“Sully!” he chirped. “Lazy. Lazy!”

I glowered at Drake as he crouched, coiled and cruel. I knew his intentions. He watched Pika as if he could snatch the parrot from the sky and wring his tiny neck.

My heart hammered, I flickered between darkness and awake.

“Go, Pika! For fuck’s sake, go!”

He chirped again, his little face full of concern. I’d dealt with so many animals in my time and all had a high level of intelligence, but birds...they were different.

They knew things.

They understood what wasn’t said and could read a situation that might seem friendly but was filled with violence.

Pika had called me lazy because he saw me lying down and knew just how close I was to death.

He put his own life on the line to encourage me to stay alive.

Tears sprang to my hazy eyes. “GO!”

Drake held out his hand, cooing, “Come here, little birdie.”

Pika let out a huge screech, swooping toward him.

I whistled loud and piercingly, stopping him mid-attack. If he got anywhere near Drake, I’d be forced to witness fourteen years of man and parrot brotherhood being decapitated before me. “Pika!”

He snapped his wings and hovered just out of Drake’s reach. He squawked again, throwing me a rebellious glower.

“Hibiscus, Pika. NOW!”

He erupted in a chorus of angry chirps before finally darting into the jungle.

My energy levels plummeted.

My heart skipped with an odd rhythm, running out of blood to pump.

Skittles still hovered above.

Drake continued staring into the jungle after Pika, like the cat wanting to chase the juicy canary.

I’d saved one bird.

But Skittles was too brave, too bold, too loyal.

She pinned in her wings and attacked Drake on my behalf.

“No!”

She dive-bombed, pecking at his eyes, scratching at his nose.

Drake bellowed as she darted off, only to swoop in again, drawing blood on his cheek.

“Skittles, stop!” I cried, my voice fading and weak.

She didn’t.

She continued attacking him, taking more and more risks, getting closer and closer to his flailing hands as he tried to protect his face from her beak missiles, so, so close to snatching her from the sky.

Shit!

Gritting my teeth, I gathered every remaining shred of power.

I shoved off from the sand.

I shut down every pain receptor.

I ignored the blackness whispering over my mind.

I hopped and threw myself on Drake, pinning him to the beach.

His guards were on me a second later.

Punches in my kidneys, kicks on my spine.

My hands found his throat, squeezing tight, all while our legs tangled and the spear dug deeper.

My vision blacked out, stuttering with warning.

Skittles squeaked and plummeted from the dark sky, aiming straight for Drake’s eye.

It happened in slow motion.

Drake’s attention slipped from me to Skittles.

His lips spread to reveal sharp teeth, his hand curled into a fist, and he struck at the perfect point of her trajectory.

He punched her.

Clear out of the motherfucking sky.

“No!” I scrambled to the side, hauled back with the harpoon rope now wrapped around both Drake and my legs—a morbid, agonising mousetrap.

My heart stopped as Skittles went from a fierce little fiend to a lifeless pile of feathers, tumbling from speed to silence. She splattered against the sand, somersaulting with a spray of golden granules.

She came to a stop.

Lifeless.

Not moving.

Dead.

Skittles represented all the love I had for Jinx and all the things I’d failed at.

I lost it.

I howled and crawled back to Drake.

I hit him, over and over.

I got his jaw, his eye, his collarbone, his temple.

I didn’t care where I hit, only that I did.

I hit and struck and pummelled him with undying ferocity.

My gaze caught the carnage of green feathers, unmoving and sand-covered.

I hit harder, faster, crazier.

I hit and hit and hit.

But my body had reached its limit.

I had nothing left.

No life force.

No blood.

My fingers went from berserk to broken.

My heart gave up beating.

My eyes rolled back.

I tumbled forward...

...and the world went deathly dark.

Chapter Fourteen

SULLIVAN SINCLAIR, OWNER AND CEO of Sinclair and Sinclair Group, faced trial for the fourth time today. Rival companies, Craden and Co, and Smart Int, hope for a conviction of life imprisonment. However, just like his previous arrests and subsequent court appearances, Sullivan Sinclair will most likely walk free this afternoon thanks to having the best lawyers that money can buy and no useable evidence against him. It seems this pharmaceutical mogul cannot be touched and continues to walk amongst us, murderer, whistle-blower, and all.

I frowned.

For the past hour, I’d been online, googling Sully’s atoll, clicking on Wikipedia links and doing my best to locate his forty-four islands that’d seemingly vanished without a trace. If I hadn’t spent time there, if I still didn’t taste salt in my hair from his oceans and feel his touch upon my tanned skin, I’d fear it’d all been a dream.

The World Wide Web ought to have some mention of his location. After all, everything was on the internet these days.

But...nothing.

No link to his address. No mention of where he lived. No social media or tags from other people’s albums. The only thing I’d found was a corporate website for his company and a stern photo of him in a navy suit glowering at the camera with a simple bio stating he was the boss.

I gave up trying to find his home and instead tried finding out about the man. Perhaps a hobby would lead me to him, or an old bill that’d somehow found its way into public knowledge would give me a starting point.

However, googling Sully made my heart pound and palms perspire. I didn’t find a man known for deviant virtual reality or libido-enhancing drugs. I found no information on his proclivities about buying trafficked women. Instead, I read about a monster who, on paper, sounded utterly heinous and disgustingly powerful.

Clicking on another article from a few years ago, I bit my lip and read.

Upon taking ownership of his parents’ science research and highly lucrative drug business, Sullivan Sinclair, promptly fired most of the board, forbid animal testing, and enforced strict guidelines on the future of Sinclair and Sinclair Group. Stock market shares plummeted to a historic low when members of his board turned up dead a few weeks later. No evidence was found to the cause of their deaths, even though Sinclair’s own scientists made noises that they’d been working on a highly volatile compound that stopped the heart of any animal they’d tested it on.

Ignoring the five-star hotel room that I’d rented—the first accommodation the man from Sully’s hangar had driven me to—I clicked on more links, skimming faster and faster.

Sullivan Sinclair was once again arrested today for his involvement in the illegal recording and video sharing of a slaughterhouse in West Virginia. The footage has gone viral with over three million views in just twelve hours. At two a.m. on Thursday 15th February,

Sinclair and two other men (who he refuses to name) were seen breaking into the slaughterhouse and recording footage of pigs crushed in pens, chickens walking over skeletal remains, cows sick with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and recently slaughtered carcasses inhumanely dispatched and prepared for human consumption.