Rules For Spanking: MMF Bisexual Romance by A. Anders, Alex Anders (11)

I looked at her. The motion robbed me of the seconds I would have needed to save everyone. So, finally seeing what was descending upon us, I knew I had to make a choice.

Hyenas hunted in packs. Their yelping could be mistaken for laughs, or if you didn’t know what you were listening for, nighttime predatory birds. I had missed so much, but I was awake now.

I immediately made my choice. Knowing that I could only save Rose, I sprinted over, drawing my knife. Placing myself between her and the two beasts headed for her, I thought of Bob. He hadn’t moved. My chest hurt as I realized what I had done.

The first beast launched at me teeth-first. It really was an ugly thing. I caught it across the face with the edge of my blade, but when you entered a brawl, you had to expect to get hit. The hyenas did.

Fending off the first one, I felt the second one sink its teeth into my right leg. The pain rippled through me like a bolt of electricity. It wasn’t intended to be just a bite; the animal was attempting to snap my bone.

The power in its jaw was shocking. I had never encountered one of them before. The only thing I knew about them was that a pack could bring down an elephant.

I moved quickly, catching the leg-biter hilt deep in the neck. I would have thought that it would pull away in response. It didn’t. It coughed up blood, using its convulsions to do as much damage as it could. Like I said, hyenas were brawlers. They expected to be hit.

As its partner died still clamped to my leg, the first hyena sprung at me again. It lunged at my other leg. Breaking flesh, it backed off whenever I took a swing. It knew that if you took out its legs, the elephant would fall.

The first kept attacking, never allowing me to get the second one off of me. The raspy rattle of its pant taunted me. I could feel myself about to panic, unsure of what to do, until I had a realization; these two animals had fought better against me than the three men had. I had to respect them. I couldn’t treat them like stupid beasts. I had to use tactics to beat them.

Changing my mindset, I quickly figured out what they were doing. Although the first hyena was lunging at me, we were at a standoff. Like I had, the lunging hyena was waiting for its opening. Turning my attention to the dying animal clamped onto my leg, I lifted my blade high. If the first hyena wanted an opening, I was going to give it one.

It worked. As soon as the window opened, the hyena jumped through. As it did, I drove the blade into it. The beast twisted its head in surprise. The blade missed the meat of its neck, instead slicing the beast under its jaw.

With it shaken, I lifted my knife and struck again. Like a cricket, it launched itself to my right, running away. Then finally with all I had, I threw my knife downwards, slicing into the dying animal’s mouth. Prying its teeth apart, I felt the dead beast slump and fall limp.

When I looked up again, it was just in time to see it start all over. Two more were charging us. How many waves would they send at us? My chest clenched watching them approach, when suddenly bang!

It was a gun shot. Every hyena froze, and like that, I had my window.

I grabbed Rose’s arm and pulled her as I moved. Looking up, I saw Brad. Spotted with blood, he held a smoking gun in his hand. Seated with an arm braced behind him, he was doing his best to aim.

When he fired again, I scanned the ground for Gray’s gun. I found it buried in the grass. I raced towards it to grab it, but not knowing if I had time to shoot it, I looked around.  

What I saw in front of me made my face burn in terror. At least twenty of them were swarming towards us. Who knew how many more stood waiting beyond the tree line?

Brad fired again and like a flock of birds, the pack changed direction. It gave me the time I needed to retrieve Gray’s gun from the grass and fire. I shot at the one closest to me. I hit it, but it didn’t fall.

Their dozens of eyes were now focused on Brad and me. I looked around. Aiming, I fired at the one backing Thorin towards the cliff. It sprinted off.

Brad aimed at the one that snapped at Gray. It sprinted off. Finally, when I shot the one that refused to stop ripping at Bob’s lifeless flesh, the pack scattered.

I looked back at Rose, searching her body for blood.

“I’m fine,” she said still scared and out of breath.

I turned to the guys again. Brad was hurt, but he’d be fine. He was probably still shaken up from the blows I gave him. Gray rolled to his side and was probably catching his breath. Thorin had fallen to his knees and was crying in his hands.

Bob, however, looked bad. I moved to him, examining his wounds. A bit of blood dripped from his neck. My guess was that he had protected it in sacrifice of his legs because parts of his thighs were nothing but exposed meat.

“You’re gonna be alright,” I assured him. “Thorin, come here!”

Thorin came with tears still rolling down his cheeks. I tried not to judge him. Some people were built for situations like this one. Thorin was not one of them.

“Patch him up,” I ordered.

“With what?”

“Be creative!” I demanded.

My eyes shifted between the three fallen men. I examined their bloodied bodies, wondering how much of it I was responsible for. If I hadn’t been so damned quick to prove myself, they would have been able to protect themselves. Instead, they were grounded and half-conscious when the first hyena attacked.

I threw the gun down and roared in frustration. When I looked back at everyone, I realized that I had their attention. Staring back at them, I knew that I had to say the right thing.

“And this is why you don’t travel with your backs against a cliff!” I yelled.

It was a juvenile thing to say. After all, you can’t blame the kid if they don’t know how to read. You blame the adult who was supposed to teach them.

Still holding the butcher’s knife, I marched back to the hyena that died biting my leg. Standing over it, I kicked it onto its back. Getting onto my knees, I grabbed one of its hind legs and plunged the knife.

Sawing back and forth, I cut through bones and muscles forcing its release. As the limb fell into my hand, I looked at its face.

“You had my leg. Now I have yours.”

I stood up and turned around. Again, they were all staring at me. Okay, maybe I was acting a little crazy. Allowing them to get a better look at the leg, I explained myself.

“Dinner,” I said.

We hung around the area for about an hour longer. Then when Bob was strong enough to be more than dead weight on our shoulders, we took turns carrying him. Thorin and Brad were first, followed by Gray and myself. Rose offered to take a turn, but she was not a big woman and Bob was a big man.

By the end of the day, we hadn’t covered as much ground as I had hoped. Even beelining through the jungle, it would have taken us another two days with Bob on our shoulders.

Gray didn’t have to say what he was thinking. I could see it I his eyes. Brad and Thorin were probably thinking the same thing, but I had sworn to do everything I could to get everyone to the compound. I wasn’t about to leave Bob behind to die.

Finding a clearing, we settled in for the night. Smelling the soapy odor as the hyena thigh roasted, I wasn’t sure that it would be edible. It ended up being fine. It tasted tangy like all carnivores did. 

“I like it,” Thorin offered, perhaps trying to get us talking. It didn’t work.

After another long silence, I was the next one to speak. I had been trying to find the right time. It was amazing how I could fall from a cliff face or fight off wild animals, yet being alone with Rose was what I was the most afraid of.

I swallowed hard and forced the words out as casually as I could. “Guys, I’m gonna take Rose for some alone time.”

“If you get it, then we do, too,” Gray said, lacking his previous conviction.

“Not this time,” I explained.

I stood, offering Rose my hand. She took it, and I wondered if she could feel my pounding heart through my palm. I hoped not.

Once we entered the woods and it was just the two of us, things became very simple. I was just a boy holding a girl’s hand while walking in the moonlight. All things considered, it was a nice night for a walk.

“Can we sit?” I asked, finding a spot where we could see the full moon through the canopy.

For a while, we lay there separately, staring at the sky, but when I lifted my arm, she accepted the invitation and snuggled in. She settled once she rested her head on my chest.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” she said.

I was sure that she could. It was beating hard, but as she caressed my chest with her fingertips, I couldn’t help but relax.

“I was in the military,” I finally said.

“I guessed you were. Why didn’t you want anyone to know?”

“There were things that I’m not proud of.”

“Did you kill anybody?” she asked casually.

“Yeah.”

The sounds of the jungle night filled the silence until I was ready to speak again.

“I had a fiancé. She was in the military too. She outranked me. Usually dating below your rank was against the rules, but I was in the Special Forces, which is its own branch of the military. It was a mobile infantry division. We ran the Tods.”

“What’s that?”

“The semi-itods?”

Rose looked up, still not sure.

“Semi-autonomous robots. They’re like the pawns here, but they’re bigger. They also have a lot more firepower… and you can make them explode.”

“So, what you’re saying is that they’re nothing like the pawns?” she teased, offering me a gentle smile.

I smiled back. “I guess not.”

I paused, allowing my mind to wonder.

“Jill had a brother.”

“Jill?”

“My fiancé. They were very close. She definitely loved him more than she loved me. I would tease her by telling her that, and she would say that she loved us equally in different ways. But it wasn’t even close.

“Jill didn’t want him in the military. But she couldn’t stop him. They came from a military family. He thought of it as his birthright.

“Josh made it into Special Forces. She was very proud of him. She pulled some strings and got him under my command. She told me to protect him with my life. And she wasn’t kidding.

“But once I met him, I could see why she was so protective of him. It wasn’t just because he was her brother.

“You ever met a person who was so purely good that you tried to be better around them just so you didn’t ruin their goodness? That was Josh. He was the type of man that people wanted to follow. He was the type of person who could make general or be president.

“But once Josh came under my command, Jill didn’t have to ask me to protect him. He was one of my men, and we were all brothers. I would have laid down my life for any of them. That what we were there for.

“Our platoon’s specialty was tribal areas in wartime hotspots. It’s what our Tods were wired for. The routine was that we would identify a suspicious building, the Tods would break down the doors, lay down gun fire, and then scan the room for combatants and explosives.

“If they were successful and any threat was neutralized, they gave us the all-clear, and the boots went in to mop up. If they couldn’t secure the area, then we could set the Tods to explode.

“Well, one day we got an assignment. It was a multi-room one story in a tribal town. Nothing unusual. A suspected bomber. No problem. We moved in with our mobile base, released the Tods, and waited.

“The visuals indicated that the rooms were empty, and no explosives were detected. That was the all-clear.

“Josh took point. Manny and Phil covered the flanks, and I had the rear. But as soon as I stepped in, I knew something didn’t feel right. I ordered a search. We scanned the rooms. Still nothing.

“The last thing I heard was someone yelling my name. It was Josh trying to get my attention. After that, I felt a force hurl me to the ground, and I knew a bomb had gone off.

“I couldn’t hear anything, just a high-pitched tone. And the air was nothing but dust, and you could smell that chemical smell from after an explosion.”

“Did the Tods miss something?” Rose asked.

“Kind of,” I replied. “It was one of the Tods that exploded. The house was set up as a hotbox. It’s a room hackers use to highjack autonomous vehicles. They managed to highjack the Tods’ internals and trigger its bomb.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. When I got to my feet, I saw Manny and Phil on the ground next to me. I also saw the remaining Tod. Its display showed a coded countdown. The hacker couldn’t trigger an immediate detonation, so they set the timer to explode.”

“What did you do?” Rose asked.

“I had thirty seconds. I assessed the situation: two down, local. Crawling to my feet, I could see Josh in the second room. He was conscious and responsive but pinned.”

I paused as I remembered it.

“Actually, he saw me and was reaching out for me. I still couldn’t hear, but I was sure that he was saying my name. But I had twenty-five seconds before the second bomb went off.

“In a situation like that, you have to make quick decisions. I did. I grabbed the two men next to me and dragged them out of building… And I left Josh there to die.

“Forty feet was the safest distance to survive a Tod’s bomb blast. So when I got there, I dropped them, threw my body over them, and waited for the explosion. ‘It was a harrowing sight.’ That’s what I wrote in my report.

“The bomb went off, and the medical bot attended to Manny and Phil. When I went back for Josh’s body, there wasn’t enough to collect.”

“That’s awful!” Rose exclaimed.

“I remember being taken to the infirmary. I had lost a lot of blood. I had a lot of internal damage. A number of things had to be regrown.

“After five days, Jill came to see me. She had read the report, but she wanted to hear it from me. And I explained it to her exactly how I had written it.

“There were no words to describe how I felt. But she made her feelings clear to me. Before Josh entered my command, she stated that if it ever came down to Josh and me, and only one of us could come back alive, she expected it to be her brother.

“And I understood why she felt that. But I was still her fiancé. I still loved her more than anyone in the world.

“And I didn’t even realize I was doing it, but as I talked to her, I had reached for her hand. It was the touch of her skin that gave me the courage to ask, ‘Do you forgive me?’

“She pulled away. She walked out and never spoke to me again.”

“That’s terrible,” Rose said, genuinely heartbroken. “It wasn’t your fault. Why would she treat you like that? I feel bad for her, but didn’t you say that she was in the military?”

“She was a general.”

“Then didn’t she realize that something like that could happen?”

“I think every enlisted person knows it in theory. But you never really know it until it takes away someone you love.”

Rose and I laid in silence for a while. Rose was the first to speak. “Is that why you left the military?”

“No,” I said, dreading the question. “I left because they charged me with falsifying a report.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked, confused.

“It was that one. They said things didn’t add up. They asked me to explain it, and I couldn’t.”

“Wow. What do you think really happened? Was it Jill?”

“What happened was that I falsified the report.” I paused, hearing the words echo in my mind. “I’ve never actually said that aloud before. But yeah. I did.”

“So… wait. The story you told me about Josh, that’s not what happened?”

“It isn’t. And the commission in charge of the investigation said that ‘the facts so badly matched the evidence that it looked like I wanted to be caught.’ They even gave me the opportunity to revise it. But I wouldn’t. So they kicked me out.”

