Chapter Twelve

“No. I don’t accept that,” Preston spits out after we get back to camp and inform the others about the insurmountable barrier. It’s got to be early evening by now, judging by my stomach’s rumbling and the deepening sky, which cradles the sun in the west with a few fluffy clouds.

A fire burns in the circle of rocks, where Sylvie reunites with Elizabeth with a flurry of kisses. Apparently, Eduardo and the oldies—what we’ve been affectionately calling Mama and Khun Anita, after Kit’s playful lead—were able to do what the young guys couldn’t: build a fire.

Mama smiled proudly when I congratulated her—a smile that I’m totally counting in my tally—and Kit tackle-hugged his grandmother so exuberantly that she almost fell over.

“I refuse to be anyone’s lab rat,” Preston continues. “I am getting off this island. Now.”

“Um, hate to damper your enthusiasm,” Eduardo says wryly. He seems to have no problem looking at Preston, the other guys, and the oldies. But I have yet to see him make direct eye contact with any of the girls. “But how?”

Preston blinks rapidly for a moment. And then, he turns to the ocean.

“I’ll swim,” he says.

I nearly laugh. Swim? He does realize, doesn’t he, that there’s not a glimpse of any land or vessel on the horizon? Nothing but blue, blue waters. Considering that the human eye can see up to three miles uninterrupted, the likelihood that he’ll find another island before he gives in to fatigue is slim to nonexistent. Not to mention the current, whatever creatures lie in the deep, and the myriad other horrible things that could happen if he ventures into the sea.

“There’s nothing out there,” Bodin says harshly. “Face it. We’re stuck.”

His resolute tone hits me hard. This…this nightmare is real. There’s no hope of escape.

“I don’t care,” Preston insists. “I’m the best swimmer my high school has ever seen. I have to try.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Mama says. “If your parents were here, they wouldn’t be happy.”

He snorts. “That’s what you think, because you’ve got this oh-so-precious relationship with your oh-so-precious princess.”

I take an involuntary step backward, stung. Preston can be a jerk, sure. But this is the first time he’s been openly hostile toward me.

“Not all parents are like that, okay?” he bites out. “They don’t always love their kids. Sometimes, they’re tortured by our very existence.”

Before we can react, he rips off his polo shirt and runs toward the water. I start after him, but Bodin stops me with his hand.

“If he wants to drown, don’t go with him,” he murmurs.

I frown. I wasn’t about to follow Preston across the sea, but shouldn’t we try to stop our Harvard-bound friend from this rash decision, no matter how exasperating he is?

Preston splashes into the water, the salty spray of the waves wetting his shorts. Without hesitation, he dives right in.

Khun Anita mutters under her breath, and Kit pantomimes shooting a basketball—again. (Seriously? Read the beach. But the boy’s only fourteen, so maybe he gets a pass.) Elizabeth clutches Sylvie’s hand, fear plain on her face, while the Ruiz brothers argue about whether they should go after Preston. Rae and Lola are nowhere to be seen.

I exchange a worried look with Mama as Preston’s strong, confident strokes slice into the waves. He’s traveled a good several yards, but he still appears to be in the shallow depths, judging from the brilliant turquoise color—

CLANG!

My heart jumps along with my feet.

Like a rock hitting a wall—a very strong and sturdy wall—Preston seems to have smashed into…something? Jarred by the hit, his body reels back, and he lurches to his feet in waist-deep water, a hand clasped against his head.

“What is it?” Khun Anita walks into the water, not caring that her long sari is getting wet.

“There’s something here. A wall of some sort.” Preston slowly reaches out with his hands, testing. Just like Bodin did an hour earlier, he presses his palms against a barrier that does not give. Only, this time, the wall is invisible.

I stare at it and him and the clear horizon that unfurls for miles. The view looks exactly as it should: an idyllic scene of a tropical paradise. But as Preston moves along the “wall,” establishing the boundary with his hands, it quickly becomes clear that something is preventing us from leaving the immediate vicinity of the beach.

“What is it?” I mutter. “Magnets? A force field? Hardened air?”

Bodin shakes his head slowly. “Does it matter, if it turns this island into a prison?”

The last word hits me right in the center of my chest and sinks slowly through my stomach and down to my shoes. A prison. Not heaven. Not only a magical island. But Xander’s very own penitentiary from hell.

