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I fucking hate you. I will never forgive you for this.

Arguing with him on this point is fruitless, but I do it anyway. He called me stubborn once, and now he is about to find out just how stubborn I am.

I cross my arms. “Take Naomi with you. I’m staying here until we are rescued.”

It’s silly being jealous right now in these circumstances—as if petty matters of the heart are what’s important right now. But the jealousy is crippling, along with my anger for him leaving me like I’m a possession, and not a prized one at that.

Maison warned me. He warned me plenty, and I refused to listen.

Micah’s eyes flash, and the vein in his neck pulses. “We’re not getting fucking rescued, London. Look around, baby, this is it until you die. These idiots think that by lighting a tiny signal fire again, an airplane is somehow going to magically appear out of thin air. I have news for them and for you, sweetheart: it fucking won’t. They can’t make a fire big enough.”

I shake my head. “I refuse to believe that, Micah. As a group, I think we have a better shot at getting rescued than if we split and give up.” I’ve long thought Micah doesn’t want to be rescued, and this proves it.

“It’s not about getting rescued, London; it’s about surviving. Why don’t you see that? You will die here. Everyone here is going to die. We can live in that cabin, where we have a proper shelter—a home. We can’t survive out here in the elements. Look at you… A week away from me, and you look like shit.”

I press my lips together and glare at him. He knows… He knows this is a breakup. He slumps his shoulders.

Defeated.

It breaks me, but I can’t be responsible for healing his heart anymore. I’m not his medicine… I’m his poison. And I’m not making him any better. It’s sucking everything I have out of me to make him whole again.

My voice is broken. “You did this to me, Micah. You did this to us. You caused this fracture between us by not trusting me enough.”

My eyes jerk to the forest floor, and my heart falters. Something is protruding off the ground, leaning against a nearby fallen log. Something that wasn’t there before because I would have noticed it. My hand hits my mouth, tears fill my eyes, and my stomach turns as bile rises from the pit of my stomach, burning every inch of my throat, mouth, and nostrils.

Micah narrows his eyes. “London?”

The words get caught in my throat as I try to articulate the scene unfolding before me. He follows my gaze to Ollie’s severed head on the ground, a few feet away from us. His eyes are staring at us like the pits of hell. His hair is still intact, and his eyes open. A fresh kill—

“Fucking Christ,” Micah yells as he pulls my head to his chest, realizing what caused my reaction. “Don’t look, baby. Keep your eyes closed.” He covers my eyes immediately, but the damage is already done. I saw it…

I found Ollie.

“Why? Why, Micah?” My body convulses and shakes, knowing who did this to him.

“Come on, London. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I can’t move. I stand, utterly frozen. “Nigel’s here,” I whisper. “He’s probably watching us.” He was probably watching me the whole time.

Grieving, crying, shedding my clothes.

That snap in the forest.

“He’s here, Micah. He’s here right now. That wasn’t here before.”

Micah grows deadly still, calm almost, before calling out to the forest. “I’m going to find you, Nigel,” he threatens. “And when I do, I’m going to tear off every limb of your body.”

Nigel.

I would barely call human what he has become and disintegrated into. He’s nothing but a character in my mind now—a dark villain, a hunter, a killer among us. It’s as if he’s always been this way.

Micah and I walk back in silence through the heavy mist, with his protective hand on my back the entire time. I can’t speak. The island, once again, seems to be deprived of oxygen.

The haunting image of Ollie’s severed head will forever be etched in my mind—a constant reminder that his death was not caused by the plane crash, an animal, or the island itself. But by a sentient being making a cold, calculated decision and driven by anger, desperation, and pure instinct.

I’m still shaking as we come upon the meadow. The others are huddled there, preparing for what looks like will be an enormous fire. Micah grabs my hand and squeezes it before we get there, his lips brushing my ear. “I don’t care what you say, London. I am not letting you go now.”

I cling to his arm, regretting the entire conversation I just had with him despite speaking my truth in the moment.