Chapter Twenty-Eight

FOR FIVE DAYS, I cycled through all stages of grief.

Hourly, minutely, I ran the gauntlet of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

It was exhausting.

It was cathartic.

It was a never-ending crushing wheel.

Denial would come as I sat cross-legged on Sully’s bed, guarding over his still and silent form, refusing to accept his unconsciousness. I’d roll my eyes. This can’t be true. I’d fist my hands with rage. How dare you leave me! I’d sit and bargain with an imaginary devil and promise everything I had and everything that I didn’t. Please, please just let him open his eyes.

I’d sit and stare at the man I loved, never taking my gaze off his handsome face, willing him to gasp with alertness and smile with possession, only to suffer incurable stress and rage.

Depression began when the stars rose and the moon twinkled.

I’d trip from the villa and run.

Pika would flit beside me, and Skittles would hold on for dear life, and I’d push myself until I fell to my knees in the sand.

And there, surrounded by manicured jungle and cicada song, I’d scream.

I’d scream until every ounce of sorrow stopped infecting me. I’d cry until that eerie calm fell over me and I had the strength to return to his villa with acceptance of this tragedy and fall asleep beside him.

For five days, it’d been a repeat of the one before.

Louise allowed me to lose myself in emotions, and Dr Campbell kept his distance. Pika guarded Sully when I couldn’t, and Skittles guarded me when I needed her sweet presence.

But by day six, I’d had enough.

I couldn’t keep killing myself this way.

Keep living this way.

I needed to do something. Anything. And saving Sully from police search warrants and saving girls from ownership was a worthy pastime.

Sully didn’t need me anymore.

He didn’t even know I was there.

I was superfluous.

I was free.

Free to destroy his dynasty one goddess at a time.

* * * * *

I left Sully’s villa early and padded barefoot to my old home on the beach.

I entered the space where Sully had fucked me in the shower and over the sink, violence still hovering in the air from his lies at sending me away.

I embraced that violence and passion as I placed Skittles in the cotton balls on the vanity, and Pika chose a perch on the tap.

As I turned on the shower, it felt like Sully was still here, and I kept my eyes closed as water sluiced over me, remembering his aggressive touch, his possessive kiss, the hunger in his every stare.

I missed him.

I lusted for him.

But most of all...I wanted him back.

Even if his memory was wiped clean and he no longer loved me. Even if he sent me away all over again—I could exist in a world where Sully survived even if we weren’t together.

I finished my shower—the first in a while—and dressed in clothing made for a woman instead of shirts crafted for a man. I brushed my hair from lugs and knots that’d steadily been forming dreadlocks while I’d mourned Sully’s stillness, donning a grey dress with a black hem and neckline, and applied kohl to my eyes.

Only once I no longer looked like a creature dragged from the bottom of the sea did I place Skittles back on my shoulder and welcome Pika to fly beside me all the way to Dr Campbell’s surgery.

Stepping inside, sniffing antiseptic and medicine, I braced myself to go to war with Calvin Moor.

It was no secret that we weren’t best-friends. The truce he’d given me, when we’d last been in Dr Campbell’s surgery before Drake marched Sully and me away, had been given in genuine generosity.

Would that stand when he learned what I wanted to do?

The interconnecting door to patient rooms suddenly swung open, revealing the very man I’d come to see. Lying in a bed, scowling in annoyance, Calvin glowed with health—the exact state I wished Sully could be.

The man wheeling him, a local to Indonesia with long black hair tied in a topknot and intelligent eyes froze. “Ah, you must be Ms. Grace.”

Calvin stiffened on his bed, propped up with pillows and frustration wafting off him. “Jinx...what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I...” I looked between the two men. What had I interrupted? “I was coming to see you actually.”

“Wish you’d waited until tomorrow, then you wouldn’t see my fucking embarrassment at being wheeled around like an invalid.”

“You are not an invalid, sir. You are recovering from multiple gunshots—”

“I was ready to leave this place a week ago. It was you and Campbell forming a conspiracy against me and locking the doors that kept me here against my will.”

“Etti was only following my orders,” Dr Campbell muttered as he followed them through the door. “Ah, Eleanor. What a pleasure.” His face fell. “Is Sinclair okay? Have the Geneva doctors got it under control?”

Cal never took his gaze off me as I flinched. I couldn’t help it. Sully’s name was a trigger to me. A fatal shot to my heart. “He’s steady.”

“No improvement then?” Campbell asked gently.

“No.” I sniffed and braced myself all over again. “I came to talk to Cal. It can’t wait.”

Cal smirked. “They’re finally taking me to my villa. I’m free of this place full of bleach and beeping bloody machines.”

