Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) (7 page)

I didn’t know Brigitte. She was new, only a junior, and hung around with some strange artsy crowd at school that joined our campus around the same time as her. I think they were all from France and hooked up becaus
e of their common experiences.

T
his was the first time I had seen her up close. She was striking. Not pretty like Emily in a cheerleader, student counsel sort of way, but rather, gorgeous in a dark, mysterious Playboy model way. She wasn’t wearing anything but a torn blouse and a ripped t-shirt tied around her hips and upper thighs like a makeshift skirt.

“Where’s
Donny?” I asked pointedly to Jake, wishing he would stop staring at my tits. I tried to push down my fury.

“We haven’t seen him or anyone else,” he responded, throwing a stick he was holding down onto the ground.

“How did you guys make it to shore?”

Emily
dropped Jake’s arm. “Jacob jumped off the back of the yacht with me in his arms. We swam over to a life raft and paddled to the island,” she said, a tinge of hysteria in her voice. “So many dead kids.” Her face grew pale at the thought. Her eyes welled with emotions. And then she just threw herself to the ground and started crying with her face buried in her hands.

A part of me wanted to do the same, but I knew there was no point in it. Crying wouldn’t bring anyone back.
And anyway, I was too internally confused to express my true feelings.

“We found Brigitte just a minute ago sitting on a boulder over there,” Jake said angrily
as he bit down hard on his lower lip.

I wondered why she was by herself in the jungle. And I found it strange that she had been resting in such close proximity to me. Could she have seen me eating the insects?
I wondered if she had any idea that her boyfriend had only hours ago messed around with the very girl she was hanging out with.

Emily
stopped crying, but she sat on the ground shaking her head lightly.

Brigitte knelt down and rubbed her back. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered
gently, but I noticed her eyes seemed distant. There was a certain coldness too them that made me wonder what she was really thinking. Maybe she knew somehow.

“What about
Donny?” I looked at Jake who was balling his hands into fists. His jugular vein was lifting up under the skin of his neck so high that I feared it might burst.

Jake’s tone was rough. “
I said we haven’t seen anyone, bitch.” He looked at Emily, his eyelids lifting in an exaggerated manner. “Get up, fatty.” His true self was coming out.

Emily
stood up. Her body still shook slightly, but it appeared as if she was trying to hold it together now.

Brigitte back
ed away from us which got me curious. She rested her hand on a tree. And to my surprise, she started to pant like I was earlier. “There’s a stream ahead.” She motioned with her chin to the right.

I was
astonished how beautiful her voice sounded. It was almost musical. “Let’s go,” I encouraged. There was so much we could talk about, but I wanted to get back to the shore as soon as possible.

Brigitte moved ahead of us,
so graceful as she walked. Her body was impressively agile. I had never seen a girl move like her. “It’s just over here,” she murmured, lifting a branch out of the way for us.

I sighed, relieved at the sight, but surprised that Brigitte had found it before me.

Jake and Emily rushed over and drank with their hands from the gentle waterbed that moved down land.

First, I looked for alligators and water snakes. When I didn’t see any, I climbed in along with Brigitte and waded in the refreshing current.
Damn, it felt good.

“
Don’t just sit there—get in,” Jake said to Emily as they squatted at the edge. He started to pull her in.

But Brigitte shouted abruptly, “Wait. It’s not good for too many people in at once.” She looked over at me
as I back floated in the shaded coolness. “Let’s get out first,” she commanded.

What was her problem?
I chuckled lightly, wondering why it mattered if we all swam together. But her expression was intense, so reluctantly I complied and made my way out beside her at the edge.

Jake was shaking his head. I think he was in shock from the night prior and was reacting with agitation.
As far as I was concerned, he just wasn’t right in the head. It was so obvious when you looked into his psycho eyes. Everyone at school always acted like he was just one of the boys. That was unfathomable to me. Just looking at him made me cringe. People can be so stupid. If a few popular people like someone, everyone else will too. It’s like people lose all judgment and just follow the crowd. They’re just sheep following the herd without question.

“I don’t want to go in,”
Emily said, her voice as high pitched as usual.

“Fine,” Jake grumbled as he made his way into the water grumpily. He moved around a lot and splashed.
I watched him closely.

“Why don’t you fill those vessels up,”
Brigitte whispered to me. “They’re going to need them.”

“Right.” I swallowed hard.

“What did you make of that gigantic octopus?” Jake yelled out to me as I knelt at the side filling the bottles I had fastened around my waist with rope. I kept noticing him staring at my breasts that were covered in my wet t-shirt. He hadn’t been focused on me like that in a long time.

I crossed my arms over my chest. My boobs did feel bigger. Maybe they were swollen from the accident. Was that even possible? I didn’t want anyone to know what I was thinking about so I just answered casually,
“That octopus was the most insane thing I had ever seen. I still can hardly believe it was real.” My voice was hoarse as I spoke. I thought of Savannah and Donny and then the other victims and nausea washed over me. It was all still too unfathomable for me to grasp any of it.

“Things like that don’t happen,”
Emily mumbled. She was standing dumbly, unwrapping her raw, bleeding feet, and then dipping them in the water. Apparently, we all lost our shoes in the ocean the night prior.

But only my feet and Brigitte’s seemed to be holding up well in the wild terrains.

The smell of Emily’s blood was causing my body to tense up. I dug my fingernails into the sides of my jeans. Her blood had a certain heady fragrance I had never smelt before. It was almost alluring, which made me question my sanity.

Moving to the other side of the stream,
I filled up the last bottle and called out to Jake who was still splashing around crossly in the water, “I built a fire on shore to attract the rescue team and dug S.O.S. in the sand. We better get back to meet them and feed the fire if need be.”