Rose stared at me through the ensuing silence before asking me softly, “So what really happened?”

“I’ve never told anyone before.”

Rose rubbed my chest, and my eyes welled with tears. I took a stilted breath, trying to hold myself together, and then forced myself to continue.

“The first bomb went off just as I wrote in the report. I saw Manny and Phil lifeless on either side of me. And I saw Josh reaching for me.

“I knew how much time I had. I could either try to save Josh or I could save Manny, Phil, and myself. I would like to say that I chose to save Manny and Phil. But maybe who I was looking to save was myself.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I remembered what I had spent five years trying to forget.

“Anyway. I couldn’t hear myself speak, but I yelled, ‘I’ll be back for you, Josh. I promise I’ll be right back.’ But I knew I didn’t have the time. I was leaving him there to die. And I told myself that these were the decision I was trained to make.

“I dragged the two men out counting down in my head. Six, five, four. I was at one when I had gotten out of the blast zone. I covered their bodies with mine and waited for the explosion. Nothing.

“A second passed and then two. I figured my counting was off or that there was a delay. So I kept lying there, sure that it would go off at any moment.

“But the seconds kept ticking. I couldn’t decide what to do. Special Forces troops are trained to trust the reliability of their Tods. If we didn’t trust them, people died. That’s what they drilled into us. Yet nothing was happening.

“I decided I could drag the two men to our mobile base as long as I stayed low. Because if the bomb went off, and I went down, there wouldn’t be any friendlies left to save any of us.

“It took me a minute, maybe two to get them there. I got the medical bot to attend to them, and I stood and stared back at the building. I started to panic. Someone still had to get these men back to camp. If I went back in and the Tod went off, it would kill me, and Manny and Phil would die out here.

“But I had told Josh that I would be back for him, and I didn’t go back. I had to go back for him no matter what happened.

“But I also knew my duty. It was my duty to save as many men as I could. I had to think of the greater good and all of the things that we are taught as SEALS.

“But, at the same time, I couldn’t leave him there because that was Josh. So I ran back to the house, expecting to die. And when I got to the Tod, the countdown was off. I ran to Josh to tell him that I was gonna get him out of there. But when I touched him. I realized that he was dead. He died while I was deciding whether or not I should save myself.

“If I hadn’t been a coward, I would have run back into that building immediately, and Josh would have lived. But I didn’t. I had stood watching like a chicken shit and because of that, Josh was dead.

“I lost it after that. I couldn’t stop crying. An enemy combatant hadn’t killed him. I had. And he had been a better man than I would ever be. Josh would have come back for me no matter the cost, whereas I had let him die.

“I couldn’t face myself after that. I couldn’t face what I had done. I knew I should have retrieved his body and taken him back to Jill, but I didn’t. I went back to the mobile base and exploded the Tod. I had thought that I could fool myself about what had happened there. But I couldn’t.

“That’s the whole story. That’s the truth. I’m a coward. All I am is a coward.”

The tears had never stopped rolling down my cheeks. I didn’t want them to. The least I could do was man up to what I had done. I didn’t deserve those tears. I didn’t deserve to be alive.

But it was then that Rose’s eyes caught mine. Her face looked so soft and kind. I clenched my jaw to keep it together, but staring into her gentle eyes, I felt my strength weakening.

“I want you to ask me what you asked Jill,” she said softly.

“What?”

“You said that you asked Jill something. Ask me it.”

I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t say that again now that she knew the truth.

“I…”

“Please!” she exclaimed, taking my hand between hers.

I couldn’t, yet I had to. My heart raced. My chest hurt. My eyes burned. I was completely falling apart. Yet, somehow it came out.

“Do you… forgive me?”

“Yes!” she said emphatically. “Yes, I forgive you!”

My body shook. I did what I could to stop it, but I couldn’t. I cried. I lost it. All of the pain I felt poured out of me in a tsunami of emotions.

“Ford, you’re a hero. You saved three people that day. You didn’t know what would happen if you went back in. It could have gone off. You did the right thing.”

I couldn’t speak, but I shook my head “no.” She didn’t understand. I could have gone back. I told him that I was coming back, and I didn’t. I had time to go back.

“Ford, you did the right thing,” she said, bouncing my hand for emphasis. “You did the right thing!”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I fell forward collapsing into her arms. Those words… I didn’t want to think about whether I deserved them or not. All I wanted was to hear those words again… and I did.

“Ford, you’re a hero. You did the right thing.”

Lying there holding that beautiful Rose in my arms, it was like the darkness had lifted its bat-like wings and had flown away. I was free.

My tears continued longer than I would like to admit, but when they stopped a new feeling came over me. Her. Rose. The one who had released me from that dark spell. I wanted her. No. I needed her. 

Like the air, I needed her. Like the sun and the world and the universe, I needed her. When my dry eyes next met hers, I found something unexplainable in them. Her eyes were telling me that she needed me, too.

I kissed her, but nothing like I had kissed her before. Our souls touched. Through our lips, I entered her, and she entered me. I could hear her heartbeat. When I slipped my hand onto the red hot flesh of her naked waist, the heat I felt stripped me of who I was and made both of us her.

I peeled off her shirt and her naked breast was next. Round and firm, I squeezed. She moaned. I pulled off my shirt and pressed my bare chest on hers. I locked our bodies together. She whipped her head back for breath.

Stripped of our cares and then our clothes, my hard manhood explored her. It slipped back and forth. In a moment that felt euphoric and like it would never end, I entered her truly, making us one.

“Ahhh!” she screamed, yearning for more.

Slowly rocking my hips back, I slid all of me into her. I could feel every part of her. Every ridge. Every curve. I could feel the end of her and her swollen beginning. All at once, holding onto me like a warm, perfect glove, every part of her quivered.

Holding her head in my hand like a sainted child, I felt her whip herself from side to side. Neither of us had much longer. Her grip had cut into my back. My manhood had pierced her. Then with a rush that threatened our consciousness, we exploded in a chorus of moans.

I blacked out and so did she. I knew because I saw her in the ether. Together, we embraced and watched the fireworks. It was timed to screams that sounded like our own.

When the fireworks ended and the show was through, we held each other’s ethereal hands, looked into each other’s eyes, and then let go. We returned to our bodies as quickly as we had left them. All that was left of what had been us were these two meat slabs, one of which still penetrated the other.

I tried not to think that this could be our one moment, our first and last time together, but the thought slithered through my mind any way. As it entered, the part of me that remained in her, shrunk out. We were again who we had been. The glory that had been us was no more. 

I released Rose’s warm body enough to find her bliss-filled eyes. She looked back at me and smiled. It was a bittersweet smile, though. As I stared at her, a tear rolled out. I reached up and brushed it with the back of my finger.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, seeing her face melt into sadness.

“Bob’s dead,” she declared, before wiping her eyes.

Her words surprised me. I wasn’t sure if I should let her go or hold her tighter. But she let me know by loosening my grip, rolling over, and spooning into me.

I held her as I was supposed to. It was what she wanted. I would do anything she needed me to do. All she had to do was ask.

What she said, though, consumed my thoughts for the rest of the night. How did she know that Bob had died? No red light had warned us.

Then sometime during the fleeting minutes of darkness, it hit me. Thorin had been right. Rose had been at the bottom of what was happening to us all along.

My heart sank thinking about it. Knowing this changed everything. I was going to have to make a choice: save my men as I had sworn to do or protect my girl.

 

 

 

As the sun rose behind us, I was reminded of a saying we had in the military: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” That never felt truer than it did today.

I felt lighter. My secret had festered in the darkness, but by shining a light on it, it had lost its power over me.

I felt stronger. Ready. I was whole, and like any new convert, I was an evangelist for what had saved me.

I had no doubt that I needed to make a decision. Now, like with Josh, I couldn’t save everyone. And whatever I decided could haunt me. It might tear me apart, crippling me like before.

The night before, Rose had saved me. After that, she had convinced me that she was at the center of everything that was happening to us.

Rose clearly had secrets. She had the ability to make people believe that they knew her better than they did, but what did any of us really know about her?

I thought that I probably knew the most. I knew that even with everything going on, she had the ability to look past herself, see exactly what I needed, and then give it to me. So I knew the depths of her compassion.

I also knew that she had a hole in her. Rose had dark thoughts that she constantly struggled with. Through that the darkness, she had come to the island believing she could find someone who could love her. So I knew the heights of her courage.

I turned to Rose. Her naked body glowed in the golden morning light. She was both angelic and strong. She was an amazing woman, and I decided it was my turn to do the saving.

I kissed her bare shoulder. She took a slow breath, rousing awake.

“Morning,” I said, prompting her to open her eyes.

I examined her soft face, wondering about her secrets. What did she know? And how could she sleep knowing it?

“Morning,” she said, groggily.

“We have to talk.”

Her eyes squinted as if drawing me into focus. “What about?”

“About you and how you knew that Bob was dead.”

I could tell that she had slept comfortably because my reminder jolted her. She lay frozen as everything rushed back to her. When the burden of all of it again appeared on her face, she spoke.

“I don’t know what it is, but I feel a connection to all of you. I didn’t notice it at first. But the fewer of you there are, the stronger the connection gets. Now, I can almost hear your heartbeats.”

“Is it the chip?” I asked.

She looked at me, saying nothing.

“Did you do this to us?” I asked, trying not sound accusing.

“No. I didn’t. Is that what everyone thinks?”

“It’s hard to know what to think,” I admitted.

Rose reached up and stroked my hair. “Do you believe that I did this?”

“If you did, it wasn’t on purpose,” I said, immediately regretting it.

She withdrew her hand and rolled away. Still naked, she lay on her back, staring into the cloudy morning sky. I joined her. For the first time since I got to the island, it looked like it would rain.

Still lost in the clouds, Rose began again. “I could tell that you didn’t know anything about me when you met me. But has anyone told you yet?”

She was talking about the fact that everyone else knew her. Even Kurt, the kindergarten teacher, had recognized her from somewhere. I had just assumed that, like Brad, she was game-show famous.

“I only know what you told me,” I admitted.

She responded with silence. I couldn’t imagine what she felt she had to hide from me, considering what I had shared with her.

“I got chipped when I was eighteen. Fresh out of high school. A recruiter had come to my school, telling us about all of the money we’d make as a product tester. And how, as a pretty girl, they’d pay me even more.” Rose laughed sarcastically. “At eighteen, that type of money seemed like a fortune. It was more than my entire family made. So I let them chip me. All I had to do was live my life while their researchers watched everything I said and did.

“It wasn’t hard work, and the money was already good. But on top of my salary, I would get bonuses. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t bother to ask. It was just all free money.

“It didn’t take long before things went really bad with my family. They didn’t like what I was doing. They thought it was porn or something. And then after a huge fight, they made me choose between them and my job.

“I ended up moving into my own place. I had never even seen somewhere so nice. I had gotten everything I had ever dreamed of, and I didn’t have to do anything for it. So I did what any twenty-year old would do; I slept all day and partied all night with my chipped friends.

“It was then that the bonus checks really started rolling in. There were so many of them that I had to ask what they were for. The company told me that I got one whenever I inspired a new product that made it to market.

“So, great! Somebody found me inspiring, and I got free money for it. Everybody wins, right?”

Rose stopped talking. I looked at her, wondering if she had finished. She lay still. Her mouth hung open as if frozen mid-speech. I reached over and touched her. Her eye moistened and a tear traced a path to her ear.

I wasn’t sure what was going on. With her still not moving, I rolled onto my elbows for a better look.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said aggressively. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I didn’t understand what was going on. Helpless, all I could think to do was hold her. I did, and she cried more.

“Do you know what it’s like to know that people are watching every embarrassing, gross, humiliating experience you have and to know that you could never hide any of it? To be watched every second of every day. To know that they were judging you, making fun of you, jacking off to you? And to know that you could never escape them?

“The bonus checks were larger when I partied. So I would party until I couldn’t remember that there were people in my head. But then I would sober up and the memories would come back.

“Eventually, I started dating an anti-chipper. The company didn’t like it, but I didn’t care. I loved him. We would go out, and I would pay for everything while he ranted about how evil my company was and how horrible I was for doing what I was doing.

“But I knew that he didn’t mean it against me. In fact, whenever he spoke, he wasn’t even really talking to me. He was talking to them. I was just his camera.

“Oh, and he would never touch me,” Rose scoffed. “To him, anyone who did what I did was corporate trash. And I felt like a trash. So I liked to hear him say it. It made what I felt on the inside match how I thought people saw me. It gave me a strange satisfaction.

“And then one day when I desperately needed to hear him say it, I asked him if he could ever love me. I had expected him to say that he already did love me. I thought that was why he said those aweful things to me. But instead he said that he could never love me as long as my chip was on.

“Well, I really needed him to love me. At least, I needed someone to love me. So I marched into my company’s headquarters and demanded that they shut off my chip. And they did.

“I was so happy after that. I was free. I knew that now, he could love me and we could finally be together like how I dreamed we could be.

“I rushed to him and told him what I had done. But as soon as I did, I could see the spark in his eyes fade. I was his camera. Without that, all I was to him was used up trash.”

