Paradise Island: Complete Edition (31 page)

The only good thing that seemed to come out of the whole mess was my relationship with Jack. And maybe, just maybe, a new friendship that seemed to be forming with Rory, as well.

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T
he days passed like clouds through the sky, and with each day Jack felt better and the cement around our terrible secrets hardened.

I huddled next to Jack on the bed, keeping his naked body as close to me as possible. We breathed the same air, shared the same space, and that’s how it should have been. I tried to drown out the voices in my head working against me, and most of the time, as long as Jack was there, it worked.

“I can’t believe the day has finally come,” I said.

“Me either,” Jack sighed. “A lot has happened since I first came here, that’s for sure. And I’m not just talking about the new deck out there.”

I hit him in the arm, harder than I intended.

“Ouch!” he said and laughed.

I had to laugh as well. And then I got up and got dressed quickly. I could see the disappointment on Jack’s face. “There’s stuff to be packed,” I said. “You should join me.” And with that I left him in bed by himself. Now he was pretty much back to his old self. His scar, which seemed to be healing fast was hidden by his hair, so it didn’t really effect his looks much.

I went back to “my” room and took an inventory of all the stuff there and didn’t really feel like taking anything with me. This reminded me of another piece of luggage that we needed to get rid of: Lucy’s. It felt cruel to throw it all into a bonfire, but something needed to be done. Rory, for his part, didn’t seem to suspect anything.

I went outside, one last walk around the property, by the bitterly cold ocean as I made my way down to the beach. There was no one in this town that could hurt me now, and that made me walk a little lighter. I lost myself in the walk, in the breeze, in the waves.

I ran into Rory about ten minutes after my walk. He didn’t have his uniform on, just jeans and a warm jacket. He looked a little less intimidating now.

“I was just coming to see you,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets. “It’s cold, isn’t it? I can’t say I’ll miss that about this place.”

He fell in step beside me, away from Jack’s place. “Is there anything you’ll miss?”

“My uniform. As crappy as it was, the girls loved it,” he said and laughed.

I joined him. It was true, the uniform brought something more in him. In regular clothes you could say he was cute and charming. But in the uniform, he became handsome and attractive. I didn’t know what it was. Perhaps the sense of power that comes from a cop’s uniform, even in a small town such as this one.

“Where you headed?” He finally asked, after minutes of silence. To the the truth, I didn’t mind the silence at all. I had no need for words at the moment.

“Nowhere particular. Just out for a walk,” I said and left it at that.

But guys like Rory couldn’t stay quiet for long. It didn’t seem to be in his genes. He seemed like the kind of guy who would always say a joke at a party or wherever he found himself, and try to make everyone else laugh. That made me like him a little more as well. He was the opposite of me and Jack. We were reserved, laid back, and when we went out into the world we usually wore a mask of one kind or another. Rory didn’t seem like that. He seemed like he genuinely enjoyed being alive, which was a foreign concept to me until I met Jack, and knew there was something worth living for.

“Are you guys getting off this island soon? I just checked my bank account, and it seems I have more money than I know what to do with.”

“Today, actually, if all goes as planned. We’re taking the ferry to London and then from there we’re taking a plane to some island I can’t even pronounce. To be honest, even after Jack explained it to me, I still have no idea where it actually is.”

He smiled good naturedly. “I wasn’t much of a geography student, either,” he said.

Which reminded me of all the years I missed of public school, having been homeschooled by the cult since my mother moved us to Crow’s place. I shook those memories away. I wondered how many lies they had instilled in my brain that I wasn’t aware were even lies, because they were repeated to me so many times.

“What’s he planning on doing with that fancy house, especially now that he’s made those improvements?” Improvements that were only made to cover up the murder of three people, but he didn’t have to know that. Well, he knew about one of them.

“Probably sell it,” I lied. “Not really sure. You should ask him. Who knows, he might keep it as a vacation home, though I can’t really see us coming back her any time soon.”

I turned around and headed back toward the house. Rory still walked beside me, so I assumed he wanted to talk to Jack as well. I didn’t mind. I felt comfortable around Rory for some reason. Not the same way I felt comfortable with Jack, but it was still something.