Not paralyzed by similar thoughts, Khun Anita wades farther into the water until she’s by Preston’s side. She puts her hand on his arm and gestures back toward the shore.

“Come back, Preston!” Eduardo calls. “You’d have to be the Hulk to smash through that wall. We might be marooned on this magical island, but an Avenger, you are not.”

“The captain wants emotional extremes?” Preston asks mockingly. “I’ll give him the outlier of human behavior.”

He punches the wall with his fist, hard. Once. Twice. Three times. Blood pools at his knuckles, dripping into the water.

“Stop it!” I shriek as Bodin and I run to the water’s edge. “It’s not going to break.”

“Get something sharp, then,” Preston snaps. “We’re shattering this wall, if I have to die doing it.”

I sigh. I’m sorry that he’s had a rough life. I’m sorry—more than he’ll ever know—that his parents don’t love him. I wouldn’t be the person I am without Mama believing in me at every turn. But he’s not doing himself any favors by being this self-destructive.

Sylvie, apparently, doesn’t agree. She grabs what looks like a tree trunk and runs with it into the water. When she nears the barrier, she throws it with all her might, looking like a fierce javelin warrior.

CLANG.

The wood splinters, peeling back in five sections, so that it resembles an overgrown flower. It bounces back, narrowly missing Khun Anita and Preston. Sylvie dives under the water just in time.

They’ll give up now. They have to. Whatever objects are strong enough to pierce that magical barrier, we certainly don’t have access to them on this beach.

“We have to dig underneath the sand,” Sylvie suggests. “We can tunnel right below the barrier.”

“Great idea!” Preston barks. Maybe he means to be enthusiastic, but he’s so frustrated that every word that leaves his mouth sounds angry.

Mateo and Eduardo wade into the water. They even rope Kit into joining them. All five of them—minus Khun Anita, who makes her way back to the beach, her shoulders slumped—disappear under the waves, and clumps of sand begin to arc out of the water and through the air.

Bodin stands on the beach, his hands on his hips, frowning. I can tell he thinks their efforts are pointless—join the club—but he doesn’t make a move to stop them.

Which means I shouldn’t try, either. We can all think for ourselves out here, and who’s to say that my opinion is correct? Besides, the sand is clouding the water, and my stance on things I can’t see through is very well-defined.

Instead, I walk away, catching up to Mama and Khun Anita. Elizabeth is gone; I wouldn’t be surprised if she left in search of Lola.

As the only two people who have unlocked their abilities, they’re experiencing this ordeal differently. They’re probably more anxious. They’ve got to be more freaked out. I’ll have to check on them both later.

The three of us make our way to the shade. I settle down next to the two older women, making sure I crouch down as I walk past so I don’t tower over their heads—a simple gesture of respect that I learned as a child.

“Mama?” I say, my throat dry, once Khun Anita lies on the sand and appears to doze off. Her wet lower body juts out of the shadows and bakes in the sun.

“Yes, my love?” Dark circles tug down her eyes, and her skin looks as fragile, as rippable, as tissue paper. And yet, the same steadiness gleams from her pupils. I cling to that. It’s the only life preserver I have left on this sandy beach.

“Do you think Papa’s on an island like this one?” I ask in a small voice. Now that we know that Xander’s engineered this entire nightmare, it seems unlikely that Papa’s safe in civilization, working frantically to reach us. Still, I have to ask. “Or do you think he somehow escaped?”

Mama reaches out and smooths a piece of hair behind my ear. My locks are beyond saving—when I touched them this morning, all I felt was a tangled nest—so I know that her aim is to comfort me, rather than groom me.

“Mama, the other side,” I whisper.

She smiles kindly, tucking another piece behind my other ear, thereby restoring order in the universe.

“Alaia, I love you with all my heart,” she says, “and your eyes are begging me to lie to you, to protect you. I want to do that, more than anything.” She stops, chews on lips that are beyond chapped. She’s had dry lips all of her life, and this deserted-island living isn’t helping. “But I won’t be on this earth much longer, so I can’t coddle you. You have to find a way to be strong without my help. Without my presence.”

I wince. I’ve known this from the moment that Mama’s doctors declared her cancer terminal, but I haven’t been able to face it.

