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With every other step, I take a huge breath. Sweat trickles down my body and forehead. I feel dizzy, but I don’t give up. Every tiny push helps.
I go as fast as I can until I’m finally back at the hut, and I sink to the ground, laying his body beside me. I grab my flask and gulp down the water, breathing out loud afterward.
When I look at his body … pain seeps into my bones.
I can’t leave him here like this.
I have to fix this.
I push him off me slightly, so I can get up, but it makes him groan. “I know, I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I’m going to fix you. I promise.”
“Jules,” he mutters, coughing up blood.
I silence him by placing a finger on his lips. “Don’t talk. Save your energy.”
I immediately get up and go inside the hut, frantically searching for something to bind his wounds and sanitize them. I make do with a few pieces of clean fur and a few herbs I gathered. I crush the herbs in a pot and mix them together with water, then I rush back outside.
When I rub it into his wounds, he grunts in pain, but I keep doing it as quickly as possible. “I’m sorry, I have to do this,” I say, wrapping the wounds in the fur tightly, hoping it will stop the bleeding. “There’s not much else I can do.”
“Jules …” He looks up at me and his hand reaches for my face.
He struggles … badly … but persists anyway just so he can caress my cheeks. “You’re safe.”
His words undo me.
Strip me bare and destroy every inch of the barrier I had put up around my heart.
Only now do I realize how much he’s come to mean to me.
Even if I wished for it, I could never go back to the way it was.
I’m bound to him.
Not just through this island but through our hearts.
And if I don’t do something now, he might die.
The man I love might die.
I can’t let it happen.
I have to do something … but what? A hospital is out of reach. The only way to get there is by helicopter or boat. A few of them sometimes pass close by this island every so often, but they never reach the shore.
Without thinking, I walk to the tree I’ve been scratching every passing day on, and I count them in my head. Today. Today is exactly the day one of them is supposed to come near. Near enough for me to draw attention, I hope.
But how?
Lock extinguished the previous fire I had made and probably already brought the wood back to the hut for firewood when I was doing something else. Knowing him, he’d do anything to prevent them from coming here.
So I’d have to start a whole new fire if I wanted to make them see me, but I don’t have the time to gather the wood. They could be close at any moment, maybe even now.
Suddenly, it hits me.
I quickly bolt back into the jungle, back to the place I left the wood that I wanted to use for a boat.
I’ll use it to make a fire instead.
I don’t care about the boat anymore. Or about going home. None of it matters if Lock isn’t safe. If Lock doesn’t survive.
I shiver and shove the thought away as I find the wood and carry it back to the beach. It’s not a long walk, just a heavy one, but I manage. My body is set to survival mode, with only the thought of rescuing him the way he rescued me circling through my mind.
He came back to me, despite warning me.
He came to save me from that tiger …
Now it’s my turn to save him.
I haul the wood all the way to the beach. The moment I drop it, I notice a speck on the horizon … and it’s coming closer.
I run back to the hut where I find Lock ebbing away. I shake him, but he’s unresponsive, so I quickly grasp the torch and run back to the beach.
I light the wood in multiple spots and throw some dry grass onto it too, hoping it’ll stoke the flame. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” I yell, trying to get it to burn faster, so it’ll create a big bonfire large enough for the fire and smoke to show in the sky.
“This has to work,” I mumble to myself, toiling away.
The boat is still coming closer, so I run back into the woods and back to the hut, back to Lock.
I sit down in front of him and grab his hand, bringing it to my face so I can touch him again. His lifeless body makes me tear up again. “They’re coming, Lock. They’ll be here soon. Hold on.”
“J-Jules?” His voice is there but barely. It’s as though he’s becoming delirious.
