“To stop me from falling because I honestly don’t have the strength. Animal or human, I’m done with loss, alright? She’s gone. Serigala is gone. It’s done. I suggest you shut your mouth before I shut it for you. My last warning.”

He pulled out his own handgun, checking he had a full clip. “Fine. Noted.” He huffed before shoving it back into his trousers. “Just for the record, though...I like her. I think—”

A shot boomed over the ocean, shutting Cal up.

We spun around, our eyes shooting skyward, skating over stars just as gunfire blazed through the night, aiming straight toward the helicopter.

Chapter Ten

SULLY GOT HIS WISH.

I was no longer on his shores.

I gasped at the suddenness, the aching grief, the plummet of my tummy as we climbed higher and higher.

Sully stood below; his hair tussled by the wind as his black shirt snapped around his powerful torso. The harsh brackets of horror around his mouth, the stress etched into his forehead, the grim stamina and exhausted despair in his gaze vanished as intimate details were hidden by distance.

Why did I tell him I’d go?

Why had I obeyed when every part of me screamed that I should never have left?

This was a complete reversal to my unwanted arrival here.

This eviction hurt a thousand times worse.

The higher I climbed, the more my chest ached. My heart fisted with thorns as two parrots dashed from the forest, no longer buffeted by the downdraft—two tiny birds who’d wrapped their talons around my soul.

God, Skittles.

It didn’t matter he’d agreed to temporary. It didn’t matter that he loved me.

Nothing mattered against the bone-deep foreshadowing I’d felt when he’d agreed to let me return. He’d agreed, but there’d been something—something wrong lurking behind his voice. A harsh resignation. A decision that agreed with my suggestion yet reeked with a lie.

Had I adopted too many of his traits?

Had my trust turned so fragile that I couldn’t believe he shared the same need for me? That he could survive sending me away forever?

No, he loves me.

This doesn’t need to be permanent.

You’ll be back in a few hours...you’ll see.

I balled my hands in my lap as we climbed higher and higher, blurring both parrots as they circled Sully, refusing to land while he remained drenched with goodbyes and grief.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the last time I’d ever see him.

I couldn’t stop the god-awful premonition that this was permanent...for him.

His island shrunk from a place I’d found such torment and pleasure to something so small I could pluck it from the ocean and place into my pocket for safekeeping.

The helicopter banked.

The pilots added speed.

And a streak of light blazed up the sky beside my window.

I baulked. My pulse thudded with adrenaline.

Was that a shooting star?

Another came, followed by the unmistakable screech of metal punching into metal.

“Shit!” The captain’s curse filled the cabin, despite the din of rotors.

Grabbing the headset beside me, I shoved it on. “What’s happening?”

More streaks of light. A rat-tat-tat-tat of illumination. A few pings against the fuselage.

“Tighten your harness!” the co-pilot snarled. “We’re under fire!”

“What?” I bounced in my binds as the helicopter swerved up and to the side just as another spray of light originated far below us, spearing through the stars directly for us.

“Dammit!” The captain angled us steeply to the left, putting distance between us and danger.

Danger.

Shit, Sully!

“Take me back! Right now.” I grabbed the microphone, holding it close to my lips. “Please!”

“Quiet! Stop yelling through the damn headset.” The pilots angled us forward, encouraging rotor blades to slice almost vertically through the sky, soaring with speed.

My stomach flipped with weightlessness.

“No!” I struggled with my harness, my terror bouncing through me like a rogue frog. “Please, please go back!”

“Our orders are to take you to Java. We need to get to a safe altitude.” The captain reached across to his controls and flicked a switch, muting me.

“Hey!” I screamed. “Go back. If they’re shooting at us, they’ll be shooting at Sully. We have to go back!”

Nothing.

The pilots ignored me, their chatter of flying maneuvers and technical speak filling my ears but forbidding me the right to talk.

Sully!

“Please...” I ran my fingers over the headset, trying to find a button that would allow a two-way conversation. “Please turn around.”

No reply.

Nothing but their clipped curses and crackling feedback.

Daring to squish tight against the window, I looked down, down, down toward a black, black ocean and the flickering lights of Sully’s shores.

And my heart died as the spray of bullets that’d attacked us aimed for land instead.

A morbid firework, seeking victims, streaking with comet fire toward the man I loved.

Death in the darkness.

An enemy he couldn’t see.

Sully!

Chapter Eleven

“GET ME A GODDAMN radio!”

I ran up the jetty toward the guards lined up on my shores. Each had a machete, shotgun, and semi-automatic. Each was well-versed in hand-to-hand combat as well as being accurate shooters.

“Aim at the boat!” Cal ran beside me, yelling orders, preparing for war. “Sink those motherfuckers!”

The men moved toward the tide, a march of weapons and wrath.

A man ran toward me and slapped a walkie-talkie in my palm. “Here.”

Spinning to stare at the sky again, flinching as more bullet-fire shot toward the flashing light blatantly giving away the helicopter’s location, I pressed the radio button, and snarled, “Captain Jondal, turn off your fucking anti-collision light!”

A crackle of feedback hissed while everything I was as a man scrambled.

The pain at saying goodbye.

The rage at Serigala.

The suffocating fury at Drake’s tricks.

Fuck!

More gunfire, all aimed at shooting Eleanor from the sky. My heart ceased beating as I dropped my stare, following where the bullets had come from.

Squinting into the distance, I saw a boat ghosting on the horizon. No lights. No announcement. Just sly unfairness and my bastard brother who’d not even honoured his time for battle.

He’s an hour fucking early.

The gentlemen’s code broken because he was a cunt and I was once again a motherfucking fool.

Another spritz of bullets aimed straight for Eleanor.

The helicopter’s spotlight made them the perfect target.

“Captain! Turn off your goddamn lights!”

I thought I’d saved her.

Instead, I’d put her directly into harm’s way.

My rage ignited. A rush of wildfire through my veins, and this time...this time I didn’t try to leash it.

I let go.

I allowed heat and hate to lick through me.

I thirsted for Drake’s death.

I wanted his heart limp and lifeless in my hand.

I wanted to cut up his corpse and decorate every island in my atoll with pieces of him.