“I don’t know how,” I whisper.

“Everything you have to thrive is within you,” she says. “All you have to do is find it.”

“Kinda like my latent psychic ability?” I manage to joke.

Mama smiles. Twenty-three. About a fifth of the way. I pray that we live long enough to get to 121. “Exactly like that.”

But as lovely as her smile is, in spite of the way it tears me up just to put me back together again, I can tell that she’s struggling, too, as she reaches for her next words.

“Papa stayed behind on that yacht,” she says quietly, “and Xander had complete control of that vessel, just like he has over this island. If Papa didn’t go up in flames when that boat exploded…well, there’s a high possibility that he’s trapped on an island somewhere, just like us.”

“So, he’s not working with the authorities?” I plead. “He’s not going to show up any minute to rescue us?”

I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Mama’s already established, long ago, that she won’t lie to me. And yet, old habits die hard, and I can’t help seeking that one sliver of comfort, that last shred of safety, that comes from Mama’s reassurance.

“No, nam phung, he’s not.”

I close my eyes, the finality of her answer sinking in. It’s even more poignant because of the nickname she uses—nam phung, the Thai word for “honey.” It’s not an actual endearment in Thai, nor is it the American word—but a special blend of two cultures. Just like me.

A growing cacophony of voices drags my eyes open. The digging gang, plus Bodin, are back.

“That was a ridiculous waste of energy,” Mateo says, taking his glasses out of a pocket of his cargo shorts and putting them back on.

“It was worth a try,” Sylvie argues. Her tanned, toned legs are streaked with mud. “How were we supposed to know that the barrier extended below the sand?”

Turning his back to Sylvie, Eduardo wipes water droplets from his eyes. “We tried. We failed. What’s next?”

“A boat,” Kit offers. What do you know? He can talk about something other than basketball. “A really fast one that will zip around the island, faster than the wind can follow. We’ll race the wall, gaining speed and momentum, until BAM.” He pounds a fist into an open palm. “We find an opening and crash right through.”

Bodin snorts. “Please. Where are you going to find a motorboat? That’s precisely why we’re stranded here. Because there is no boat.”

Preston advances, getting right up in Bodin’s face, so that they’re nose to nose. “What the hell’s wrong with you? At least the kid’s suggesting something. All you do is shoot down our ideas without offering anything in return. It’s like you want us to be trapped here.”

Bodin shoves Preston in the chest. “Get away from me.”

“Try me.” Preston pulls back his fist, gearing up for a fight.

I rise to my feet, hands up as though that can ward off the violence. I’d hoped that the physical exercise would wear down Preston’s rage. Guess I was wrong.

“That is enough,” Khun Anita’s authoritative voice thunders. “Stand down, both of you.”

“Fighting amongst ourselves will not help,” Mama says. “Let’s just all take a minute and calm down.”

But Preston pays no attention to the oldies. Like a beast has been unleashed, he charges at Bodin, knocking him to the ground. Bodin bucks once, twice, with an almost supernatural strength, dislodging Preston from his body. Once free, Bodin leaps to his feet in one smooth motion, but Preston is too fast for him, throwing a punch that connects with Bodin’s lip.

Blood sprays into the air.

My heart drops, and I cry out. “Help him, please!”

The Ruiz brothers spring forward and drag Preston back by his shoulders. That gives Bodin enough time to flip onto his stomach and curl into a ball.

But Preston will not be stopped. He pulls away and continues to pummel Bodin’s back, over and over, without thought, without reason. It’s as though he’s possessed, and the brothers are helpless to shut down the onslaught.

A high-pitched squeak erupts from the group. Startled, Eduardo stops short halfway to Preston, and Mateo looks around wildly. The squeak sounds again, louder and more pained. Preston is thrashing, no longer landing blows on Bodin’s back. He stands up and flails like a mouse caught in a trap. The squeak pierces the air, anguished. Desperate. Is the noise…coming from him?

The brothers crawl backward, terrified, so that when Preston finally topples to the ground, landing on his butt, there’s a circle of space around him, giving us a clear view of his mouth, which has shrunk to the size of a pinhole.

“Well,” Bodin says wryly, rolling into a seated position. “I guess that takes care of rations for another day.”