The tears again rolled down her cheeks. This time, she quickly wiped them away. Her pain washed through me in waves. I wanted to pull her tight and promise to fix everything for her, but I couldn’t. What she needed was the sunlight. So I rubbed her arm gently and listened.

“What happened after that?” I asked, prompting her to continue.

“Nothing. I couldn’t find a job. I was twenty-six years old, and I didn’t know how to do anything but be a camera. I never saved anything. The money came in so easily that I thought it would last forever. And when it stopped… ” She shrugged her shoulders. “What else could I do? I mean…” She stopped and looked away. “There was nothing else I knew how to do.

“For eight years, people had paid to watch me have sex. What was the difference between being paid by guys in lab coats and being paid by some guy behind a computer? At least this way, I could shut the camera off whenever I wanted.

“So that’s what I did. I was good at it, and it wasn’t just about sex. They would watch me live my life. I would look into the mirror and make videos where I talked to them.

“I told them about myself and my thoughts. They posted comments cheering me up when I was sad. They cared about me more than anyone else ever did. I just didn’t know them.

“And, so what if they also watched me have sex? It really felt like they all loved me. At least someone loved me. And do you know how it feels to be loved by millions of people after being loved by no one? It’s amazing.

“You just have to keep believing that it’s real. That’s all. But after a while, I couldn’t. Not for another second. I was as alone as I had always been.

“And then one day, a miracle happened. I got an email saying that I was personally invited to participate in a game show where I would be guaranteed to find love.”

Rose’s eyes darted, as she tried not to become emotional again.

“I was such a fool.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I mean, what did I think? That someone would come here and be able to see me and love me? No. Instead, they used the chip in my head to kill people. Why would someone do that to me, Ford? Huh?”

I didn’t know the answer.

“Why had I believed that someone could ever see me? I’m nothing. I’m what people look through to see what they want to see. I’m the camera,” she said with a sniff.

“‘You can’t love something that isn’t there.’ That’s what my boyfriend would say to me. And he was right. I don’t even exist. I’m nothing. I’m invisible,” she concluded, wiping the endless tears from her eyes.

I paused, staring at her. I reached up and gently brushed her chin with the side of my hand. She turned her face and looked at me. She was vulnerable and beautiful and damaged and wonderful. Looking at her made my heart hurt.

“I see you,” I said softly. “I can see you.”

It was then that she revealed herself to me for the first time. She let go of her hardened façade and cried. She showed me her anger, her joys, and her fears. She showed me her pain. Most of all, she showed me her capacity to love. She threw her arms around me, and I promised her that I would hold on to her for as long as she needed me.

When Rose let go, it was to sit up. “What if we don’t go back?” she whispered. “I’m choosing you. I can tell them, or whoever has to know. I’ll tell them.”

I looked away, and she shifted to look into my eyes.

“We could just escape somewhere. We could disappear, and they’ll never know.”

My brow furrowed as I stared back. I knew that if she suddenly got up and walked away, I would follow her. I would follow her anywhere she wanted to go. But I didn’t want her to ask me for this promise. I couldn’t leave my men to die alone again.

She lowered her eyes and spoke softly. “If they find out that I’ve chosen you, they’ll try to kill me. I know they’ve talked about it.”

I considered what she had said. She was right. If they thought that it was the only way they could stay alive, they would kill her. They couldn’t know about us.

“I’ll protect you, no matter what. But we’ll have to keep everything a secret.”

Rose paused and looked down. She didn’t hide her pain. “I can’t watch them all die, Ford. I can’t.”

“If we can get to the compound, then you won’t have to.”

“But I can’t help how I feel about them. I can’t control it.”

“Then you have to remind yourself how much you need them. The eliminations aren’t at exact intervals. Remember Carl? That happened hours after Victor. You have some control. Just remind yourself that we need all of them if we’re gonna make it to the compound.

“If we get attached again, I’ll need Gray’s help. Brad is the medicine man. You know that. Thorin is the only one who knows how to remove the chips.

“And when we get to the compound there could be dozens of people. I’ll need all of their help if we need to fight our way in. We need all of them. Stay focused on that.”

Rose wasn’t convinced, but what I said gave her hope. She hadn’t told me much about her experiences with the chip, but what I said seemed to make sense to her. Maybe she had a reason to believe my suggestion would work.

We both got dressed and headed back toward last night’s camp. It was later than I would have liked, but perhaps now that Rose knew how important everyone was, the lost time wouldn’t matter.

We walked in silence. I wanted to take her hand, but I didn’t. It was already bad enough that I had spent the night with her. I didn’t want to tip anyone off about what exactly went on. I wasn’t Brad.

It was then that I remembered Bob. He had seemed stable when we left. Had Rose’s chip killed him, or had it been something else? Or, could Rose be wrong? Was he still alive?

Thinking about finding another dead man, my chest clenched. I had sworn to myself to get them all to the compound, but here was yet another failure. I had to keep reminding myself that if we hurried and Rose could control the chip, he would be the last one.

“We should hurr…”

Bang! I flinched back when I heard the gunshot. It was instinct. Rose squealed. I moved to catch her, but she fell. “Rose!” I screamed.

I threw myself to the ground next to her. She held the side of her face. She looked stunned.

“Are you hit?” I whispered, touching her.

She looked at me scared.

“Let me see,” I demanded.

She removed her hand from her ear. The cartilage on the edge of her lobe was torn. It resembled an earring being ripped out. It wasn’t bad.

Rose looked at her palm. Finding only a light smear of blood, her tense body loosened.

“You’re fine,” I whispered holding a finger to my lips to silence her.

I had no doubt who had taken the shot. I looked around, seeing nothing but trees. “Goddammit, Gray! What did you do?”

For a moment, all I got back was silence. Then Gray yelled back, “Did I get her?”

“Yeah. You got her, Gray. She’s dead.”

Another pause followed. “And we’re all still alive. You should have let me do this a long time ago. Maybe Bob would still be alive.”

I closed my eyes, locking onto his voice. When I opened them, I knew which direction he was in and how far away he was. I signaled for Rose to get up but stay low.

“Bob’s dead?” I asked to keep him talking.

“Yeah. That bitch killed him.”

“So you had to kill her for revenge?”

I pointed at a tree a few meters away. I told her to hide behind it.

“Revenge? No. I knew I was next. It was either going to be me or her. I had to take my chances. But she’s dead now, and nothing happened. I took charge, and I saved everyone, even your ass. You should be thanking me.”

I understood what he was doing. He was asking for permission to come out of hiding.

“You’re right, Gray. I wouldn’t have done this. I would have protected her until the very end. But considering the argument she and I just had, she probably would have eliminated me next,” I lied.

“Then I saved your ass?” he asked with building confidence.

“You saved us all. You did what the rest of us couldn’t.”

That did it. I heard him approaching. Staying low, I headed in the opposite direction of Rose.

“You damn right I did. And you just keep in mind how many people would still be alive if you all had just listened to me from the beginning. You’re gonna have to live with that on your shoulders. Not me. You.”

I watched as he approached the spot where Rose fell. He looked around confused. His smug confidence was replaced by intense fear. He pointed his gun in front of him.

“What did you do, Ford?” he asked with mounting dread.

I didn’t answer. He scurried forward, looking for us.

“I’ll tell you what you did,” he shouted. “You got me killed you son-of-a-bitch!”

I watched as he turned in Rose’s direction. I had to draw him away from her.

“That wasn’t me, Gray. That was you.”

He turned slowly, heading toward me. “Why are you doing this, huh? Why are you protecting her? Is it because you think she loves you? She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t know how.

“You ever watch her vid feed, Ford? You ever watch her fuck one of those guys? And there were a lot of them, Ford. A whole goddamn lot of them.

“You ever fuck the same guy twice, Rose? If you did, I never saw it. And Ford, after every time, she’d tell ‘em that she loved them. Every goddamn time.

“She told me that she loved me, and I didn’t even fuck her. She told Brad, and you know she fucked him. Hell, she probably even fucked Thorin.”

“I never did anything with Thorin!” Rose yelled.

A prickly panic washed over me, not because she had given up her position and Gray was headed towards her, but because her limited denial revealed so much. It confirmed that everything else Gray had said had been true.

I swallowed hard. My stomach bubbled, telling me that Gray was right. I didn’t know who she was. Had she been using that fact to manipulate me? Did she believe that I would be the only one to fall for her act?

Thoughts rushed through my mind. She told me what she did for a living. She had sex while millions watched. Is that why she had had sex with me? Was she performing for the cameras? Had she agreed to do the show even after the producers had told her that everyone she eliminated would die?

Rose’s voice snatched my attention. “It’s not true, Ford.”

“Don’t say anything, Rose,” I snapped, knowing that she was revealing her position.

“Oh, you know it’s true, Rose,” Gray said, encouraging her to talk. “Everything I said was true. You just love everybody, don’t you? And you don’t care who you fuck.”

“Ford, I swear to you, you’re different.” Her weak denial hurt my heart. “You have to believe me,” she yelled.

“He’s trying to get you to talk so that he can kill you. You have to stop talking,” I demanded.

“But we’re all dead anyway, right?” Rose replied. “There’s no way that any of us are leaving this island.”  

“You don’t know that,” I countered.

“It doesn’t matter. None of this matters anymore,” Rose said. “But before I die, I need you to know the truth; I don’t know what love is. That’s the truth. And that’s why I never said it to you. I didn’t wanna lie to you.”

“Why me?” I asked, desperately trying to process it all.

“Because I knew that you were the only one who had hadn’t recognized me. You didn’t already make up your mind about me. You had the best chance of seeing me, the real me, and not the fantasy,” she admitted.

Her words sounded so convincing. But didn’t she perform for a living? “I don’t know who you are, Rose.”

“I know. And that makes two of us. But I know who you are. You’re a good man. You deserve to be with someone better than me.

“I think Gray’s right. If I die, it may save everyone else.”

“You don’t know that,” I yelled back to her.

“But even if there’s a chance…”

I could hear in her voice that she had given up. It was at that moment that I felt the first drop of rain.

“The numbers are clear. You have to save as many people as you can. I know that’s what you’re gonna do anyway because you’re a hero. That’s what heroes do. And Ford…”

I looked out from behind my tree to see Rose step out from behind her own. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her eyes found mine. “I forgive you,” she said. She then closed her eyes, lifted her arms and prepared to die.

Gray, ten feet from her, raised his gun. When he did, everything in front of me slowed to a crawl. It felt like I was the only one moving, and I was moving fast. I was screaming. I knew Gray would turn to look at me. Split seconds. That’s all we’re ever looking for.

Frantically turning around, he aimed his gun at me. He would get a shot off before I got there. I couldn’t help that. All I could hope for was that he would miss.

The gun fired. I flinched, not sure if I was hit. I couldn’t tell. I was still moving forward, though. He wouldn’t have a chance for another shot.

I ducked and swung my arm, redirecting his aim. Charging at full force, my shoulder barreled into his stomach, lifting him into the air. When he landed, the force of the impact robbed him of breath.

I couldn’t possibly save Gray at this point. I knew he wouldn’t stop trying to kill Rose. Either he was going to walk away from this fight or I was. Rose needed it to be me.

Straddling him, I hit him in the face. I heard bones break. It was a sound I had heard before. Considering the density of a skull, odds were that the bones breaking were my own.

I didn’t stop, though. I couldn’t. I hit him until he was bloody. I didn’t want to kill him, but I had to. Rose was right. It was a matter of numbers. If Gray killed her, every one of us could die. I had to kill Gray.

When Gray looked like he couldn’t take anymore, I stopped. His head wobbled, but his eyes slowly locked onto mine. In them, I could see his humanity.

He hadn’t asked for any of this nightmare. None of us had. He had the chance to kill me when he woke and found me unconscious next to him in the woods, but he didn’t. I had to find another way, I decided. I must find another way.

A shot fired. I had lost track of his gun. I had assumed that I had knocked it out of his hand or that he had let it go when he slammed onto the ground, but neither had happened. He had held onto it even as I pummeled him. In the split second that I had considered saving him, he had aimed the gun at my gut and had fired.

It wasn’t the first time that I had been shot, so I knew the score. A shot in a limb was what you hoped for. I mean, no one hoped to be shot, but if you had to take a bullet, that was where you wanted it.

You could live after a shot to the head, but odds are you wouldn’t want to. A shot to the chest was the one most likely to kill you. A shot to the stomach, though, you saved for the people you really hated.

I fell to the side as the intense wave of pain took over me. The acids from my punctured organs burned my insides. The putrid smell and the blinding pain was torture. I couldn’t move.

I could see, though. Gray hadn’t been as hurt as I had thought. He slowly pulled himself to his feet as the raindrops grew heavier around him.

Standing above me, he didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. I knew what he was going to do next.

I watched as he lifted his gun, pointing it at my chest. He aimed it where he didn’t think I would survive, and he was right. I thought his face would be the last thing I’d see.

“Gray!” Rose yelled with fury.

Gray turned and saw her. Her wet hair lay flat. Her dampened shirt clung to her chest while the ferocity in her eyes screamed death.

I looked up through the canopy of dancing leaves to find the tower. Its brightening red light bounced off the raindrops and lit up the stormy gray sky. By the time I looked back, Gray had already begun to choke.

