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The moment I spot the metal wreckage, or what’s left of it, tears run down my cheeks. I run across the field, multiple times, scanning the ground. Everywhere and anywhere, nothing’s left unchecked.
I scream the moment I see it. I’m unable to stop the pain from gushing out of me. I’m delirious on my own thoughts and the images flashing through my head.
One moment, I’m on the ground between the lush greens, and the next, I’m in the sky, whipped from side to side. The hellish noise of the helicopter hitting the ground replays over and over in my mind.
But one clear sound stands out the most.
Something ticking against the window.
Another tick.
Then a bang against the metal.
It all came crashing down.
Because of this.
I stare at the small pebble between my feet, not too far away from the helicopter.
Except when I take a closer look, it’s not a pebble at all.
It’s an arrowhead.
And the stick to which it was applied to is lying right beside it.
My throat clamps up, my lungs refusing to suck in oxygen.
I hold the pebble in my hand, which shakes the longer I stare at it.
It’s not a dream.
I always thought it was, but it wasn’t.
Like pieces of the puzzle falling together, everything begins to fit.
It’s not a coincidence. It never was.
The sudden crash.
The hatred Lock exudes for humans.
The guilt that dripped off him whenever he looked at me.
Him thinking I was dangerous.
It was all because of this.
An arrow.
Holding it tightly in my hand, I gaze across the field and continue my search … until my theory is proven right.
Another one.
I stare at it with blatant disgust, the anger marring my face.
Marking my soul and tainting this isolated island.
“Jules?”
His voice brings my blood to a boil.
How dare he.
How dare he come here and defile this graveyard.
I didn’t ruin this jungle … he did.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Accompanying Song: “Through Falling” by Johann Johannsson
Lock
“Jules …” I repeat, but she doesn’t respond.
In the middle of the open field filled with ashes of burned down trees, she stands.
Towering above the remains of the metal bird. The helicopter.
Her hands firmly clutched, close to her unmoving body.
I approach.
A short but bitter glance makes me stop.
She’s never looked at me that way.
Not even when I put her down in that pit.
Or when I tied her to my bed.
Not even when I told her about the girl who died because of me.
It’s a look of pure hatred.
And it destroys me.
My eyes widen the moment she opens her hand to show me something.
An arrowhead.
My handcrafted arrowhead.
But she dropped the arrow back there … I saw it myself.
A sharp pang in my stomach makes me clutch my jaw. I can’t fucking breathe.
She found it here … on the very ground she’s standing on right now.
My head hurts. Pain rushes through my veins.
Everything is unraveling before me.
I can’t let it happen.
“Jules …” I mumble, taking a step toward her.
“You … monster!” she yells.
The tears rolling down her cheeks scar me in ways I didn’t think were possible. Wound me in a place I never thought I’d feel. My heart … bleeds.
“Jules, please …” I say, shaking my head.
“No,” she says, placing her feet firmly on the ground. “Stay back.”
I bite my lip but stop. Even though my entire body screams to go to her, wanting to hug her tight, I can’t because I don’t want her to hate me even more.
“You … did this?” she yells, holding up the arrow as though it’s a piece of her soul.
My lips part, but I don’t know how to respond.
How would anyone when faced with an impossible choice?
“Those arrows … I knew I saw them somewhere, and then I remembered what happened in the helicopter,” she says through gritted teeth, swallowing down more tears. “You shot at us!”
I suck in a breath, but it burns like the fire from the day I met her.
The fire that scorched the very earth I love so deeply.
The fire … I caused.
I lower my head, unable to keep looking at her as I hear my own truth through her voice.
I’ve lived with this guilt for so long, I almost learned to cope.
“Did you?” she screams. “Answer me, Lock!”
“Yes.” It comes out as one word, but it repeats itself over and over in my head.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I killed that little kid because it’s my fault she fell.
I killed countless other people in the cage with my own bare hands.
I killed the metal bird that carried her and more people.
And now I killed her love for me too.
“How … how could you?” The tears stream across her face again.
I don’t know what to do, so I stand here frozen to the ground.
There’s no place I can go where she won’t be.
No place she can flee where I won’t stalk.
We’re bound to each other by this island.
Bound by tragedy and despair.