I could understand his loathing toward the beeps. I was forming my own love-hate relationship to the one announcing Sully’s faulty heart.

The Indonesian man held out his hand. “I’m Etti. I’m a vet, but my patients have been two-legged of late.”

I shook his hand. “You were on Serigala...”

He winced. “I was. But I was one of the lucky few and very grateful when Jim requested my help.”

I looked at Dr Campbell. “How is Jealousy?”

Cal stiffened. A barely noticeable inhale.

Dr Campbell nodded with professional calm. “Same as Sully. Stable and sleeping.”

“Is she showing any signs of waking?”

“Not yet.”

Seemed everyone was trapped on this island.

I was trapped in a never-ending circle.

Sully was trapped in a prison of his mind.

Jealousy was trapped in a never-ending sleep.

And Cal was trapped in a bed until he healed.

But there were lives in the balance that didn’t need to be trapped.

Girls who’d been purchased for sin and who’d been living in secret for the past two weeks on Lebah. Goddesses who had to be freed before the police returned with a warrant, regardless if Sully woke to his crimes or not.

“Look, you guys can discuss happy topics, but I’m leaving. I need to be outside, right now.” Cal swiped the sheet off his body and swung his legs to the edge of the bed. “I can walk.”

Dr Campbell groaned as if he was over having this fight with Calvin. “As I said so many damn times before, yes, you are feeling better, and yes, your system is healing, but if you overdo it, you’ll only set yourself back.”

“I’m not going to run a triathlon, Doc. I just want to walk on the beach and sit in the sun for a while.” His voice was strained. “I...I can’t be here anymore.”

“The fact that I’m letting you even return to your villa and away from urgent care is pushing my limits, Cal. You shouldn’t be walking anywhere. Your lungs suffered—”

“One was punctured, I know. I’m aware.” Cal threw me a look. “Jinx here will dob me in if I overdo it. Won’t you, Jinx?”

I gulped, pinned in place by three men. “Eh, sure?”

“Good.” Cal shoved off the bed and almost fell to his knees.

“For God’s sake, Moor.” Dr Campbell reached out to catch him, but Cal shoved him away. “I’m fine. Let me get strong again, Doc. Just...leave me be. Look after Jess and keep her alive. If I need you, Jinx will come running.” He scowled in my direction. “Now, let’s go.”

I stayed silent as Cal shuffled toward the main exit.

Dr Campbell rolled his eyes behind smudged glasses, and Etti huffed. Both men gave up on their stubborn patient, placing him into my care. “If he passes out, come find us.”

“Oh, no. No way.” My heartbeat turned nasty. “I can’t be responsible for yet another man’s existence. If you believe he should stay, then he should—”

“I’m not fucking staying. I need fresh air,” Cal barked, reaching the door and yanking it open. “Come or not, the choice is yours, Jinx.”

Dr Campbell squeezed my bicep. “He’s strong, Eleanor. He won’t die on you, I promise you that. He might get tired and fall asleep from exerting himself too soon, but he’s too much of an asshole to die.” He smirked. “Takes after his boss, I’m afraid.”

I smiled weakly. “Then why hasn’t his boss woken up?”

“He will.” He dropped his hand. Smiling at Pika and Skittles who’d been my constant shadows, he added, “Now, I’d follow that stubborn man before he disappears into the island somewhere.”

I took his advice, slipping from the sterile surgery rooms and breaking into a faster pace to catch up. However, Cal hadn’t gotten far.

His lumbering steps were punctured with heavy breathing as he navigated the steps from the second-story tree-top walkway and sank his bare feet into the sun-warmed sand.

He groaned.

His head tipped forward, and his simple outfit of a white t-shirt and grey track pants shivered as he shook himself free from medicine. “Finally.”

I stayed quiet as he hauled his healing bulk forward and set a slow pace to the beach.

Pika zipped between us, cawing with impatience and almost goading Cal into ambling faster. Skittles showed more decorum, just eyeing up Sully’s friend and employee as if she knew how he felt being hindered by a body that hadn’t quite healed.

Half an hour passed as we walked in silence.

When the sea finally came into view and Cal fell to his ass on the sand, his face shone with sweat and his t-shirt turned see-through with his strain.

Sitting beside him, I let him get his breath back before I asked quietly, “Are you okay?”

He gritted his teeth and reclined to his elbows, digging them into the sand to prop himself up. “You can ask me that once and only once. I’m fine. I’m out of breath, and I’m pissed at my lack of endurance, but I’m fine.”

“Okay.” I dug my hand into the soft granules, trying to figure out how to begin. He might be tired from a long walk before his body had healed, but I was mentally and spiritually exhausted from Sully’s tightrope of life and death.