Gray lifted his gun. It didn’t get past his waist before he dropped it. Desperate to breathe, he reached for his throat, but it did no good. Coughing, Gray fell to his knees and died.

I watched Rose as she stared intensely at the body below her. Looking at her, I knew she was wrong. She could control what was going on. How much of it, I still didn’t know.

“Rose?” I said, barely able to speak.

Her face melted when she turned and saw me. She hurried to my side. She didn’t know what to do. She was scared.

Rose fidgeted over me. I knew that there was nothing she could do. I was losing blood all over the place, and a gunshot to the stomach was fatal.

I reached up and grabbed her wet arm. All I wanted was for her to slow down and look at me. If my life ended here, I wanted her beautiful face to be the last thing I saw before I died, and my time was coming fast.

 

 

 

My mind slowed down as I listened to the patter of the raindrops on the leaves. It was soothing. I was sure that my mind was easing itself into death. The mind-warping pain was also a tip off.

“Brad! Thorin! Help!” Rose yelled.

“Stop!” I said, knowing that they could have approved Gray’s plan. “Don’t risk it.”

But she didn’t stop. She continued to yell until she got a reply.

“Rose? Are you okay? Where are you?” Brad shouted.

“I’m okay. Gray shot Ford. I need help.”

I tried to object again, but I was too tired to speak.

“Don’t move,” she told me, pushing me back down. “You’re losing a lot of blood. The others are coming. They’ll know what to do.

“No,” I finally squeaked out over the blinding pain.

“Trust me. I’ll protect you.”

Rose lovingly touched my cheek and offered me a warm smile. It was comforting. It told me that she was going to do everything she could to protect me. Knowing that, my muscles relaxed.

The sound of the building storm drowned out any approaching footsteps. All I could do was watch as Rose scanned the trees. I again wondered who the beautiful creature was next to me. I didn’t think I would ever completely know. All I knew was that she was complex and unlike anyone I had ever met.

Rose stood as Brad and Thorin approached us. Brad immediately checked Gray and Thorin kneeled over me.

“We couldn’t control him,” Brad explained. “Last night after Bob died, Gray took the guns and told us that he was gonna put an end to this. By the time we figured out what he meant, he was gone.”

“He tried to kill me,” Rose said, touching her ear. “I’m alright. But…” She paused. “He was going to shoot me, and Ford stopped him.” She had left out the part where she was going to let him shoot her, but that was probably for the best.

Thorin, who had been poking and prodding at me, stuck his hand under me in search of an exit wound. When he found it, his touch sent a blinding jolt of electricity through me. I couldn’t see or hear anything until the sensation subsided.

“You’ve gotta help him,” Rose insisted as my senses returned to me. Both men looked away. “It was his plan to get to the compound,” Rose continued. “Do you really think you can get there without him?”

“Can we get there with him?” Brad countered. “Carrying him would be like transporting dead weight.”

Listening to the men debate my fate, I realized how Josh must have felt watching me carry Manny and Phil out, leaving him behind. Brad and Thorin were right. The smartest thing would be to leave me. I would slow them down. Everyone knew it.

“No!” Rose exclaimed. “If you all leave him here, then I’m staying with him. And I’ll just accept that it was you two who let him die.”

The two guys looked at each other. They understood that it was a threat. Yet, neither conceded.

“You get it, right?” Brad asked with more directness than I would have expected. “You know what you’re asking us to do?”

“To save the man who wouldn’t hesitate to save either of you if the situation was reversed?” Rose asked Brad, not backing down. “Thorin?”

“Rose, Brad has a point. Our lives are at stake here. You are practically asking us to sacrifice our lives for his.” 

“I’m not asking for anything like that. I’m asking you to do the right thing. He would do the same for any of us. I think you know he would.” Rose paused before continuing. “But if you think Gray was right, if you think that killing me is the only way that you can save yourself, then I’m ready to die. Just promise me that you’ll help him once I’m gone.”

As I watched Rose fight for my life, I finally began to understand who she was. In the military, we were taught to put your lives in someone else’s hands. As the man who always carried someone else off the battlefield, I thought it meant that I had to be ready to sacrifice my life for the man next to me.

But now, lying helpless for the first time, I began to understand what it truly meant. Putting your life in someone else’s hands meant that you had hands to fall into when you needed help. Knowing that, I knew who Rose was. Rose was the person I could trust with my life.

“If you leave, you’re leaving me here,” Rose said again.

Thorin continued to argue while Brad did not. Withdrawing himself from the conversation, Brad seemed to be searching his soul. By the end, he appeared to be defeated. If I didn’t know him better, I would have sworn that he was giving up.

As quickly as he gave me a glimpse of what he hid behind his smile, the glimpse was gone. Brad straightened up, stood tall, and removed any signs of sadness. Again looking confident, he glanced over at me and found me staring back.

We looked at each other for a moment. He knew that I had seen behind his curtain. I wondered if he would be embarrassed. His response was to give me a playful smile and then walk away.

Rose called after him, but he kept going. Quickly, he was deep within the trees and out of sight. I thought that was the last I would see of him, but to everyone’s surprise, in minutes, he was back.

Rose and Thorin stopped talking as he pushed past them. Kneeling next to me, he spit a wad of something thick into his fingers. He then shoved it deep into my wound, and yeah, it hurt.

He followed that with three more of the same. He was not gentle. It was excruciating. I couldn’t form words, but I gave him a guttural review of his bedside manner.

Brad flashed me a devilish smile and leaned in so only I could hear. “I always knew that I would make you moan.” Uhhh, yeah, I didn’t have a response to that.

“What did you put in him?” Rose asked.

“It’s a mixture of anticoagulants, disinfectants, and a little something that he might appreciate. With enough rest, he’ll be fine.”

Brad looked up at Rose. She was speechless. 

“You’re welcome, by the way,” Brad chided.

“Thank you!” she finally said.

The guys dragged me under a tree as we waited out the downpour. As I lay there enjoying the extra he added for me, I wondered why he had helped me. The guys were right. They gained nothing by helping me, and Brad had to know that with me gone, his chances were very high.

Perhaps he thought he would get points with Rose for helping me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it had to be something. Brad never stopped playing the game.

“Thank you,” I said when I could speak again.

He looked at me and barely acknowledged what I had said. “We need to keep moving,” Brad announced suddenly.

“He needs more time to rest,” Rose argued.

She hadn’t sat next to me, but she was keeping an eye on me. When I made a motion to get up, she was immediately by my side to stop me.

“No, Brad’s right. We’ve spent too long here already. The rain’s lightening, and we have to keep moving.”

I couldn’t get up on my own, so I was grateful when Rose offered me her shoulder.

“We’ll take him,” Brad said, signaling Thorin.

I couldn’t help much, but I made sure that they didn’t have to drag me. Whatever Brad had put in me was amazing. Not only did it seal my wound, but I felt better by the second. Within an hour, I was supporting much of my own weight.

I was testing my building strength when Brad startled me with a laugh. I looked at him, but he continued uninhibited. Perhaps because of the tension, his laugh brought an unexpected smile to all of our faces.

Rose was the one to ask, “What’s so funny?”

“This.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“All of this. Being trapped on an island with the black widow up there.”

He nodded his head towards Rose. She stopped smiling when she realized that he was talking about her.

“I’m grateful to you for saving my life and all, but cool it with the black widow crap,” I said, hoping it would be enough. 

“What? You don’t find this hilarious? Of all people, you’ve got to think this is funny. You didn’t even like her when you first met her. You didn’t care whether or not you got to stay. Now she’s got us doing everything we can to save you, and we’re doing it, knowing that she’s gonna kill us for it. If you don’t see the humor in that, then you’re just not looking.”

“Seriously, Brad. Shut up,” I ordered.

“I have to admit, it is kind of funny,” Thorin said from my other shoulder.

“See, he gets it,” Brad said proudly.

“Everyone, seriously, shut up!” I said in a hushed tone. “I think something’s following us.”

Everyone froze, standing very still. I wasn’t sure what I had heard.

“It’s the rain,” Thorin suggested.

“Shhh!” I hissed.

Thorin was right. The rain had gotten harder. It battered the leaves high above us and then hit the ground in large splashes, but I searched the millions of tapping droplets and heard it again.

The noise stopped my breath. It sounded like someone desperately trying to suppress their laughter. My heart pounded as the image appeared in my mind: hyenas. We were being hunted.

“Go!” I shouted knowing that they had heard it, too.

We all moved as fast as we could. I knew I was slowing everyone down, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Even if I escaped the two men’s grasp, I was sure that Rose would lag behind to protect me. If she died, it could kill them all.

No, the only thing I could do was block out the shots of pain that pulsed through me as I ran. Our attackers’ mocking laughter helped. I didn’t have to look back to know they were getting closer. With one almost on top of us, Brad did what I always guessed he would.

Supporting me by the waist, Brad shifted his grip under my arm and pushed it over his head. Though I expected him to run off, I wasn’t quite prepared for it. I couldn’t yet support my weight. So when I slipped in the wet dirt, I took Thorin down with me.

Unable to stop my momentum, I slid face first through the mud. Needing to see what was coming, I anchored my fingers and twisted. As I turned, a lone hyena burst through the branches. Its manic eyes were focused on me. Knowing I was defenseless, I decided to give Thorin as much time as I could to escape.

Two steps away, and then one, it leapt towards me. Its fangs and teeth were aimed at me. Its yelps enveloped me and then gunfire exploded.

The hyena continued forward, lowering its head. I froze as its muscular body enveloped me, collapsing on top of me. Though I expected to feel the familiar rip at my flesh, I felt nothing. With one shot, it was dead.

I looked around to see who had done it. Brad lowered his gun. I was stunned.

“Come on,” he commanded, helping me back onto his shoulder.

Running again, we didn’t have to guess if more were behind us, as their cries assaulted our ears. We could hear a lot of them. I wondered if scaring them off the first time had caused them to bring in reinforcements.

“Over there,” Rose shouted from ahead.

I looked to our right through the curtain of rain. I could make out a clearing, and on the far side, I could see a cave with a four-foot opening. It would be a perfect place to hide if not for one problem; it was the only dry spot on this island. The odds of finding it empty were zero to none. But what choice did we have? We would have to fight our way in.

“Someone with a gun go first,” I ordered.

“I’ll do it,” Brad volunteered, again making me wonder if I had known him at all.

Brad handed me to Rose, and we watched him run ahead. I knew that the next few seconds would determine our fate. We didn’t have enough guns to fight off the approaching cackle. If Brad found something similar inside, our trek was about to end.

Brad scurried into the cave gun first. Consumed by the darkness, he didn’t make a sound. His silence was swallowed by the yipping behind us. Succumbing to the moment, Rose began to shake under my arm.

Feeling Rose’s fear cleared my mind. As weak as I was, I remembered my purpose. I was going to do everything I had to do to keep her alive. I was about to blindly order everyone in, when Brad’s voice echoed out from the cave. 

“Come in! It’s safe,” he yelled.

Running to the opening, I shifted my weight onto Thorin. Pushing Rose forward, she crouched and slid in.

Falling to the ground, I scurried in after her. As I crawled, Thorin pushed me forward. As I crossed the opening, Brad grabbed me under my arm and pulled.

“Hurry!” Brad demanded before tossing me aside.

With Thorin climbing in on top of me, Brad crouched by the cave’s opening, filling it with his body. A deafening gunshot echoed off of the claustrophobic walls. My ears felt like they were bleeding. When Brad fired a second shot, it made it worse.

Even after removing my hands from my ears, it took five minutes for the buzzing to diminish. When it did, the first thing I heard was the crackle of horrific laughter. I had preferred the buzzing. A minute after that, all of it fell silent to the hush of drumming rain.

Finally having caught my breath, I looked back up at Brad. He now sat in the entrance, though he was still focused and aimed. Looking past him through the curtain of water, I saw the hyenas. The drenched beasts paced wildly, plotting their way in, but with Brad standing guard, I knew we’d be safe.

Turning back toward the darkness, a few shapes appeared. My eyes were beginning to adjust, and I could see Rose and Thorin leaning against the wall. Still lying in the mouth of the opening, I chose an open space to the side, and I crawled towards it.

I grunted and groaned as I moved and had to catch my breath again once there. My panting became the only sound breaking our silence. After that, we all sat quietly focused on the rain-battered hyenas moving back and forth beyond the opening. We were protected from them for now, but we all knew that we weren’t really safe.

“We’re running out of time,” Thorin announced, barely softening his voice.

“Do you have any bright ideas? Because I’m all ears.” Brad mocked.

“There are less of them now,” Rose pointed out.

I looked past Brad at our wet jailers. She was right.

“We’ll wait for them to leave, and then we’ll all go,” Rose continued.

“No,” I corrected. “You all will go. I’ll stay here.”

“Are you abandoning your men again, commander?” Rose taunted.

The words pierced my heart as suddenly as any bullet could. It was as if she had had them locked and loaded, ready to fire. At my first attempt to speak, all I could do was swallow.

“No,” I eventually said. “I’m helping you all survive.”

“You can’t help us if you’re not with us. And you certainly can’t help us if you’re dead.”