After awhile we finally reached the hill. The thought of having to climb it a thorn in my side. It seemed I’d walked a little too much, and now I was too tired to contemplate walking up that hill just yet. So I sat in a dry patch of sand and rested.

“Want me to stay with you?”

“No, you go on ahead. I’ll just rest here a bit.”

“I don’t mind,” he said.

“I know. I just need some time to myself.”

I waved him away and watched as he climbed the hill, faster than I ever had. I wondered what he wanted to talk to Jack about but pretty soon let that thought go as I laid back in the soft sand. It felt good to just let go, to rest. I floated away in a sea of calm and felt myself drifting further and further away from everything.

My limbs were weak, my thoughts clouded, and it felt like hot tears were going to pour any second. I turned to my side and used my hands as a pillow and closed my eyes, enjoying the cold air. I didn’t know if I ever wanted to go up that hill again. Back to that house of death. Now that I was really away from it, I realized how wrong it really was.

But eventually, I forced myself to get up and slowly walked up. I heard voices so I instinctively made myself as quiet as possible as I made my way to the house.

“I’m open to anything,” Jack was saying. “But I’m not sure how Sophie would feel about that.” Then Jack looked up and saw me at the doorway. He took his hand away from Rory’s shoulder, and they both blushed as I entered the room. “Hey,” Jack said, pretending like he didn’t see me before. “How was your walk?”

“Uneventful,” I said. “Until now. Is there something you guys need to ask me?” For some reason, I was very suspicious, but as soon as Jack put his arms around me I felt a little better.

“Oh, Rory was just wondering if he could come along with us on our trip. He wants to get away as bad as we do, and he asked if he could tag along, until he could find a better place to go.”

“Oh,” I was relieved it was just that. “It’s fine by me if it’s fine by you. Might make the trip a bit more interesting,” I said and laughed.

“Are you saying I’m boring?” Jack asked, looking shocked, but obviously faking it.

“Not exactly,” I said. “But the more the merrier, right?”

I liked the thought of Rory coming with us, for some reason. I needed someone to talk to, but I wasn’t sure what I could talk to him about. My past probably. Most of my present was spent killing people like Henry, Lucy, Greyson, the mayor, even Crow, it all seemed like a clusterfuck, to use a word that Jack explained to me recently.

After the three of us ate some sandwiches with tea, I was ready to get back to work, and for his part, Jack helped me pack a couple of things. I packed the journals all in one bag because I didn’t feel like leaving them here all by themselves. Then I changed my mind. Why shouldn’t the journals be left here, where their writer was? I left all the journals except one and lined them up nicely on a bookshelf. I kept the last journal and hid it among my things. I felt safer, better with Josie’s last words close to me, for some reason.

Rory waved goodbye and said he’d go and pack his own things. I watched him leave and when he was far enough away, I turned to Jack.

“Lucy’s things. We need to do something about them.”

“I’ll start a fire,” he said, and at first I thought he meant a bonfire outside, but it was actually the fireplace inside where he lit the fire. “Most of it is clothes, right? We’ll just feed them to the fire one by one.”

Jack helped me get the luggage in the house and we locked the door behind us. I told him to close the shutters just in case Rory decided to pop back up. We slowly fed the articles of clothing to the fire, making sure not too much smoke was created. When metal button were all that was left of an outfit, we used the fire poker and put them on one side. As I watched one of Lucy’s favorite skirts burn to nothing, I sighed with sadness. Yes, she had done terrible things to me, but I still felt guilty for her death. Jack was the one who pulled the trigger, and I can’t say I thought she didn’t deserve it, but I still felt...I don’t know what I felt anymore. It just didn’t feel right to me that we were burning most of her favorite possessions into the oblivion. It wasn’t like she’d need any of it, but it still felt wrong. As for the leftovers. The suitcase, little trinkets, and metal buttons, Jack put them all in one trash bag and then added more trash to it. He said he was going to drive by a dumpster and just get rid of the things. I doubted anybody would find them, or even if they did that they would figure the stuff belonged to a dead woman.