I didn’t have the energy for a fight.

I wished Jess was awake. She was strong and seemed to have a bond with Cal. She could’ve fought on my behalf and prevented any more animosity between us.

“So...did he kill him?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Did Sullivan kill his brother?”

I winced, remembering the slobbering, brain-dead creature in Geneva, but then morbid pride twitched my lips. “Would you believe me if I said we both killed Drake?”

His eyebrow rose, his gaze shimmering with respect. “And that’s a story for another day.” He winced and repositioned himself. “I want a beer in my hand and both of you to regale me with every gruesome detail.”

My smile faded.

I slouched.

I wanted that too.

I would give anything for Sully to wake and share a beer with his friend.

“How is Sinclair?” Cal asked quietly, turning his green gaze to the mirror-perfect tide. Sun spangled the top, reflecting gold on turquoise and promising a refreshing rinse from the humidity that’d slipped down my spine and cleavage.

Sighing heavily, I cursed the sudden press of tears.

No.

Don’t you dare.

I dug my fingers into my eyes, stemming such weakness. I would not cry. Not in front of him. I would show no weakness because if I showed a single sliver of vulnerability, Cal would never help me.

Pika landed before us, pecking at a pretty pink shell.

“It's okay, you know. I won’t hurt you. We’re friends, remember?” He threw me a quick smile. “If you don’t want to talk about Sullivan, then why seek me out?”

I gulped back the wetness in my throat and straightened my back. “Allow me to speak without you jumping in first.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Just...let me speak, and then you can yell at me, okay?”

He clenched his jaw. “Fine.” Looking back to sea, he added, “I won’t open my mouth until you’re finished.”

“Thank you.” Raking both hands through my sun-dried hair, I sucked in a breath and rushed, “I’m sure you’re aware the police were here. You most likely know a lot more about their visit than I do, seeing as they were here for days before we returned.”

He threw me a look but didn’t interrupt.

“When they came to see Sully, they mentioned they were suspicious of his dealings here and were going to return with a search warrant. I’m...” I looked down at the beach and stroked Skittles’s green feathers as she climbed down my arm and perched on my knee. “Sully might wake up tomorrow or he might never open his eyes again. Either way, his business and records can’t be here when the police come back. And...the goddesses? Well, they need to be freed. They have to go home and all guest access revoked. Drake stole the last of the elixir so at least that’s gone, but Euphoria shouldn’t be used anymore against unwilling participants. Those girls—”

“Should be free.” Cal licked his lips, his stare still locked on the sea.

I let silence colour in the space between us for a bit before I finally asked, “Will you help me or hinder me?”

He sat up, sand cascading off his elbows. Rubbing his chest, he winced from his wounds. “It so happens that you’re not the first to ask me to release them.”

“What?” I sat up so fast that Skittles fell off my knee and plopped onto the sand. She twittered in complaint, waddling away to investigate the shell Pika still nosed around. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when Sinclair left to bring you back, he called me. Said he didn’t think he’d make it, and as a dying man’s last wish, he wanted me to free the girls, burn Euphoria to the ground, and destroy every aspect of his Goddess Empire.”

I froze.

So many things filled me at once.

Adoration.

Condemnation.

Pain.

“He...he didn’t think he’d survive? Yet he came after me...knowing that?”

“He’s a man in love.” Cal sniffed. “And men in love do stupid things.”

I shivered. “Do you hate me? For being responsible for him hovering in death?”

His head whipped to mine. “What? I don’t hate you, Jinx. Far from it. Fuck.”

My heart stuttered at the honesty on his face. “But...you’ve been so cold to me. You seemed to despise my presence and did whatever you could to stop Sully—”

“Only because he asked me to.”

This was a day of punches.

I felt hammered. As if his voice were fists, delivering blow after blow. “He asked you to keep me away from him?”

“He made me promise I would never let him fall in love with anyone. That he wouldn’t be able to survive it. That he’d do things he’d regret and would probably either end up killing the person he’d fallen for or killing himself.” He sighed. “Seems like he was right.”

A headache formed along with deepest heartache. “When...when did he ask you this?”

“He was twenty-something. Just killed his parents. His trust was at an all-time low. He’d waged war on test animals being released and drowned himself in work. One day, he rescued a cage of cats that’d been used for testing laxatives of all things. The poor things couldn’t stop vomiting or shitting their guts out. He stabilised them. Got attached. They relapsed, and the vets told him that it was their choice to live or die. He didn’t buy it and administered one of his own drugs that’d showed promise in rapid rejuvenation.”

“What happened?”

