Chapter 26

That evening, the weather took a turn and cool winds whipped along the beach. Robin couldn't seem to sit close enough to the fire to get warm, and she was bone-tired, as if every strenuous event from the last few weeks was hitting her all at once.

"Are you feeling okay, babe?" Scarlet asked, swiping Robin's hair back behind her ear. "You're sweating."

"Am I? I'm freezing."

Scarlet frowned. "You should get some rest. You've been working too hard."

There was no shelter anymore, all of the wood having gone into building the raft. There were still mats, and more of them than the group needed now that Zoe took her people into the jungle. Robin dragged herself over to where the shelter used to be and lay down on one of them, wrapping another around her like the world's worst blanket. Still, she shivered.

"Don't leave without me," she said. Then her eyes closed and she was asleep.

She didn't know how long she was out. It felt like more than just one night's rest. But when she opened her eyes, she was alone on the beach. A jolt of panic shot through her as she realized there wasn't a single scrap of evidence that the other women were ever here.

No campfire.

No raft.

No Scarlet.

"Guys?" she called.

They wouldn't leave without her. Had she wandered off, sleep-walked to a new part of the island and passed out again? She'd never done that before, but she wasn't feeling well before bed and she was in entirely uncharted territory in so many other ways that anything seemed possible.

She got up, looked around, tried to orient herself.

"Scarlet?" she called.

Nothing.

The beach didn't look familiar. This was not the camp she'd come to know so intimately in the last eighteen days. She wasn't where she should be. Ah, but there was a half washed out HEL sign a little further up the shoreline. So she must be about halfway around the island from the camp. How the hell had she managed it? And why didn't anyone stop her?

Maybe she'd mumbled some legitimate reason for leaving before she wandered off. Or maybe Scarlet thought she was being petty, since she'd insisted on going off by herself earlier in the day.

Robin decided to cut through the jungle to get back to camp. It was the fastest way, and a gnawing fear was building in her chest that if she didn't get back right now, maybe they really would leave her behind. Maybe they didn't know where she was, or maybe they thought she went to join Zoe.

She ran as fast as she dared over the uneven ground, avoiding thick brush and treacherous roots. She thought she saw a flash of lavender up ahead and ran a little faster, but then her toe caught on a vine and she pitched forward.

She caught herself with her palms, pain stinging through them and up her forearms.

And right in front of her face, mere inches away, a skull stared back at her.

Robin yelped and pushed herself to her knees. It was a full skeleton, a second one, the bones bleached white by the sun and meticulously laid out. There was a grave marker just above the head, and this one had a name etched into it.

Robin Barry.

"What the fuck," she gasped, her heart hammering in her chest.

"Robin!"

She looked up and saw another flash of Scarlet's long, flowing hair through the trees.

"Scarlet, wait for me!" She was on her feet again, pushing the sight of the skeleton out of her mind. She ran after Scarlet, but Scarlet wouldn't stop. "Why won't you wait?"

No matter what path Robin chose or how fast she went, all she ever saw was flashes of lavender. Forever just beyond her grasp. Robin started crying as she ran, the tears blurring her vision as she pleaded with Scarlet to stop for just a minute, just long enough for her to catch up.

She could smell the sweet citrus of her shampoo wafting in the breeze, and she was aching for the comfort of her kiss, Scarlet's body pressed tightly against her own. Even a friendly look would be nice.

But Scarlet just kept running, evading her, teasing her.

"Please!" she shouted, voice cracking.

"I'm sorry," Scarlet said, her voice seeming to float down from the canopy.

And then she was gone, and Robin was bursting out of the tree line at the edge of camp.

Relief washed over her momentarily at the simple familiarity of it, even if Scarlet had gone off somewhere without her. And then she looked around and fear built in her gut again.

She saw the campfires, and the ruins of the shelter, and the partially built raft. But the fires had long burned down to embers. The wood of the raft was rotting like it'd been left out in the sun for decades. Their food supply, carefully laid out on a scrap of fabric the last time Robin saw it, was a heap of sick-smelling rotted fruit, flies crawling all over it.

"Hey, where is everyone?" she shouted, even though it was obvious they were long gone. "Anyone!"

She'd even take Zoe at this point. Panic was ripping through her and she ran along the beach, looking for any sign of life, any hope that they hadn't left her behind.

Instead, her eye caught on something reflecting the sun and she crouched in the sand to inspect it. It was the necklace she had carefully laid around Scarlet's neck, the string rotted and the shells falling off.