Brad snorted his derision. Rose looked at him but didn’t respond. Her favoritism toward me was obvious. I wanted to equalize things, but I didn’t know how.

When she had offered to sacrifice herself, I had stopped her. Now that I was trying to sacrifice myself, she was blocking me at every turn. I had no more right to be upset with her than she had to be with me.

“We’re gonna stay here. Ford will have time to rest and maybe those things will lose interest,” Rose explained.

“All of us might not survive until then,” Thorin pointed out. He was saying what everyone else was thinking.

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Rose challenged. “Do you wanna kill me? Is that what you want?”

“No. I never said that,” Thorin replied meekly.

“Then what? Fight past what’s outside? I don’t remember you doing so well the last time we had to do that, Thorin. In fact, I remember you on your knees crying like a baby, and the man who saved your ass needs more time to rest. So tell me, do you want to head the charge and lead us where we need to go, Thorin?”

The darkness hid his true humiliation, but it was as clear as a stench that threatened to suffocate us.

“Yeah. I didn’t think so,” she concluded, allowing the cave to again fall silent.

No one dared speak for hours after that. Every so often, I checked for pain. My miraculous recovery continued on pace. I still couldn’t walk on my own, but I wasn’t sure if magic dust could have done much better.

The rain continued as the sun set, and the daytime gloom was replaced by the tower’s light. It was as we stared at the diminishing cackle that the tower shifted from white to pink. When it did, Brad and Thorin looked at Rose. I did not.

Brad snorted. “You can never guess how your life will end up, can you?” He released Rose from his gaze and became surprisingly relaxed.

“You know, I call myself a botanist, and maybe that’s what I once was. But I know that all I am now is a glorified drug dealer. And I’m not even very good at that. There’s one rule, ‘Never get high on your own supply.’ But I guess I’ve never been much for following rules.”

I listened to Brad wondering what he was doing. But seeing the light redden behind him and his grip tighten on his gun, I had an idea.

“I’m with you, Ford,” Brad said, drawing my attention. “I didn’t come here looking for love. I don’t even know what that is. Do you all wanna know how I made my living before these game shows? I was an entertainer. And when you’re sexually liberal, you can always find work.

“Not having a chip in my head was a problem, of course.” Brad looked back at Rose. “She knows what I mean. The viewers want to be able to switch perspectives. What is she seeing? Now, what is he seeing?” he paused. “Eh, I got by.

“I was proud of not having a chip, though. It allowed me to believe that I wasn’t like her,” he said with a nod. “Giving people access to every moment of your life can fuck you up. No offense.” He looked at Rose and held up his hand apologetically. She waved him off with a head nod.

“But I was sitting at home, probably high, and my assistant tells me that a game show was looking for contestants. Since there was no chip required, I was excited. If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was hold a viewer’s attention. I could barely wait.

“This show felt like all of the others when I came in for the interview. All the usual questions. All the same paperwork. And headed here, I was already planning the fun I would have. Viking funerals don’t just happen, you know,” he said with a smile.

“Meeting Rose, though, that was a problem. I recognized her from her vid feed. I mean, who wouldn’t recognize Rose? She was famous. She was everything I wanted. And here she was looking for love. She was genuinely looking for love. How could I resist that?

“If there was anyone I would consider my perfect partner in crime, it was Rose Kaitlyn. I could understand her, and she could understand someone like me. I was sure of it. And then hanging out in her cabin every night, holding her in my arms, there was nothing I couldn’t tell her.

“Yet, here we are.” Brad looked back at Thorin. “The guy who’s gonna save her life…” He turned to me. “The hero… and me. How do you like them apples?”

The cave echoed with the sound of rain pounding on the limestone outside. The storm was picking up again.

“I’m not a hero,” I contested.

“Not a hero?” Brad balked. “You couldn’t be more heroic if you were wearing a cape and spandex. It’s no surprise that she chose you. Hell, I would have chosen you if I could.

But then, somewhere in there I got confused. I began to believe that I could be you. If I was, maybe Rose would look at me half the way she looked at you.” Brad huffed and looked into the reddening sky.

Firmly gripping his gun, he turned facing Rose. “Be honest with me. Am I next?”

She didn’t reply.

“I saved his life for you, goddammit! I earned the right for it not to be a surprise. I deserve to know!”

Rose hung her head in anguish.

“Leave her alone, Brad,” I said, half-heartedly.

“Yeah. You’re the hero. We get it. But the rest of us aren’t nothing. I mean, we might not be as good as you. But we aren’t trash.”

“You’re next,” Rose said immediately. She didn’t say it with contempt or anger, but with sadness and compassion. His plea had gotten to her.

“I’m sorry,” she concluded, lowering her head into her hands. “I’m so sorry!”

Brad had asked, but he hadn’t been prepared for the answer. His shaking, stilted breath broke my heart as I considered what I could do. As the storm clouds opened and the torrential rains began, I was sure that there was nothing.

Brad took a strained, deep breath and looked out at the reddening light glowing through the howling downpour. His time was short. Staring out, his head bobbed as if making a decision. Turning back, he lifted his gun as he shifted to his feet.

“Brad, what are you doing?” I asked preparing to take him down.

He ignored me and stood over Rose. She looked up, offering no resistance. I was about to launch myself at him when he crouched, and the reddish glow illuminated his face. His cocky smile was back.

Bracing her chin between his thumb and index finger, he oozed charm. This version of him was the one that no one could resist, and Rose listened intently.

“When you think of me, and I know you will, remember me as a hero.”

Rose opened her mouth to speak and got a kiss instead. She squeaked but only for a second. After that, she seemed to be enjoying it. I knew that the last thing that I should be feeling right now was jealousy, but hey! He was kissing my girl!

It was the shock of it that had kept me from responding. By the time the shock wore off, he was done. He stepped away, and Rose’s head wobbled from his kiss.

The way she swayed, the way she touched her lips and looked at him. It was obvious. She was aroused. What the hell was it about him that could turn her on, even now? Incredible!

Hunched over, Brad approached the cave’s opening. He checked the display on the side of his gun.

“What are you doing?” I asked confused.

“I might not be able to scare them all off, but I can take a few of them with me.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, not believing what I was seeing.

“Hey, you aren’t the only one who knows how to be the hero.”

It was dark, but I was pretty sure that he winked at me. After that, he left the cave and entered the storm. He trotted towards the few beasts who took shelter under nearby shrubs, and he did it with full of bravado. In other words, he was Brad.

His shrieking whistle pierced the rainy night. “You all waiting for something? I’m right here,” Brad proclaimed.

One at a time, they woke up. When the others didn’t move, he shot them. When some blocked his way, he shot them, too. With the path clear, he took off into the trees dragging the entire cackle behind him.

We heard three more quick shots and then nothing. Perhaps that was all he had time to get off. I didn’t want to think about the scene that may have followed. What could be worse than being eaten alive? Perhaps Brad considered that and had directed his final shot at himself.

I pulled myself closer to the cave’s opening. No one deserved to die alone, least of all Brad. So, keeping guard, I watched the night sky. No matter what, his suffering was sure to end soon.

It took an unbelievably long time for the sky to approach bright red. I looked back and found Rose shaking. Her eyes were closed in concentration, and she was fighting the chip with everything she had.

I wondered if, this time, she was making a mistake. If he was still alive out there, he probably wasn’t in one piece. I considered telling Rose that, but I didn’t want to break her heart. So instead, I waited for her to let go.

She held on for a while longer. Finally, a crack of lightening flashed through the sky and landed nearby with an explosion. Rose flinched, losing her concentration. It was then that the sky blazed blood red. If he wasn’t before, he was dead now. If nothing else, at least he was at peace.

I looked back at Rose when the sound of her crying filled the cave. I turned to Thorin, who hadn’t made a move towards her. His callousness made me mad.

“Take watch,” I ordered as I worked my way to Rose.

Thorin did as he was told, taking a seat in the opening. He withdrew a gun from his waistband, and I took note of it, wondering how many shots he had left. But then with Thorin’s attention focused outside, I moved beside Rose.

As she sat hugging her legs, I put my arm around her. She fell into my chest. Wrapping her arms around me, she sobbed uncontrollably.

I wasn’t sure how much more of this sorrow she could take. Luckily, it was almost over. Only two of us were left, and even in my weakened state, the compound was less than a day away.

I was planning on making them pay for what they had done to us. I didn’t know how I would do it, but no one responsible was going to leave that compound alive. They were going to die even if I had to die there with them. So, one way or another, this show was going to end tomorrow.

 

 

 

When I woke up the next morning, the rain had stopped, and most of my pain was gone. I was sure that I could walk on my own if I had to, but I was also feeling lightheaded and weak. Considering that Rose and Thorin felt the same, I contributed it to hunger.

Thorin helped me out of the cave and onto his shoulders. Looking around, everything was lusher and more colorful than before. The calf-high grass stretched with new growth, and the moist soil looked richer. It was a new day, and if I had anything to say about it, it would be our last on the island.

“Let’s go,” I ordered.

Thorin pointed at one of the wet hyena corpses that littered the field in front of the cave.

“Should we eat one of them? We could probably use the protein. You especially,” Thorin suggested.

I remembered my butcher’s knife. I no longer had it. I tried to remember what had happened to it, but my mind struggled to work.

“We don’t have time,” I said. “We can look for mushrooms on the way. We have to make it to the compound before…” I stopped myself. Everyone knew what we were racing.

Although I was sure that I could walk on my own, both Rose and Thorin insisted that I accept their help. I appreciated it. Climbing the hills became much easier with someone to lean on.

After an hour of walking, we found the mushrooms that Brad had once described to me. We collected a few and took a break to eat them. It wasn’t much, but it did clear our heads. I felt much stronger after that. I was beginning to feel ready for what lay ahead.

When the compound was finally in front of us, I felt a surge of both relief and anger. We had lost so much to get here. All I could think about now was revenge.

From the edge of the jungle two hundred feet away, we came up with a plan. The compound was bigger than it had appeared from the foot of the tower. It was also surrounded by another eight-foot chain link fence topped with curling razor wire.

“A place like this one would need a security team of between six and twelve. Let’s assume the worst. And we should expect them to be armed.”

“What are we going to do about that?” Thorin asked. “We have one gun between us.”

“Give me the gun,” I told him. “I’ll find a way to even the odds.”

Thorin looked at me uncomfortably.

“Do you think we even have a chance here?” Thorin asked. “If you’re saying that there are twelve of them and three of us and you’re injured, then don’t you think that we should, maybe, figure something else out?”

Thorin didn’t exactly seem nervous, but it was obvious that he was going to need some convincing.

“Look, one of two things is gonna happen. Either, they’ve been watching and listening to everything through the chips, and they’re inside waiting for us. Or, they were using the pawns as cameras, and they’ve lost track of us for the past three days. If we’re lucky, it’s the latter. ‘Cause otherwise, things are gonna turn bad for you real fast.”

“How do we get in?” Rose asked, quickly changing the topic.

“There’s a gate,” I said, pointing at a truck entrance. “I suggest starting there.”

“There’s gotta be cameras watching the place, right? Or maybe bots like the ones guarding my cabin?” Rose asked.

“We’ve been here for ten minutes, and there’s been no movement. And as for cameras, there’s nothing on the corner fence poles, and nothing projecting from the roof.”

“Okay,” Rose conceded. “Let’s say we get past the fence and the guards, and we get in. What do we do then?”

“Thorin?” I asked, turning to the man who stared pensively at the compound.

Thorin turned to us, struggling to catch up with the conversation. “We, umm… Well, if this is some sort of monitoring headquarters, I’m guessing it’ll have a chipping room.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s where someone like me puts in and takes out the chips. You’ll know it when you see it. It will have a chair with a large arm coming from it. It will kind of look like a dentist office.”

“Okay. Here we go. Are we ready to do this?” I looked at the two of them for confirmation. Thorin turned to Rose, giving her a knowing look. “Is there a problem, Rose?”

She opened her mouth to say something but changed her mind. “No. Nothing. I’m ready.”

“If you have something to ask, this is the time. You might not get another chance.”

Rose looked down as if searching the ground. “I was just wondering if it was necessary to remove the chip.” I looked at her, surprised. “I mean, yeah, we turn it off. But, can we leave the chips in? At least mine?”

Not knowing what to say, I turned to Thorin. He seemed to be fighting an awkward smile.

“I just put them in and take them out. I don’t know how to turn them off. That was another department.”

“Rose, why would you wanna leave it in?” I asked, confused.

She looked at me and then lowered her eyes again.

“It’s nothing. Never mind. Forget I asked.”

I touched her arm, prompting her to look up at me. “No. Please, tell me.”

Her eyes bounced between Thorin and me and then with a deep breath settled on the ground. “It’s just that once you take your chip out, you can’t put another one in. I’ve had one since I was eighteen years old. That’s my entire adult life. It’s defined me. I don’t know who I am without it.”

I understood. I took her hand in mine and squeezed it, hoping it would give her comfort. “You think that everything you have is because of your chip. And without it, you’ll lose everything. But you won’t. You can’t lose me. I’m never going anywhere.”

She looked like she wanted to smile but couldn’t. Instead, her eyes dipped again. I bounced her hand hoping to reclaim her attention. She looked up at me, exasperated.

