I still don’t understand why you needed me,” P.J. said as the bat-winged plane hurtled silently through the darkness, thirty thousand feet over the Leeward Islands. “Why didn’t they just send Jack back in time to find the watch?”
“Because the trip might have killed him,” Eko told her. “The passage through time puts tremendous stress on the heart and the central nervous system. A human body needs time to recover. Jack made the jump forward less than two weeks ago. If he tried to come back too soon, he could have a stroke or a heart attack. Even if he made it back and found the watch, he could never have returned with it to the future again, where he’s urgently needed. So bringing him here wasn’t an option. You’re the only other person who knows where the watch was discarded.”
“But I swear I don’t know,” P.J. almost shouted. She got control of herself. “Jack and I were talking and winding our way through river channels. My mind was on getting out of the Amazon, taking a hot bath, and heading home. I wasn’t watching where we were going. I couldn’t find that bend in the river again in a million years.”
“You’ll find it,” Eko promised her.
“No I won’t. I can’t. Look, I’d help if I could. I admit I don’t particularly like being kidnapped by you—”
“I saved you from being raped.”
“That’s true. Thank you. And then you kidnapped me for your own purposes. And when I said I didn’t want to go, you knocked me unconscious.”
“They’re Jack’s purposes, too,” Eko pointed out.
“You want them to be Jack’s purposes,” P.J. fired back. “From what he’s told me, he’s been as helpless in all this as I am now. He didn’t want to go off to find Firestorm. He was forced to go to the Amazon to try to rescue me. And I bet he didn’t willingly jump into a time machine a week ago. Why don’t you just admit it—you guys hijack our lives for your own purposes and find self-serving ways to justify it.”
Eko gave her a tiny smile tinged with admiration. “Nice speech. You must be feeling a little better.”
“My head still aches,” P.J. admitted.
“Drink some water. Here’s a thermos.”
“Thanks.” P.J. took a long sip.
There was a moment of silent connection between the two women that surprised them both.
“I guess it was pretty stupid of me to get tricked that way,” P.J. said softly. “You want a sip?”
“Sure. Thanks.” Eko took the thermos from her. “It wasn’t your fault. Men are not to be trusted. Now or a thousand years from now, most of them can only think about one thing. Then again, their simplicity makes them much easier to manipulate.”
P.J. took the thermos back and swallowed a big gulp of cold water. “I bet you’re good at manipulating them.”
“Have you had lots of . . . ‘boyfriends’?”
“Do you mean have I slept with a lot of men?” Eko asked with a smile.
“Have you?”
“Not as many as I’d like.”
“Meaning you haven’t slept with Jack?”
Eko turned her head and looked at P.J. The beautiful gray eyes glittered.
“But you’d like to,” P.J. whispered. “I bet you’d do anything to manipulate him into your arms, and I bet you could justify that as part of some cosmic necessity. I feel sorry for you. You lie to yourself about the things that are most important.”
Eko didn’t reply right away. She touched the controls, and the plane began to descend through thick cloud cover.
“The notion that I even have to justify anything to you is absurd,” she told P.J. “It may be hard for you to accept this, but your life is insignificant and utterly meaningless when the stakes are considered. As for Jack, he’s fulfilling his destiny. He was born to a family, a fate, a role, and he must accomplish that task.”
“And, of course, part of that task just happens to be marrying you?” P.J. suggested quietly.
“It is written that if we save the earth, we will rule together in a new Eden. Our descendants will be as numerous as the sand grains.”
“You’re nuts,” P.J. told her. “And you’re also wrong. People have the right to choose.”
The dials showed that they were already down to twenty-five thousand feet. The clouds completely screened their window.
“We’re almost there,” Eko told her. “I understand now why Jack liked you. Part of it, of course, was nostalgia for his lost childhood. You represent an innocent time that he knows he can never get back, but he still craves. But you’re also strong and smart and I think you really do love him. Unfortunately for you, the more you try to hold on to each other, the more you both will suffer. You’re going to have to forget him.”
“I can’t and I won’t.”
The plane darted out of the clouds. They were high over the Andes. Dawn had broken, and golden sunlight was spilling over the crags and slowly seeping into the valleys like yolk from a cracked, magical egg.
“I can help you forget him,” Eko said.
“How can you do that?”
“By getting inside your mind.”
P.J. looked back at her and fear showed plainly on her face. “No way. I don’t ever want you inside my mind.”
“I’m afraid there’s no choice,” Eko told her. “That’s how we’re going to find the watch.”