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I keep my eyes laser-focused on the plane and the burnt brush that envelops it. The growth, dust, and mud caked on it allow it to blend into the natural surroundings.

I scan for any sign of the others as we huddle down on the cold earth. Naomi can sense that I’m not playing around, and eventually, she sits cross-legged in the dirt and leans back on her arms, peering up at me. I watch the trees and the plane as I listen to the wind. Any sign that will trigger me.

She stays quiet.

They are here; I know it. They weren’t that far ahead of us. Whoever it is, I have to admire their level of patience, which leads me to believe it’s Nigel… since Ezra has the patience of a pit bull, especially when it comes to waiting someone out. His dumbass would have made himself known by now.

After about twenty minutes of obsessively watching nothing moving, I take a few steps and jerk my head toward Naomi. “Come on, get up. Let’s go check it out.”

It’s not that I’m scared because I know I could take anyone out. However, I’m not sure I can take on the two of them if it comes down to that. I refuse to put London in a position where she’s ever on this island without me. Even if I’m unsure where London’s head’s at or what side she’s on after what I did to her.

We walk up to the airplane, and I push down the bile in my throat, ignoring the goosebumps rising on my arms. The memory of this place suffocates me as I remember when we were crash-landed and I thought I was about to lose my brother. That’s all I gave a shit about in that moment. The joke’s on me… I fucking lost him anyway. I never would have thought the girl he was comforting that day would become my fucking obsession, though. My only reason for living.

As we approach, I easily pull the door open.

Red flag number one.

The last time I was here, I closed it. I distinctly remember securing the doors after I pulled the upholstery apart to create the shelter. Someone was here, and it wasn’t fucking me.

I clench my jaw as I peer inside, then keep Naomi behind me as I step in, trying not to show how much this place creeps the fuck out of me. I couldn’t sleep for five days after hauling all the dead bodies to that open grave. I didn’t lie down; I paced for hours in the same spot, hidden in the trees away from the others, trying to settle myself down. It’s not an image I’ll soon forget. It nearly broke me that night, and I almost didn’t come back from it.

“What do you see?” Naomi whispers behind me. I press my arm against her chest, looking in both directions. The broken windows, the carnage, the blood… I give her a warning look, and she bites her lips shut and wraps her little fingers around my arm, digging her nails in.

The last time I was here by myself, I swear that I saw someone who was supposed to be dead. In fact, I distinctly remember carrying this kid’s body to the pile of corpses the night the plane crashed.

But there he was, standing ghostly still in an Armani suit by the bathroom at the back of the plane, staring at me like a creepy ass motherfucker. It was a junior named Troy, a friend of James, Ollie, and Nathan. And he looked pissed, like he’s the one who should have been alive instead of me. He watched me the entire time I was in here. He scared the ever-loving shit out of me, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I told myself that was the last time I’d ever come here.

As my eyes adjust, my heart stops. Right in the same spot as where the ghost was standing is London. A sense of dread settles in my stomach. I don’t recognize the girl in front of me. She’s battered and bruised, her hair is falling in her face, and hatred is spewing from her eyes.

I blink twice to convince myself she’s real. Her head shakes, and my gaze falls upon a shadow standing menacingly behind her, his thumb firmly holding a knife to her throat.

Ezra Fingerless Schwartz.

Chapter Seventeen

London

Istand alongside Ezra as we step through the dark tree line and the wooden cabin comes into view. We stand utterly still, side by side, our hands a mere inch from each other—mine mangled, his with missing fingers. It’s a decrepit, creepy cabin now that I really get a good look at it. And why it’s even here, in the middle of nowhere, is the creepiest part of it all. Watching it from afar, it’s almost like I’m somebody else and this wasn’t where I spent the last four months. A different girl arrived in this cabin a few months ago. It’s not the same girl standing here now.

“Micah keeps the food under the floorboards,” I whisper as we approach. My insides are screaming at me for betraying him like this, but I’m desperately hungry. I’ve never coped well with the hunger.

“There is a trapdoor in one of them, with a secret compartment inside.” I often wonder why whoever built this place put that hidden compartment there.

Who or what they were hiding from…

Ezra’s eyes narrow as he takes in the cabin—the secret Micah fought so hard to keep.

“Seems cozy,” he mutters, keeping his eyes on it as he shifts beside me.

I don’t respond to that.

We have no plan. We left as soon as I told Ezra I knew how to find the cabin, but I made him promise he would stick with me and give none of it to Nigel. And if Micah is there, I made him promise to let me handle him.

He agreed. I trusted him, and we departed in the early evening, trying to hide among the shadows of the night. We walked through the dreadful forest, past the fallen trees, dead souls, and tragedies. He carried me a bit of the way when I lost my footing, but we barely spoke. We stopped at the creek where I filled my bottle, and now we are here.

The cabin is dark, lonely, and haunted, and I wonder how I ever thought of such a wicked place as a safe haven. A circle of fir trees stands watch over it, blending the shack into the surrounding landscape—protecting it—as if this cabin is part of nature itself. If you didn’t know it was there, you would never even notice it. But I paid attention to the markings around it and studied the woods so I could find it again if I needed to. I also left a marker, a small hair tie I was relieved to see was still hanging from the branch where I left it. Either Micah isn’t paying attention, or he is losing touch with reality.

My stomach sinks at the view of the flickering light inside and the realization of what I am seeing. He’s in there without me. And that means he hasn’t come to find me. Because if he had, he would have succeeded. He would have found a way.