“You say that now. But what about when you learn other things about me. It’s not like you know me. I haven’t always made the right decision. What happens when you see the real me, and you decide that you don’t like it?”

Her head tilted in gentle vulnerability, and my heart melted. I squeezed her hand as I spoke.

“And what happens when you see the real me, and you decide that you don’t like it?”

“Then you’ll return to your life. And without a chip, what will I return to? Being a camera is all I am. I’ve never been anything else.” Her voice hitched as she fought back her emotions.

How could I convince her that I would never leave her? How could I show her that I would give up my life for her?

“Rose, I’ve seen you with my life in your hands. I know you.”

She tightened her lips and placed her palm on my chest. Her touch was warm honey. But even as it poured through me, she looked like didn’t understand. 

This time, my eyes dipped. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just spoke from my heart.

“I’m a simple man. And I don’t try to be more than that. I was taught that when you say you’re gonna do something, you do it; no matter how hard, and no matter the consequences. And I’m telling you, Rose, if you fall, I will always be there to catch you.

“You said that you don’t know what love is. This is love. I love you. And I will never stop loving you… even if you stop loving me.”

Her face barely changed. Had I gotten through to her? I wasn’t sure.

I turned to Thorin whose eyes had wilted with sadness. In the moment, I had forgotten about him.

I considered everything Rose and I had just said to each other. If he did have feelings for her, what he had just witnessed would have hurt. Hell, if I had just watched Rose say the same thing to someone else, the pain would have driven me insane. There was no telling what I would have done in response.

Nonetheless, I had kept my eye on Thorin since he had come back. He hadn’t said or done anything that indicated that he had real feelings for her.

I knew his type. Thorin was like the techs who worked on the Tods. They were more interested in schematics than women. In fact, I had no idea how Thorin had ended up on the island with the rest of us. Boredom, maybe? Didn’t he say something about wanting to have fun on a game show?

In any case, I was sure that what he cared about most was getting home. Once he was surrounded by his little machines and devices, whatever feelings he had for Rose would vanish. I envied his simple life.

“I want you to remove my chip,” Rose told the pale man.

Looking pained, Thorin’s eyes continued to droop. “Are you sure about that? What about your vid feed and all of your fans?”

“I can’t risk anyone else’s life,” Rose said gently.

“But, the people who watch you…” he argued.

Rose put her hand on his forearm, silencing him. “Thorin, I can’t risk your life.”

I watched as whatever hope Thorin had was ripped away. It affected him more than I thought it would, but I knew he would be fine. Perhaps it would even motivate him to help us save his life.

“Okay. I’ll take it out,” Thorin conceded.

“Then we’re set. There’s only one thing left.” I faced Thorin. “I need the gun.”

He was slow to respond. I didn’t know if he was still processing Rose’s news or if he didn’t trust me with the gun. But I held out my hand, making it easier for him. He looked down at my palm dazed.

When he still didn’t move, I considered my options if he became a problem. Rose interrupted my thoughts.

“Thorin,” she began. “Ford was in the military. He was Special Forces. He’s the best person to have the gun.”

Thorin looked at me surprised. “You were in the military?”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Did you tell anyone that?” Thorin asked strangely.

“No. It’s something that I don’t normally talk about.”

“Don’t you think that might have been important?” Thorin questioned, becoming angry.

“Important to people on a game show? No, I didn’t.”

“You should have told someone,” Thorin concluded, clearly unnerved.

“I’m telling you now. And I’m saying, give me the gun.”

He looked at my grimace in a new light. It was enough to convince him to hand it to me. I checked the display. The gun had four shots left.

“Good. First we look for a way in. Once in, we find Thorin’s room and remove the chips.”

Keeping our eyes locked on the weed-infested grounds around the building, we stayed low and ran towards the fence. Our rest had done me some good. I was moving better. If I found myself in hand-to-hand combat, I had a shot.

Putting our backs to the chain links, I heard a metallic rattle. I looked at Thorin.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hand apologetically.

I took a quick look around, assessing our exposure. It was ridiculous. I would never say that a mission didn’t have a chance, but this one was close.

We scurried along the fence to the gate. Not only was the gate chained with a padlock, but small green sprouts covered the land in front of it.

“No one’s used this gate for a while,” I said, jiggling it. It barely budged. “We can’t get in here.”

“Can you shoot the lock?” Rose asked in a whisper.

I lifted the gun enough for her to get a better look at it. “It’s basically a pellet gun. A shot would barely scratch it.”

“Then what do we do?” Rose continued.

I led the two past the gate to the other side of the first pole. Although fence poles were always cemented into the ground, the chain link that touched the ground between the poles usually weren’t. If we didn’t luck out with the gate, I was hoping to climb under.

I got onto my knees and dug under the fence. I immediately hit concrete. The fence was probably cemented into the ground for the same reason it had razor wire on top; to keep out anything that could kill the people inside.

I returned my back to the fence and thought. This mission had been poorly planned. What was I thinking? Our best chance was to retreat and return under the cover of darkness.

I turned to the others to suggest it when I saw Thorin staring towards the jungle. I followed his gaze and saw it. The tower stood over the trees like a cyclops eyeing his land, and goddammit, GOD DAMN IT if it wasn’t glowing a pale shade of pink.

“What?” Rose asked, seeing my face.

She looked before I could answer. Her mouth dropped open in horror. “I didn’t do that. I swear!”

“You didn’t do any of this. None of this is your fault,” I reminded her.

She wasn’t buying it. Worse than that, we were running out of time. If we couldn’t retreat, and we couldn’t go under, over, or through it, only one option was left.

“Let’s go,” I said, following the fence around.

It took over a minute to work our way around the border of the compound. Not once during that time did we see another way in or movement on the grounds. They had to know that we were here by now.

Were they just toying with us, knowing that they could kill us at any moment? Was that why the tower had been triggered so quickly? To bring this sickening game to an end?

We stopped running when the ground turned from dirt to sand. We couldn’t go much further. The fence that we had followed continued across the white sand beach and out one hundred feet into the rough, blue water.

We all stared, watching the choppy waves curl at the last moment and crash onto the shore. We had reached the end. The compound only had two ways onto it, by air or by sea.

A helicopter had been parked in the back when I had first seen the compound from the tower. Scanning the grounds now, I could see it was gone. Getting in by air was out. That left one option.

“We have to swim around,” I announced to the group.

Thorin looked at me, stunned. “I don’t know if you know this, but there are a lot of sharks near these beaches.”

I looked at Rose, giving her a knowing smile.

“It’s not funny!” Thorin insisted. “Look, I know that you’re not afraid of anything or whatever. And you mock me because I’m not like you…”

“I not mocking you,” I clarified. “I’m trying to save your life. Do you understand that? When that tower turns red, you will die. Not me. You. And as tough as that is to hear, that’s what’s gonna happen. So if you want help saving your life, then that’s where we have to go.”

I didn’t like having to say it like that, but he needed a jolt of reality. It looked like it worked. He was angry but focused.

“I think that Rose and I should go. You should stay here,” Thorin said, suddenly calmer than he had been.

I could have responded in two ways. I chose to smile. “You tryin’ to get rid of me, Thorin?”

He remained cool. “It’s not that. It’s just that there are probably sharks in the water and you’re the only one of us covered in blood.”

I looked down, remembering what I looked like. My shirt was caked in blood. He was right. When I looked at him again, I saw how much he enjoyed it.

I whipped off my shirt and examined my wounds. They weren’t bloody, but they were juicy. I twisted my stomach to test the scabs. The scabs held, but I wasn’t sure what would happen once they were submerged in salt water.

“You two will go first,” I announced. “When you’re far enough ahead, I’ll follow.”

“Shouldn’t you give us the gun in case you don’t make it?” Thorin asked casually.

I was starting to hate his smug ass. I had to remind myself that I was trying to save him for Rose’s sake. She needed one less death on her hands, and I was going to do what I had to do to make sure of that.

“If something happens to me, then you’re done anyway. You won’t get past security, and you won’t be able to fight your way in. So how about you just hope that I make it, huh?”

Thorin didn’t like my answer, but he accepted it. Rose didn’t respond, but I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was scared. I didn’t know if it was because of what I had just said or her memory of our last swim.

Neither she nor I could forget the feeling of something dark brushing our legs, the helplessness, the terror that came from not knowing what would happen next. My heart raced thinking about it. Watching Rose wade into the dark water, it got harder for me to breath.

“Something touched my leg!” she screamed.

“Stay close to the fence!” I shouted. “They won’t have room to attach.”

“Ahh!” she moaned grabbing onto the chain links.

I watched, dreading every move that took her further from me. I would have given anything to protector her. When she rounded the razor wire a hundred feet out, it was time to join her.

I launched my bloody shirt over the fence and stepped into the splashing waves. The warm water filled my shoe. In a few steps, I had submerged my knees. Charging forward, my waist quickly followed.

The saltwater stung when it hit my wounds, but it wasn’t that bad. What was bad was the throbbing pain I felt when I had to swim. I could practically feel the scabs break.

Quickly after that, the stinging stopped. I was bleeding again. I didn’t want to think about what that meant, but when the shadows swarmed around me, I knew.

Thorin and Rose approached me from the other side of the fence. When she got to me, she was staring as something to my right.

“Don’t look. Just keep going,” I told her.

When her face contorted in horror, a chill rattled up my spine. What did she see?

“Look out!” she screamed.

My head spun in time to see a large mass plowing toward me. It was too late to escape it. I gripped the fence and folded as something the size of a couch hit me. A whirlpool encircled my chest as its powerful jaws snapped, trying to get a hold.

I gritted my teeth as I felt its nose and gums against my flesh. With it raking its head left and right, it was bound to catch me. As it pushed into my side, I felt the first cut from its teeth and then nothing.

“Go! Go! It’s swimming away!” Rose yelled.

My heart was pounding. I didn’t bother to look, I just moved. I was sure it would attack again, so I considered my options.

I thought about my gun. I had jammed it into my pocket, but remembering the hole made by my butcher’s knife, I wondered if it was still there. I needed to check, but I didn’t have time. I had to keep moving.

I wasn’t swimming anymore. I was hugging the fence. Sharks attacked from underneath, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. When something brushed my leg, my muscles locked.

I gripped the chain links for dear life. I was going to fight being torn away. I pressed my chest against the metal, and nothing came. It was just a fin. So slithering across the submerging chain links, I kept moving.

Reaching out and grabbing razor wire, I stopped. I was halfway there. It was time for me to let go, swim out, cross the fence and then swim back. My pulse pounded in my ears, preparing for it.

I released my death grip and pulled my legs to my chest. With one arm, I held my knees, and with the other, I took small strokes. Pulling the water through my fingers, I floated outward, fighting to stay upright. As I readied to cross the submerged razor wire, a wave hit me.

I tumbled, losing control. I rolled into the razors, and they hooked into my back. It tore at my flesh. The cuts burned.

Yanked away by the waves, I started spinning. Everything was happening too quickly. I began to drift and sink. I was disoriented. I didn’t know which side of the fence I was on.

I released my legs and desperately searched for the chain links. It was already ten feet away. How had I moved so quickly?

I looked for the light and swam towards it. I was pulling it closer. I was almost there when I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. Before I could turn, it snatched me. Its teeth sliced into me. It quickly dragged me into the darkness. 

It was drowning me. Soon we would be too deep for me to surface, and it would eat me while I watched. I had only one chance to escape, and if I made a single mistake, I would die.

I shoved my hand towards my pocket and caught it. My fingers slipped in, and it was there. I grabbed it.  I wasn’t sure if I had time to pull it out because the pressure on my chest was becoming too much. But I did it, and the sound as I squeezed the trigger was deafening.

Shot, the beast let me go. Freed, I started swimming, but the light seemed so far away. Where was I? I would never make it back there, but I had to try.

Still gripping the gun, I reached, dragging the sky towards me. It was working. I was getting closer. I was just about there when my head was whipped to the side. Another one had me.

I didn’t wait this time. I just aimed and fired. I thought I got it, but it was getting harder to tell. The rushing water had stopped, but I didn’t know which way was up. I was getting confused.

My foot touched something. I yanked it back. I remembered that I had to keep fighting, but it was getting harder.

I longed to breathe. A single breath. That was all I needed. Something told me I shouldn’t, but I had to. When I knew I was about to give in, something grabbed my arm and yanked.

I wasn’t going down without a fight. I pointed the gun behind me to shoot. Something wrestled me for it. I fought back. I didn’t lose it.

Finally, when I couldn’t hold out a moment more, I inhaled. It filled my lungs. It was a fiery surprise. 

“Ford?” I heard someone say.

What was happening? I took another breath. I recognized it. It was air. I was breathing.

My body hit the sand with a thump. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to lay there and breathe. What a luxury that was. When the water washed out of my eyes, I was met by two horrified faces.

“I’m okay!” I spat.

I fought to clear my head. We had been doing something. I remembered that it was important. It was… I just needed a rest, but when the thought finally hit me, I knew that I couldn’t.

I reached out, grabbing the person beside me as I lifted off the sand. I had to get a hold of myself fast. The compound. We were at the compound. It had security. We had to get in because of the red light. I had it. I knew what was going on.

