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I turn and cock my head. “Come. Here,” I growl. “Now.”
“No!” she says, folding her arms. “How dare you? I’m not your goddamn pet. You can’t just throw me over your shoulder like some caveman.”
When I walk over to her, she hides behind the stack of wood, circling it, as if she thinks it’ll stop me from chasing after her. As long as she roams this island freely and tries to destroy it, I’ll never be satisfied. If locking her up keeps her from trying to lure in more people, so be it.
“What is wrong with you? You want to be left alone, but you won’t let me off this goddamn island!” she yells.
“A fire won’t get you anywhere,” I growl, still circling her, trying to get close.
“It’ll grab the attention of airplanes or boats passing by. But now it won’t because you put it out!” she snaps. “You know what? Fuck you. I tried to be nice, but you make it so goddamn hard. Why can’t you just let me be? I never asked for your help.”
“You come to my island and destroy the jungle. You did this. Not me,” I reply, getting all worked up.
“It was supposed to be temporary. And if anyone knew you were here, no one would’ve come.”
“Exactly,” I say. “I don’t want anyone here.”
“But I am, and I want to go home. That helicopter crash ruined all our supplies. I have nothing to build on.”
Helicopter … that must be that metal bird.
“I can’t live here,” she continues. “On an island, with no other people, no proper food, no running water, no technology. Nothing.”
She makes it sound as if this island is the worst place you could ever be. As if she only likes it for the research but not the life. She doesn’t see the beauty in the desolation. The calm in the dark of the jungle.
My home.
She doesn’t like my home. The place that makes me feel like I’m allowed to live.
Maybe that’s why I feel like screaming and punching the trees behind me. Because she doesn’t appreciate this life. This jungle. Me.
Because even if I refuse to admit it, it’s nice to finally have a companion.
Too bad she doesn’t see it the same way.
She doesn’t have nothing.
I frown, growling, “You have me …”
Chapter Ten
Accompanying Song: “Touch” by Marz Léon
Juliet
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say.
I’m stunned.
Completely incapacitated by his words. They’re so simple, yet they mean so much … because they’re from him.
He doesn’t say much, but when he does, he means every single word he utters, including this.
Him … he thinks having him is enough for me. That I could be happy here because he’s here.
And he wants me?
Is that what he means?
I swallow away the lump in my throat. My body has long stopped circling the stack of wood, my feet unable to keep trying to run.
Part of me wants to scream for having lost the only means to contact the outside world. For him blocking the way out and not wanting me to escape. But another part of me feels the pain, feels the hurt that bursts out of him the moment he looked at me with those eyes.
Those eyes that bore into mine with a need I haven’t seen before.
A loneliness I didn’t think I’d ever witnessed … until I came here.
But is that all I am to him?
Something to take away the solitude?
I didn’t come here for him, and I can’t just stay for him … can I? It’s not right.
We aren’t right.
And I don’t believe for a second he’d even be remotely interested in me in that way … in a way a normal human being would … when he’s kept me in a pit like a pet.
Normal people don’t do that.
Then again, maybe he never knew what it’s like to actually be normal.
I don’t know where he came from, how he came to this island, and why.
Maybe he had a horrible youth. Maybe that’s why he refuses to discuss it.
There must be an explanation as to why he hates people so much.
Still, he’d rather keep me here, miserable and unhappy, than let me go just for the sake of keeping this island from getting visitors. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong … yet I can’t do anything to stop him from putting out the fire.
Doesn’t matter how many times I try to reignite it, he’ll keep coming back to douse it.
He’s that kind of man.
A man who won’t stop until he has what he wants.
And I already know if I stay here any longer … the same will happen to me.
There’s no denying it. The tension between us is inescapable, which is why I wanted to run. God, I wanted to run so badly. Because this man … he’ll be the end of my world.
