‘I think we should pack up,’ Jefferson announces. ‘Get back to our old camp for the night. It won’t take me five minutes to start another fire.’
Milo shakes his head. ‘We can’t. Danny said it’s been trashed. Those two knobheads couldn’t just leave, could they?’
‘They trashed my camp too,’ Jeffers says miserably.
‘Have you been back there?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. I managed to salvage a few bits and bobs, mostly stuff I’d hung in the trees.’ He nods towards his rucksack. ‘It’s all in there, everything I’ve got left. Everything else was burnt.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s just stuff.’ He shrugs then looks back at Milo. ‘Did they burn all the wood in the old camp?’
‘I don’t think so. Dan said there wasn’t a fire, just a big mess.’
‘No point us chopping down a load of trees here when we can reuse the timber. I think we head back to our old camp through the jungle and get it sorted. It’ll be dark soon so we really need to get going if we want to be set up for the night.’
‘I’m in.’ Meg gets to her feet and holds out a hand to Honor.
‘Yeah.’ She nods. ‘Me too.’
As Milo gets to his feet he glances at me. ‘Coming?’
I nod and take the hand he offers me, but as I try and get to my feet my legs wobble beneath me and I plop back down again.
Milo smiles. ‘Is our Olympic swimmer tired by any chance?’
‘Shattered. But I can’t leave you guys to do all the hard work.’
‘Tell you what,’ Jeffers says. ‘Why don’t you stay here with the rucksacks? That way we’ll all make it through the jungle a bit quicker. We’ll pop back and grab them when we’re done. Have a nap,’ he adds. ‘You look shattered.’
‘Danny!’ Honor shouts. ‘We’re going to the old camp. Are you coming?’
Danny doesn’t reply. He’s standing at the water’s edge at the far end of the beach staring down at his feet.
‘Leave him.’ Jeffers touches her on the shoulder. ‘He’s in a weird mood. Coming, Milo?’
He nods. ‘You guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up.’
We both watch as Jeffers and Honor disappear into the jungle. Meg, trailing behind, turns to look back at us. Her eyes dart from Milo to me and she frowns, then swiftly turns and runs to rejoin the others.
‘She knows,’ I say.
‘Of course she does.’
‘She doesn’t look happy about it.’
‘She’ll get used to it.’ He bends down to kiss me. ‘I wish I could stay here, with you.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Because some of us aren’t slackers!’ We both laugh then he kisses me again and stands up. ‘Seriously, though. Do you want me to stay?’
‘No.’ I smile up at him. ‘I’ll be fine. I just need a half-hour nap.’
He reaches round, pulls a thin blanket from his rucksack and hands it to me.
‘Just don’t sleep too close to the fire.’ A split second after he says the word ‘fire’ he widens his eyes in horror as the implications of what he just said sink in.
‘It’s fine.’ I reach up and squeeze his fingers. ‘I know what you meant.’
Chapter 26
DANNY
Danny stares down at his feet, his stomach hollowing and twisting like a shell. It’s gone, the message in the sand.
One of you will die.
Of course it has. It’s been washed away by the sea. Or was it even there in the first place? It was, he knows it was. He wouldn’t have rushed over to Honor and Meg, his heart in his throat and his forehead beaded with sweat, if there wasn’t anything to panic about. But when he’d reached them and they’d both looked up with alarm written all over their faces he’d found that he couldn’t speak. He had a choice – tell them the truth and terrify them or keep it to himself and deal with it. But he hadn’t dealt with it, had he? He’d plonked himself down by the fire and stared into the flames hoping an answer would magically come to him. He could tell Jeffers, of course. That was the first thought that leapt into his brain. But Jeffers would immediately take charge, making decisions and telling Danny what to do like he was a little school kid who couldn’t do anything for himself. No, he wouldn’t tell Jeffers. He wouldn’t tell anyone until he knew who he could trust. He’d keep it to himself and work out who was behind it.
Only the message had unnerved him so much he couldn’t think straight.
One of you will die.
Die. Not fall in a pit with a snake, not wake in the night covered in spiders, not fall off a cliff before dawn. Die.
It wasn’t a vague threat; it was a message meant for him. Your greatest fear is coming true next, Danny. Honor’s going to die.
Two nights, that’s how long they had left before help would arrive. Just two nights, forty-eight hours. It was nothing; a weekend would pass in a heartbeat back at home. One minute he’d be traipsing out of the school gates then he’d blink (or at least it would feel that way), and he’d be traipsing back in again. Forty-eight hours on the island was a different matter. So much could happen in such a small passage of time, so much had already happened.
How would they try and kill her? he wonders. Drown her? He won’t let her go into the sea alone. Burn her? He turns instinctively to look at Jessie, curled up near the fire. He can’t even begin to imagine what she went through. And he doesn’t want to. Besides, she’s one of the suspects.
Might they stab her? Hack her to death? The thought of anything, anything, happening to his girlfriend makes him want to vomit with fear.
The answer is not to sleep. He’ll sit by the fire and stay awake for forty-eight hours, keeping watch until someone comes to rescue them.
As he stares down at the sand he suddenly becomes aware of how rapidly his heart is beating in his chest and of the blood thumping in his ears. He looks at his hands. They’re trembling uncontrollably.
Breathe, he tells himself. Breathe, it’s just a panic attack.
But then his vision starts to blur and he’s hot, so hot and sweaty he feels as though his skin is wrapped in clingfilm and it’s tightening around his chest and his heart is beating faster and faster and faster. He drops to his knees and splashes seawater onto his face, but as he closes his eyes all he can see is Anuman’s face, his skin leathery and grey, pulled tight over his bones and his jaw, slack and open, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
Death is the one thing you can’t control.
The tremors in Danny’s hands grow stronger as he presses them against his own face and his fingertips tap, tap, tap on his cheekbones and temples. His arms begin to vibrate, his shoulders shake and his whole body quivers and quakes as his vision blurs and his heart throws itself against his rib cage, beating faster and faster and faster.
It’s a panic attack. It’s just a panic attack.
But his body has stopped listening to his mind and his breathing is sharp and shallow and the sea’s growing darker and narrower and his world’s turning black.
This is what death feels like, says a voice in his head.