I immediately looked for Rose. It was her shoulder that I was leaning on. Seeing her brought back everything in an instant. I looked up. They were carrying me to a door. I knew the plan. We had to get in and find the room. We had to save Thorin’s life by removing Rose’s chip.

“Give me the gun,” Thorin ordered.

I looked down at my hand. I still held a death grip on it. I was hesitant to let go. I knew I was the better shot, even now.

“You can’t even stand up,” Thorin argued.

Propped against the wall, I knew he was right.

“Come on!” he insisted.

I released my grip. As soon as I did, I knew I made a mistake.

“Let’s go, Rose,” Thorin said, grabbing her by the arm.

Thorin opened the door with one swing and rushed in. How did he know the door would be open? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t think about that now. They would need my help. Fighting my way to my feet, I followed them in.

Tracking their water trail, I staggered behind them. I expected to run into security at every turn, but I didn’t. I was starting to realize the place was empty.

A jolt of pain bulged my eyes. I grabbed my stomach. Touching it hurt worse. I removed my hand and looked down for the first time. I was bleeding from everywhere.

“Over here,” Thorin yelled from up ahead.

I fought the pain knowing that it would soon all be over. I just had to stay upright, but that was becoming easier said than done.

I stepped into a room and found Thorin and Rose. In the center was the dentist chair Thorin had described. Rose was climbing into it. As I entered, she looked over her shoulder at me.

“Sit down,” Thorin said with awkward excitement.

I found a waiting room chair next to the door and took a seat. I touched the holes in my torso and winced. Everything hurt. Looking at the doorway and the floor, I saw the blood I left behind. I would have described my situation as “not good.” Not good at all.

I next turned my attention to the wall of monitors and dials behind Thorin. Mostly, I stared at the wine-colored half globe with the countdown clock above it. They had to control the tower from this room. And I guessed that the countdown was the time until the next elimination.

“What are you doing?” I asked Thorin as he bounced around the room.

“I’m preparing a light anesthesia so that I can take Rose’s chip out,” he said testily.

“Can’t you just turn the machine off?”

“You want to come back here and figure it out before that clock hits zero?”

Less than two minutes were left. I made a move to get up.

“Sit down. You can barely stand. You’ll just get in my way.”

“It’s okay, Ford,” Rose said. “I’m ready to take it out. Just let him do it.”

I relaxed my grip on the armrests and fell back into my seat. I watched Thorin move. As awkward as he was in everyday life, he really knew his way around this room.

The dentist chair had an arm extended from its left side. The arm branched out into eight long fingers. I watched as Thorin inserted a cartridge into the side of one of the fingers. I heard a click as the finger touched Rose on her neck.

“This is a delicate surgery, and this anesthetic should keep you from moving. You don’t want me cutting something I’m not supposed to,” he quipped.

“I thought you said this was safe?” I spat.

“I never said it was safe. I said that I had done it many times before. And I have. What I’m worried about is time.”

“Time?” I asked.

“Yes,” he snapped, pointing back at the clock. “It usually takes me more than forty-five seconds to perform major surgery.”

“Then get started!” I ordered.

“Do you really want to rush me, now? Is that your best plan?”

“Ford?” Rose said, asking me to shut up.

I did, but I didn’t know what the hell was going on. After moving like a dancer to give her the anesthesia, it was like he had forgotten what he had to do next.

The half-globe became a bright red, and the clock read twenty seconds.

“Thorin,” I yelled.

He barely moved.

“Thorin!” I yelled again.

Ten seconds.

He inserted an instrument into her neck. “This is very delicate. If I make one wrong move, you’ll die.”

Five seconds. My heart thumped frantically. He twisted his hands.

“Very delicate. Don’t move.”

Three, two, one. A fire alarm blared from the speakers. It had begun. He was too late. One of us was going to die. If it was him, then she could as well.

I watched his hands waiting for them to shake. The horn screamed, warning us that it was the end. Then finally, as I watched, the sound stopped, and Thorin stood up.

I looked down at the finger he had inserted into her neck. It had nothing on it. No chip. No blood. Nothing. With my mouth hanging open and my heart racing, I stared at Thorin, waiting for answers.

In an instant, his demeanor changed. He was angry, and all of his anger was directed at Rose.

“Not even now?” he asked, glaring into her scared eyes.

“What?” she asked, unable to move.

He enunciated his words. “I said, not even now, with your life in my hands, do you choose me over him?”

I sat confused. “What just happened? Why isn’t one of us dead?”

Thorin turned to me. “It’s because I don’t have a chip in my head. So she doesn’t have anyone left to eliminate.”

“Why don’t you have a chip like the rest of us, Thorin?”

“Well, Ford, because it wouldn’t make sense. Why would I put a chip in my own head?”

My hands tightened around my armrest as realization dawned on me. “It was you.” I moved to get up. As I did, I began to black out. Falling back, I fought to remain conscious as my vision tunneled.

“Thorin?” Rose asked motionless.

“I gave you so many chances, Rose. Think about it. You eliminated me. Me! But I knew that sometimes you did things that you later regretted. So I forgave you and gave you another chance.

“And then you entertained that drug dealer in your cabin, even though you knew it was clearly against the rules. But I forgave you.

“I played along with all of your ridiculous challenges. I was attacked by hyenas, for Christ sake. You don’t know all of the things I did to show you that I loved you. And still, you chose him and not me,” Thorin said, pointing at me.

“Then, of course, there was that display out there between you two. I could have ended it there. Yet, I was willing to give you one more chance. Surely, in a situation like this, where I had a needle in your brain as the clock ran out, you would choose me over the one dying on the sidelines. But it appears that you are incapable of making the right decision. That’s disappointing.”

“Thorin, what are you doing?” I interrupted, clearheaded but unable to move.

“I’m talking to my partner, Ford. This conversation doesn’t concern you.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about, Ford,” Rose exclaimed.

Thorin turned his attention to Rose and smiled. “You really didn’t read your Product Researcher contract, did you? I mean, you were eighteen when you signed it, so that makes sense. But do you know how I could really tell?”

“My Product Researcher contract? What does that have to do with anything?” Rose asked, confused.

“Quite a lot, if you think about it. See, I could tell that you didn’t read the contract because when you used to get drunk and stare into the mirror talking to whoever was staring back, you would talk as if there were many of us. But in the contract, it clearly stated that there would be only one person observing you.”

Horror washed over Rose’s face. “You?”

Thorin smiled delighted. “Me.” He waved his fingers with childlike excitement. “Hi!” He giggled. “Wow! Do you know how good it feels to finally say that to you face to face? Hi!”

“No,” Rose begged quietly. “Please, no.”

“What?” Thorin asked. “You don’t want me to explain the greatest mystery of your life to you? You don’t want to know how every decision in your life brought you right here, to me?”

Rose remained silent, so I did, too.

“I thought so. See. I know you,” Thorin said with a smile.

“I can’t tell you how boring it was, for someone with intellectual abilities like mine, to spend every day doing the same thing, implanting and removing chips. I had the skills to be a surgeon! Instead, I was an assembly worker.

“I wasn’t happy. And thankfully, those above me saw my potential. So when I asked to be transferred to the observations department, they agreed.

“I knew it would be more pressure, though. Observers had to come up with new product ideas on a regular basis. I wasn’t an inventor like the rest of them, so I wasn’t sure that I would last. But the person I was partnered with was you.

“I had never seen someone so beautiful. Listening to you, I could tell that you didn’t even know how beautiful you were. You inspired me, Rose. You became my muse.

“Every idea I had was because I burned to make your life easier, to make you happier. It was no wonder that they turned so many of our creations into products. And it brought me so much joy when I watched you open those checks. They were proof that what we had was special. And it was.

“No one else in the company had what we had. You saw that. How many bonus checks did your friends get? You saw the difference. And do you know why our relationship was so much better than theirs? Because I truly cared about you.

“I spent every waking moment with you. I listened to you when you were drunk and when you cried alone in the dark. I sided with you in every argument. I memorized every curve of your body. And when you touched yourself, I touched myself, too.

“I made sure that you were never alone. And because we were so devoted to each other, the two of us literally changed the world. We were perfect…”

Thorin’s face hardened as he again looked down at Rose’s still body.

“…until you met him, that self-righteous, anti-chipping activist blowhard. And I’m sorry. I know that one of the things that made us special was that I allowed you to be who you were, even when you broke the rules. But the way that you would let him speak to you… I had to report him.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. I would sit and just scream at him through the monitor. Didn’t you realize that he was no good for us? Didn’t you realize that he didn’t love you?

“And then you let that sorry excuse for a human being poison your mind. He stole you from me. Why did you break up with me, Rose? Couldn’t you tell that I was the one who loved you and not him?”

Thorin lowered his head and softened his voice.

“They tried to assign me to someone else, but we weren’t the same. No one could replace you. Our relationship was perfect. We had a connection with each other that shaped the moon and the stars around us.

“I quit after that. Or maybe I should say that I retired an extremely wealthy man. I retained a percentage of everything we created, and I wouldn’t be able to spend it all if I had two lifetimes. But what was any of it without you?

“The company had rules in place, though. Observers would only receive their residuals checks as long as they didn’t interact with their researchers in the real world. And I follow the rules, Rose. So instead, I traveled the world and bought expensive toys. But through every moment of it, I never stopped thinking about you.

“Imagine my surprise the first time I saw your vid feed appear on my feeder. It was destiny. I had never believed in fate, but there was the proof that we were meant to be together.

“Watching your vid feed was like picking up right where we left off, only better. You had so much sadness before, and I had to guess why. But this time, you would look me in the mirror and bare your soul to me. You told me your secrets and dreams. And that’s how I knew that you had fallen in love with me, too.” Thorin’s face hardened again.

“The men, though. All of those men. Groping you, screwing you. And after every time, to hear you say that you loved them. I didn’t like that at all. I didn’t like that one bit.

“But there was one day when I forgave all of that. It was the day you looked me in the mirror with tears in your eyes and told me that all you wanted was to be loved. How could I do nothing after that? Especially when it was clear how much you wanted to be with me, too. 

“But I couldn’t just walk up to you and ask you out for coffee. What if you said no? What would happen to our relationship after that? It could be ruined.

“Luckily, I knew you better than you knew yourself. You loved grand gestures. So I created the grandest gesture of them all. I bought this island. I built this place. I hired people to pretend to be producers, and I created a tweak for the device that had brought us together, your brain chip.

“All I had to do then was to find contestants. They couldn’t just be anyone. In order for you to understand that I was your perfect man, you had to compare me to the knuckle-dragging cretins that you usually chose.

“I thought it would be hard to find attractive men who were so self-absorbed that no one would notice if they dropped off the earth. But I was wrong. They begged me to be here. After that, all I needed was you, and you were easier to convince than they were.

“It made a lot of sense, actually. Because deep down, you knew that this was how you were going to meet me. Your excitement about it made me so happy.” Thorin grew silent, staring down at the paralyzed woman below him.

“How did it go wrong?” he asked her. “I’ll tell you how. It was him,” he said, pointing at me.

“His lies screwed it all up. He was supposed to be a Corporate Recruiter. His psychological profile told me that you would eliminate him on the first day, but he lingered and infected you with his ravings.

“It wasn’t meant to be him in the end. It was a guy named Kurt who you eliminated on the first night. With him and me standing in front of you by the waterfall near the pool, you would have chosen me. The two of us would have lived happily ever after.”

Thorin quieted, losing himself in Rose’s eyes. He then chuckled as if remembering better times.

“No, I shouldn’t do this,” Thorin said with a delighted smile. “But see, this is what you do to me. I have no control when it comes you,” he proclaimed gleefully. “I don’t believe it, but I’m going to give you another chance.”

Thorin laughed, rolling his eyes. Turning back to her, he blushed, preparing for the most romantic moment of his life.

“Rose, I have revealed my soul to you. I know how much that means to you. And I have created the grandest gesture of love that any man ever could. If you choose me, you will never have to worry about anything again. You will live like a queen, not with my money, but with the money that we earned together.

“Rose, I have known you since you were eighteen. We’ve grown up together. I have cheered for you. I’ve been there for you, and I have proven that I am willing to sacrifice the world for you. You will never have to question the way I feel about you.

“So Rose, I ask you, from the bottom of my heart, will you choose me?”

I was truly dumbfounded by what I heard. Somehow I had seen Thorin every day, and I never had seen his potential to do something so elaborate, so bold. It would have required such rabid determination. How many clues had I missed?

And Rose, what must she be thinking? What must it be like to find someone who knows you so intimately and for him to offer you everything that you have ever wanted? Was he crazy for putting this “game” together for her? What had I considered doing to win Rose’s love? Was Thorin any crazier than I was?

It was as I considered that possibility that it hit me, the detail he had brushed over. It was the missing piece that explained who Thorin was and why he had put this whole thing together. Feeling confident, I decided it was my turn to speak.

“I don’t mean to interrupt because I see that you’re having a moment here. Your entire life hanging in the balance, unsure of which way it will go, blah, blah, blah. But I just gotta ask you one question. After that, I’ll shut up and not stand in your way if you both wanna live happily ever after together.”

Thorin’s pale face turned bright red. It reminded me of the tower. He looked ready to kill someone.

“What?” he growled, ready to explode.