I waved at Jack as I watched him ride away with a couple of big bags of trash on the back of his bike. I looked around at the hard concrete deck and really saw how ugly it looked for the first time. It was practical, and useful, but it certainly didn’t improve the look of the property. Thankfully, actors weren’t known for their good tastes, or so Jack told me. I shivered from the cold and closed the sliding doors. I sat down on the couch and rested a bit from all the work. Soon, within hours, we’d be off this island and that was something to look forward to, but being alone in the house, surrounded by graves of the people we murdered, it felt like I’d never be able to escape. I remembered watching a movie with Lucy about a vengeful spirit who tormented her killer until he killed himself by jumping off a cliff. I shivered at the thought, and I knew it wasn’t rational, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Imaginary shadows surrounded me, and one by one I felt all the ghosts surround me, calling me terrible names. Murderer. Whore. Traitor. Liar. Sinner. Hellbitch. Some were said by individuals, most were chanted in unison by all of them. Even Josie, with her swelling belly seemed to join in, blaming me for keeping her murder hidden and burying her killers on top of her.

“You couldn’t bury them even a couple of feet away?” Josie shrieked, a martini still in her hand just like in the dream. “Is that too much to ask?”

Lucy came close to my face, giving me a close-up view of the damage some by the bullet through the head. I closed my eyes and tried to look away but I felt her sour breath on my face. “I’m dead because of you, you little bitch whore! Pretending to be a nice small town girl. Huh! You’re the devil himself.”

“Sophie, if I’m rotting in the ground, you’re gonna rot with me,” Crow was saying. “Come on girlie, finish what you started before you decided to slip through my fingers. Jump!”

“Jump!” Joined in Lucy.

“Jump!” Greyson.

“Jump!” The mayor.

“Jump!” Henry, blood gushing out his throat as his flesh burned.

“Jump!” Josie.

“JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!” They all chanted in unison, drowning out any thoughts in my head.

I held my hands over my ears, tears streaming down my face and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Get away! Get away from me! Get away!”

I felt hands shaking me, and I was afraid to open my eyes, until I heard a familiar voice yelling at me.

“Sophie! Sophie! Snap out of it,” Jack yelled at me.

I opened my eyes and everyone else faded from view until the only face I saw was Jack’s. I threw myself into his arms and hugged him as tight as I could. It felt so good to be back in his warm embrace again. To breathe in his smell. I cried and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. “I thought I lost you, Jack,” I whimpered. “I thought I lost you.”

“What happened, Sophie? What happened to you?”

I sat back on the couch, reluctant to let go of Jack. He somehow knew and held my hands in his. The warmth was enough to keep me anchored to the here and now.

“They. Henry. Lucy. Josie. Greyson. The mayor. Crow. They all tried to make me crazy. They told me to jump. To kill myself.”

Jack held me closer. “Oh, Sophie, this is not good. You’re unraveling.”

“I think I’ll be okay when I leave this wretched island. They won’t be able to get to me if I’m not here. They’re stuck here, Jack. They’re stuck here forever.”

Jack shook his head in disbelief, worry, disappointment, or all three. “I’ll make you a cup of tea,” he said. “Hopefully that’ll help you calm down.”

He went to the kitchenette and I cried after him. “Please don’t leave me,” I wailed. “They’ll get me if I’m alone.” I was too tired to follow Jack to the kitchenette so I turned around to make sure he was really there.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m right here, Sophie. I’ll make everything better, I promise.”

I smiled weakly in his direction. “Thank you, Jack,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything.”

After Jack came back with my tea I calmed down a little bit. I felt better as I kept sipping the tea, coming back to myself. “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly feeling rationality return to me. “I don’t know what came over me. You must think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No, no. You’ve been through lot. We’ve been through a lot. It’s understandable it’ll get to you eventually. You’re only human.”

Only human. That much was true. “Still,” I said. “I must have scared you will all my crazy yelling. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Shh,” Jack said as he caressed my shoulder. “There’s no need to apologize. Soon we’ll be off this blasted island and you can forget about all of this.”

I sighed and hoped he was right. I didn’t know how much more of this island I could take before actually following the advice of hallucinations an jumping. I looked up at Jack and smiled a weak smile. “Thank you,” I said again. “Thank you.” I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, feeling safe in his embrace.