
But it could be.
Why didn’t I see this before? It could easily be more than two people. In fact, it would be safer for them to operate as a group.
“It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t Gibson just kill me when he had the chance? Why get Reeve or Robert to follow us through the house? I’ve been alone with them both. I still don’t think Reeve would do it.”
“Er…I don’t know. Pass. I’ve known the three of them for two days. That’s not long enough to really know a person.”
Wives and husbands, parents, families of murderers have all claimed to know the person who turned out to be evil. Two days. Twenty years. I’m not sure we ever know anyone.
“I get we’re all relative strangers, but they’ve had multiple opportunities to kill us.”
He pushes his hands through his hair. “I don’t know! What the hell is going on here? What’s this about. Why kill? And who do we trust?”
That’s a lot of questions I don’t have answers for.
I take a step back. “Honestly, Liam. I haven’t got a clue.”
Right now, I think the only person I trust completely is myself.