“Good thinking,
genius,” Jake called back, snottily. I guess he had moved on from my breasts.

When I didn’t respond, his tone flattened,
“You must have washed onto shore on the other side of the island.”

“What do you mean?” I asked anxiously. “I thought you must have come in on the adjacent beach near the crags and tide pools.”

“We circled around the back away from the yacht and paddled in on the other side. We didn’t want to be anywhere near that crazy monster.”

My nausea grew stronger with this new information. “Are you telling me you crossed the entire jungle from the beach
where you landed?”

“We’re not across yet,” he called back.

“Yes, you are,” I retorted slowly. “We’re not far from the beach I came in on.”

“What direction did you come from?” he asked. His expression looked
dejected.

I pointed. “The beach is not too far off.” I knew we were both coming to the realization that this island was uninhabited. If he had trekked from one side to the other, that meant there was no vacation resort in between or on the other side. We
must be stranded on an island with no human population.

“Let’s go,” I said, my voice edged with urgency. “We need to prepare for rescue.”

Jake was out of the pond by now. He was shaking the water fruitlessly off his pant legs.

I looked around. “Where’s Brigitte?” I didn’t see her anywhere.

“Maybe she went to the bathroom,” Emily said in a shaky voice.

“Brigitte!” I yelled out.

Emily joined me in calling her, but there was no response.

“Oh, my God!”
Emily whimpered. “What could have happened to her?”

My eyes
widened with fear and Jake’s dark eyes just looked furious. We started looking around for her, calling out. But she did not answer. It was as if she had simply vanished.

“Let’s just get back to the beach,” Jake said. “
If she’s such a fool, let her die.”

I wanted to knock him out, but I held my cool as I tried to figure out what to do.

“We can’t just leave her in the jungle,” Emily insisted. “She could be killed out here alone.”

“Well, she should have thought about that when she left,” Jake replied in an edgy tone. He wiped the beads of
water off his brows and then shagged his wet brown hair with his hands.

“We’re leaving now,” Jake commanded
Emily.

“No, we can’t,” she whined. “Let’s look a little longer.” She started walking through the dens
e brush, tearing some sequins off her dress on the sharp outgrowth.

Jake grabbed her by the arm and p
ulled her away. “Listen, scatter brains. If we don’t make our way to the beach now, we could get stuck in the jungle at night. It is even more dangerous in the dark when the predators come out.”

“He’s right,” I said to
Emily. “The wild animals hunt at night. If you get stuck in the woods, you have a good chance of becoming someone’s dinner. A jaguar or tiger could tear you to shreds.”

Emily’s
grey eyes widened with fear.

“You guys get to the beach and I’ll meet you there after I find Brigitte.” I handed each of them a water bottle from my belt and motioned them onward.

“What a moron…” Jake said, “You’re as idiotic as the French whore.”

I ignored him.
His comments were too absurd. The insects’ buzz was loud in my ears. “I made a trail almost the entire way back to the beach. Follow the broken branches I pillaged into the ground as landmarks. I’ll meet you soon. Emily, why don’t you stay with me?”

Jake’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me.
“Emily is with me.” She grabbed his arm tighter and I knew nothing I could say would keep her away from him. I just had to hope that he had changed. He did save her from the giant octopus, so maybe he was different now. “You should have made the trail all the way to the beach, bubble head.” Jake shrugged in exasperation. “Come on,” he said to Emily.

Her face flushed before she turned away and
followed him through the foliage. Even though she was out of earshot, I could hear her whispering to Jake about my appearance. I wondered what I looked like.

But then, my mind switched to other thoughts.
Something wasn’t right with that girl, Brigitte. It didn’t make sense that she would wander off in the jungle. This dense rainforest was unsafe. What kind of girl does that?

I continued on deeper into the outgrowth. So much greenery. There were big blossoming flowers of many colors the size of cheerleader pompoms. Their stamens were as br
ight and yellow as the sun with unusually thick and strong petals. The soupy hot air smelled rich with perfume. If I wasn’t so damn hot and worried, I might have been able to enjoy this frightening paradise.

As I
hiked onward, I saw insects that lit up kind of like fire flies, but they were as big as silver dollars. They made a sort of popping sound as their lights flashed. It seemed like there was so much to discover out there.

Because of my swim in the pond, I wasn’t as hot as before, but I knew I had to saturate myself soon. Something on my stomach started to vibrate. That really freaked me out. I threw my t-shirt up and started slapping my belly. There must be a huge bug on it
, I thought. Maybe it’s poisonous. But nothing was there.

I
unzipped my jeans to get a better look and saw my skin lift up like a portion of it wasn’t fully attached to my body. My eyes widened. Oh, damn. Taking in a deep breath, I raised the layer of skin over my pelvis and saw that underneath round circles of protruding skin had grown. At once, I touched the shapes and thought that they reminded me of suctions.

I breath
ed in another sharp breath of air. What was happening to me? But before I could explore my outgrowths further, somebody grabbed me from behind and spun me around.

Chapter Five

My throat grew so tight, I couldn’t even talk. Marcel Paradis was standing before me. What an asshole. But he survived! If I could talk to Jake, I could talk to Marcel and deal with his cocky attitude. Damn, he looked even more swoon worthy up close with his electric blue eyes staring right into mine. Wearing only black tuxedo slacks, his sexy, muscular chest was bare. I saw a tribal tattoo on his broad shoulder that looked similar to mine. Holy moly! I felt my heart rate speed up way too fast. My knees wobbled. I’m not usually such a weakling, but right then I fainted.