Robin reached down to scoop it up and screamed when she saw that all the flesh and sinew of her hand was gone, and only the bones remained. She looked up her arm, down at her body. No muscle, no heart, nothing but bleached white bone.

She was dead.

She died on this God-forsaken island, and they left her behind just like that man in the jungle.

Had there ever even been a man in the jungle? Or was her spirit just looking down on her own grave the whole time?

Robin sat bolt-upright, breathing hard. Her whole body was sticky with sweat, and a cool, damp rag dropped from her forehead into her lap.

"Hi," Scarlet's sweet, melodic voice drifted into her ear, and she turned her head. Scarlet was sitting beside her, a worried look in her eyes.

"You're still here." Robin threw her arms around Scarlet, burying her face in the crook of her neck and inhaling her scent deeply.

"Of course." Scarlet hugged her back and waited until Robin felt safe enough to let her go. Then she handed her half a coconut filled with a hazy clear liquid. "Drink this. It'll help."

Robin downed it, realizing as she did that her throat was parched and her body was screaming for water. "What happened?"

"You have malaria," Scarlet explained. "So do Evie and Kit, and it might explain some of Zoe's followers too. Amelia and Krys have been treating you three with the mefloquine from the first aid kit."

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Two days," Scarlet said with a soft smile. "You scared the shit out of me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't even know I was sick."

"I think we've all been so busy just trying to survive that we missed the symptoms," Scarlet said. "Krys has been beating herself up over it pretty hard, but she's the one who finally put it together. Good news is that Kit's actually doing a lot better now –she still needs medical attention for her ankle, but a lot of her symptoms were the malaria, not shock like Krys was afraid of."

Robin looked around them. She spotted Kit in her usual spot by the campfire and her skin had a much better color than last time Robin had seen her. Amelia was tending to Evie on another mat not far away, and the captain was still sleeping off her own sickness.

The rest of the group was down by the raft at the shore, and it was looking a lot more like something that would be seaworthy now. Somebody had added a mast according to Scarlet's suggestion about the antenna, and Robin could picture it on the high seas with chunks of metal jutting up from it.

"Hope that doesn't double as a lightning rod," she joked.

Scarlet smiled. "Feeling well enough to try to take Lex's spot as the group comedian, I'm so glad." She kissed her, and held on for a few more seconds, their foreheads pressed together. "I thought for a minute I was going to lose you."

"I had the craziest dreams," Robin said, the memories of them fighting their way to the surface. "I thought I lost you too."

"Never," Scarlet promised. "I love you too much."

"I love you too," Robin said. "You're the best thing that came out of this whole ordeal, and I wouldn't trade it."

"When we get off this island, I'm writing so many love songs about you."

"Ah, get a room," Krys teased as she joined them. "I see the patient is feeling better?"

"Much."

Krys put her hand on Robin's forehead, then inspected her pupils and took her pulse. "Fever seems to have broken. You had us worried for a minute there."

"I'm sorry," Robin said, and Scarlet took her hand.

"Hey, I think it's a miracle we made it this far," Krys said. "If you're feeling up to it, you can get up and stretch your legs a bit. But don't push yourself too hard, okay? You still need rest."

Robin nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Krys. For everything."

Krys nodded. "Get lots of water today, and see if you can keep down some papaya."

She started to get up, but Robin called her back. "How much of that mefloquine do we have?"

"Enough for now," Krys told her. "Hopefully not everybody gets sick, though. Why?"

"People in Zoe's group have to be affected too, right?" Robin said. "We should send someone out to find them and deliver some of it."

Krys nodded. "I'd actually be pretty relieved if the only reason Zoe had people buying into her magical food supply crap was because they were all delirious."

Scarlet snorted.

"Actually, Lex and Tasha already volunteered to go. They left with a dozen doses this morning."

Robin shook her head, shocked. "Lex went?"

Krys smiled. "Yeah, how about that?"

"Hey!"

Someone shouted from the shore, and Robin tensed. Whenever somebody started yelling around here, the odds that it was going to be good news was low. But Darcy was standing up on the rocks that jutted out over the water, waving her hands wildly.

"I got something!"

Robin squinted into the sun, catching the reflection of the antenna sticking straight up from the rocks. It was bigger than last time she saw it, and Darcy was so ecstatically gesturing to them that Robin was afraid she'd slip off the rocks like Kit had.

"Do you feel up to taking a walk?" Scarlet asked. "Go check it out?"

"Hell yes," Robin said, getting to her feet. Her legs were shaky and weak, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to hear whatever Darcy was hearing over that radio.