“They haemorrhaged, dying a messy, miserable death, and I guess he just snapped. He came back that night covered in blood. Whose blood I don’t know, but it was the start of his new crusade of fighting wars, not just in courtrooms with lawyers, but in vicious, violent revenge. He got drunk and made me vow never to let him get close to anything.” He shrugged. “I promised. And I’ve done my utmost ever since.”

Glancing at me, he half-smiled. “The thing is...I know him, and I know you affected him the moment you arrived. His shields shattered. He was hurting. I didn’t want him to suffer, so I did what he’d asked, even if he cursed me for getting in the way. But...” He sighed, rubbing his chest again. “You have to understand, it was never personal. I like you. When he told me to call the guest that afternoon...that you were willing to serve in Euphoria, I knew he was bluffing. There was no fucking way he could hurt you that badly. Not after he’d fallen so hard for you. I figured it was more about hurting himself, so I gave him space. I kept the goddesses in their villas, and the guests far away so you guys could figure shit out.”

He coughed and winced. “You’re welcome by the way.”

I couldn’t move.

Or blink.

Or speak.

Cal wasn’t my enemy.

He was just a friend.

A loyal, helpful friend who would always have Sully’s back.

He would do anything for him because Cal was the only family Sully had ever truly had. The only person he could trust...until me.

Something slotted into place inside me.

Affection sprang from wariness, and I turned to Cal with deep respect but also a healthy dose of suspicion. A slightly crazed laugh fell from my lips. “Now that your secret is out and you’re not such a prick, after all. Let me guess...you’ve already freed the goddesses? Here I am, ready to go to war with you, and you’ve already done what Sully requested.”

He smirked. “Think you’ve figured me out, huh?”

“I think you love him and would honour a man’s dying wish.”

He raised his hand, mock horror on his face. “I’m not in love with the bastard if that’s what you’re implying.” He sighed dramatically, almost as if theatrics could hide the truth. “I’m interested in someone else entirely. You and I have a lot in common currently, Jinx.”

I froze.

Who...

His eyes glittered. “In fact, I know exactly how you feel. The anger at them just lying there. The helplessness that you can’t wake them.” He blinked as if he hadn’t meant to say such things.

Oh, my God.

Jealousy.

He’s in love with Jess.

Images of them walking together. His arm slung over her shoulder. Her feverish need to stay past four years. Her loyalty to this island and desire to make everyone happy.

How long?

How did I not see?

“Jess...”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Early days but...fuck.”

I reached for his hand, my grief swelling to encompass his.

We did have things in common.

So many painful things.

“She’ll wake up. You’ll see.”

He pulled his hand from mine, glowering at the ocean. “That cunt shot her in the womb. Campbell had to give her a complete hysterectomy. He doesn’t even know if she can have sex without pain.”

“I’m so sorry—”

“We hadn’t even gotten to that part. Christ, forget I said anything.” His face settled into stone. “And to answer your question, no I haven’t freed them. Not yet. I’ve tried for the past week to get out of that hellhole of a hospital, but Campbell and his minions locked me in.”

Waving at his chest where a wheeze rattled and his vitality faded, he added, “I’m not at full speed. In order to free five girls...I need help.”

I shifted to my knees in a sudden sand spray. “I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever you need. I’ll burn all Sully’s files. I’ll wipe all his hard drives. I’ll murder any future guests who step foot on this island expecting a goddess to serve them. And then, I’ll help you wake Jess up.”

He nodded, his energy flagging rapidly. “Got the taste for killing now, huh?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Poor guests no longer able to indulge in their fantasies.”

“They’re not my concern. Sully, Jess, and the goddesses are.”

“Is he showing any signs of waking up?”

I shut down my pain. “Not yet, but I’m sure both he and Jess will randomly open their eyes very soon. If they don’t, I’ll make them...just see if I don’t.”

His shoulders fell. “I’m not sure you can create miracles, Jinx.”

“I made Sully happier, didn’t I?”

He eyed me, chuckling once. “You did. But...it hasn’t made you very happy has it?”

“It will...when he’s awake.”

“And you want to keep busy while you’re waiting.” He squeezed the back of his neck. “I get that.” Rolling his shoulders as if summoning energy he didn’t have, he muttered, “Fine.” Holding out his hand, he added, “Help me stand, and we’ll clean up this mess. Maybe they’ll both wake if we change the world they’ll return to.”

Clasping his dry grip, I hauled his heaviness upright. Pika fluttered to my shoulder, and Skittles squeaked for me to pick her up.

Cal lumbered toward Sully’s office.

And I followed him with two caiques.

Purpose gave me hope.

Action gave me strength.

And together, we might, possibly, hopefully, maybe save more than five lives.

We might bring back two people we adored.

We might turn Goddess Isles—a place of debauchery and domination—into a magical second chance.