“You said that it was important to find contestants who wouldn’t be missed if they dropped off the face of the earth. Why was that?

“I mean, all of this. You’re right, this is the grandest gesture anyone could ever make. Buying an island… shipping in a wild bear… building Thunderdome? I mean, Thorin… come on. It’s beyond incredible.

“So, as well as you know her and with all of the things you’ve done for her, why did everyone who got eliminated have to die?”

Thorin swallowed hard. I wondered what shade of red he would turn next. I was disappointed when the lack of color returned to his cheeks.

“It’s a fair question isn’t it?” I asked. “Why did everyone have to die? You had to know that Rose would ask you the same question, right? You did prepare an answer, didn’t you? I mean after thinking through all of these details, you couldn’t have made such a dimmed-witted oversight, could you have?”

Thorin closed his eyes, trying to escape his anger.

“You didn’t?” I pushed. “Oh my god, you did!”

“Rose never would have asked that question. They were eliminated. They were the guys that she didn’t want to see again. How would she find out what happened to them?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Ah, right. It was me and my meddling ways. I spilled the beans on that one, and she wouldn’t have known otherwise. Fair enough.

“But that doesn’t answer my origin question. What I asked was, why did everyone have to die in the first place? Why not let everyone play their part, get eliminated and go home? Certainly, that would have been easier. Are you so insane that you couldn’t see that?

“Wait, that’s it, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s it. Wow! You know, I was kind of impressed by everything you did to win Rose. But in reality, you’re just a chimp throwing darts at a board. Aren’t you? You just got lucky.”

Thorin’s head snapped towards me. “No, Ford. I have a very good reason for what I did.”

“Then what is it?” I pushed. “Tell me. Why did everyone who got eliminated have to die?”

What disturbed me most about his response was how casually he said it.

“Tell me something, Ford. What if, after I had done all of this for her, she chose someone else? Huh? What was I to do then? I couldn’t just go about my life knowing that she was with someone else and that she didn’t choose me.”

“Thorin, you’re not making any sense,” I explained.

“I’m making perfect sense. I knew that other men watched her vid feeds. I am not crazy. So when she stopped making vids and people started asking questions, someone who saw her here could go to the police. Every person who saw us together could have led the police back to me.”

“Wait. Why would she stop making vids?” I asked with my heart beating harder.

“Ford, if I did all of this, if I revealed my very soul to her, and then she rejected me for it… I couldn’t let her live after that. Could I?”

A chill rattled my spine, hearing the words. He killed all of us so that he could kill Rose without it leading back to him. Thorin didn’t love Rose. He was just a psychopath. The only chance Rose had to survive this was to play along. She needed to buy herself enough time to escape.

Her only choice was to walk out of here on his arm. Then, when he stopped watching her, she could maybe slip off some yacht in the middle the night. She had to have figured that out, and it could work.

The only problem with that plan that I could see was me. She would have to choose him and then watch him kill me.

I’ll admit, it wasn’t my favorite plan. Hell, razor-wire toilet paper would be a better plan, but I was finally out of options. The blood that surrounded my chair told me the score. I was bleeding to death. I no longer had the strength to get up, much less save her. Rose was going to have to save herself. So I sat quietly, hoping beyond hope that she did it.

“Have I answered your question to your satisfaction, Ford?” Thorin asked calmly.

I couldn’t show any emotion. I couldn’t risk saying something that could dissuade Rose from doing what she had to do.

“You have,” I stated, trying to sound content.

“Now, can I continue?”

“Yes. Please continue,” I encouraged.

He turned back to Rose, focusing his demented eyes on her. “As I was saying, Rose. I have done all of this because I love you. So now, Rose, I ask you, will you choose me?”

Rose had to say “yes.” With both of us immobilized, she had no choice but to say “yes.” We both knew it, and I was confident that she would make the right chose.

“Thorin, I wouldn’t choose you if I was on fire and you held the last glass of water on earth.”

And then she said that. Well, crap!

She continued, “You are completely insane.  Don’t you understand? You might not have put the chip in my head, but you were the one who turned me into a camera. The thought of you is what kept me from sleeping at night. You were my nightmare, and the only happiness you could give me, I’ve already gotten. And that happiness is from seeing how sad and pathetic you are in real life. I will never fear you ever again.

“So in case I haven’t been clear enough, the answer is ‘no.’ I don’t choose you. I choose Ford. And you can go screw yourself!”

Thorin’s frigid stare was equaled by Rose’s burning gaze. His jaw clenched, tightening his lips against his teeth. He looked like he was about to burst.

“As you wish,” Thorin relented, putting up no resistance. “You will get your death. But first, after everything I did for you, you owe me something.”

Thorin reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Rose squeaked in horror. Continuing down her neck and chest, he touched the tip of her breast.

“Thorin!” I shouted.

Startled, he pulled his hand away. “That’s right. You’re still here.”

“Don’t do this, Thorin,” I snarled.

“Why not? You’ve had her. I watched all of those other men have her. Why not me? I loved her from the moment I first saw her. It’s my turn.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t do this, Thorin!”

Thorin looked at me with a creepy smile. “How about a compromise? How about I just make sure that you won’t have to watch it,” he said before shifting his body in route to the wall of displays. 

It always comes down to those split seconds in life, doesn’t it? A sudden decision to look back and see if she is looking at you. That moment when you let your guard down. That second when the enemy’s relaxation gives you an opening. Those are our opportunities. As Thorin turned his back to me, I was about to get another one.

Here were my obstacles: a day old gunshot wound in the stomach, multiple shark bites, a dramatic loss of blood, and twelve feet. That’s what stood between me and the putrid vile that was Thorin, but the window was opening. If I was ever going to jump through it, now was the time.

The question was, what would happen if I tried? I wasn’t sure. Blood was pooling around my chair. Since I hurt all over, I was guessing it was mine. Even if I wanted to get up, and I wanted it with every ounce of my being, my legs could still fold under me like a lawn chair. But as his attention shifted and his back turned, it was my time. I had to find out what would happen next.

I grabbed onto the armrests and threw my weight forward. I looked over at Rose. She lifted her hand. Apparently, she wasn’t as helpless as she had pretended to be. God, I loved her.

I couldn’t wait for her to rescue us, though. So, shifting my wobbly leg under me, I launched myself towards him. I didn’t have much left in me. Luckily, I wouldn’t need much to take him down.

I staggered across the room, allowing my momentum to do most of the work. He heard me coming, but it was too late. By the time he turned, I had my arm around his neck. With me attached, he crashed into the panel in front of him.

Whatever scabs had formed over my shark bites exploded when I hit Thorin’s back. I coughed, wanting to throw up. I was sure that I hurt myself more than I had hurt him, but even then, I didn’t let go.

I shifted all of my strength to my arms. As I did, my legs gave out from under me. I dragged him down with me. As we landed, I heard the distinct clank of dense metal hitting concrete.

I knew that sound. It was my salvation. I looked around in search of it. I found it barely eight feet away. It was the gun. Had it popped out of his belt when he fell? Who cares? As weak as I was, I knew I only had one way to win this fight. So I let go of Thorin’s neck and went after it.

Eight feet. After days of walking and so many senseless deaths, that was all that was left. I pulled away, clawing at the ground. Everything hurt. It didn’t matter. I only had a few more feet.

I did what I could to hold him down as I moved. It worked, but it didn’t work for long. I was still five feet away, and I needed more time.

“No!” Rose screamed.

That couldn’t be good. He had to be getting up. Four feet away, I heard a click. I stretched out my arm. I was still short. Three feet, maybe.

Using every ounce of strength I had, I kept moving. I was burning to know what was going on behind me. I wanted to look, but I knew I couldn’t take my eyes off the gun. I was close. Perhaps two feet, maybe less.

It soon became clear to me what the click was. The click was the beginning of my end. I immediately thought of Kurt standing on the dock, his eyes quickly turning bright red. I couldn’t imagine what caused it. Now I knew.

It was the tightening of blood vessels in his brain. It was an ice cream headache that increased without end. That was how it had begun with all of them, and now it was happening to me.

I looked ahead and found the gun was right in front of me. It was only there for an instant. After that, everything went dark. How long did I have left? Seconds?

I had to make a final lunge. If I missed, it wouldn’t matter. I was on a clock. It was either now or never.

I threw my hand forward and touched it. Now what? I needed to turn and squeeze.

I couldn’t see. I could barely feel it in my hand. But I knew how to shoot a gun. Hundreds of hours of training. Years on the battlefield. It all led me to this moment, a blind shot at a moving target.

I rolled. I thought I was positioned. I couldn’t be sure. My chest, my arms, my back—everything felt bloated and numb. My body convulsed uncontrollably. That was the last stage wasn’t it? The coughing?

Again, it was now or never. Just getting off a shot would be enough. I might never know what happened to it, but why the hell not? At least I’d have tried.

I focused my last ounce of strength on what I thought was my finger. I thought I felt a kick. Maybe I got it off. Maybe I didn’t. Either way, it was time to keep an overdue appointment.

When the moment happened, it was accompanied by a feeling of release. It felt like inhaling for the first time. After that, the darkness lifted. It was hazy at first, but it cleared up quickly. As it did, I heard someone calling my name.

“Ford? Ford?”

It was a woman’s voice. It was comforting. I was happy to hear it, but I didn’t know why.

The colors surrounding me sharpened. I had a sense of familiarity. I had been in this room before. Wait a minute. Wasn’t this the same room?

“Ford?” the voice beckoned again. It was Rose. I was starting to think that I wasn’t dead.

I lifted a shoulder to get a better look, and I felt like my body had been shoved into a light socket. Yep. I was alive. Either that or this was the crappiest afterlife experience ever.

“Ford?” Rose called again.

“I’m okay,” I said, exaggerating my status a bit.

“Oh my god. I thought you were dead!”

“You and me both. And I don’t want to sound ungrateful but, what the hell?”

“You shot him. I think you got him in the chest. He stumbled and fell back. I guess he hit the display or something.”

“Damn! I guess it’s better to be lucky than good. You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Thanks to you. You keep saving my life.”

“It’s because I love you, Rose,” I said, still feeling as if I was under a clock.

“And I’m starting to believe you,” she admitted with a smile in her voice.

I laughed. It hurt. “Umm… I’m going to admit something here,” I told her.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I think I need some help. I’m not feeling so great.”

I was staring at the ceiling when I heard what sounded like a body hitting the concrete. I looked across my chest to see a sight that was as pathetic as my own. Rose was dragging her limp body to me. I smiled.

When she finally stopped, it was in the space under my arm. She rested her head on my chest.

“How’s that? Is that any better?” she asked, catching her breath.

“It’s exactly what I needed,” I said happily.

I was under no illusions about how stories like mine ended, though. I was still losing blood. I had multiple internal injuries. I had already died once today, and the only other living human on the island was lying next to me paralyzed.

The clock continued ticking in my head, but this time, it was a race with whatever drug was in Rose. I didn’t care, though. I had my girl in my arms and what more could I ask for than that?

I leaned my head toward her and stretched my neck as far as I could. She met me halfway, and our lips touched. The move probably shortened my life by an hour, but it was totally worth it. With that kiss from Rose, I was ready for whatever came next, even the unexpected.

“You know, minus all of the blood, this would make one hell of a sex party,” a voice said from across the room.

I turned my head and what I saw made me smile.

“Who was that?” Rose asked unable to move.

“Who do you think it is? It’s the survivor,” I said.

Rose smiled warmly. “Hey, Brad.”

“Hey, hun!” Brad replied with all the charm in the world. “Now, what am I going to do with you two?” he asked, leaning on the door frame.

“You lived?” I asked, stating the obvious.

“I did,” he agreed.

“How?” I continued, barely able to imagine it.

“You’re not the only one who’s full of surprises,” he said, eyeing Rose and me as we lay paralyzed.

Staring back at him, I realized that was all he was going to say for now. If I wanted to know more, I was going to have to live long enough to hear it.

“So, what’s the plan, Brad?” I asked. “You just gonna stand there and watch me die, or are you gonna be the hero and save us?”

Brad gave me a smirk. “That depends.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On whether you’re ready for me to make you moan.”

“Oh yeah, make him moan. Do it. Do it,” Rose chanted playfully.

I knew Rose was kidding but did Brad know that? I wasn’t sure that he did considering the devilish smile he had as he sauntered towards us.

But whatever Brad was thinking, looking around the room, one thing became clear to me. I was the luckiest guy on earth. Not because I had survived this insane game show, but because I had found Rose and I loved her more than life itself.

If Brad could get me back on my feet, I was going to devote every thought I had to getting us off this island. Something told me that staying alive was only going to get harder from here, but I was willing to do absolutely anything to keep Rose safe.

I loved her with all of my being. The question wasn’t if I was going to spend the rest of my life with her? The question was if I would survive the next hour? With Brad, you never knew. But I survived everything so far, and like I said, I was feeling lucky.

 

*****

 

 

Are you in the mood for something a little sexier? What follows is the prequel to Island Candy. Its prequel status doesn’t mean that it lacks sexy scenes. They are all over the place in this story. And just like all of the sexy stories above, it’s a story that you can read on its own.

 

I hope you enjoy!

*****

Island Candy: