—then folds the slim sheaf back into his pocket. He pins the heavy envelope between his teeth as he zips, buttons, and pulls his blood-crusted sweater over his head and then, finally, sinks into a seated position before the dwindling fire.
“Well, well, well,” he says, turning the stationery over in his hands. “This is some fancy paper.”
Somehow, my heart beats harder.
It strikes me, as I observe him, that James lives in his skin without self-consciousness, comfortable despite the violent scars on his body, despite knowing he’s being watched. This fact inspires in me a voracious envy I’m helpless to suppress.
He looks up at a nearby squirrel, and Damani switches screens to better capture his face.
“People don’t really send letters anymore,” he says to the rodent,ripping open the envelope. “Not unless they want to say something really—”
James’s eyebrows fly upward, the words dying in his throat as he unsheathes the shimmery card from its sleeve. I watch, paralyzed, as his eyes move across the page. He lifts his head sharply, scowling at the squirrel when he says—
“Who the fuck is Sebastian?”
Damani laughs, clapping her hands together. “Oh, this is great.”
I’m hardly breathing.
“She’s getting married? The serial killer is getting marriednext weekto some douchebag named Sebastian Alastair von Douchebag the Fourth?”
Bile has risen up my throat.
“You’re the serial killer,” Damani says to me in an undertone. “The subject will refer to you as a serial killer several more times over the next twelve hours.”
“I’m sorry, but does her fiancé know that she might be dead right now? Does he even know she’s a serial killer?” James seems unusually bothered by the invitation, which he wastes no time holding over the fire, glaring as flames devour the expensive stationery. “Downer wedding.”
“Belated congratulations, by the way,” says Damani. “The island is buzzing—we all got our invitations yesterday. It’ll be the wedding of the year.”
I shake my head an inch, acutely aware that all Ark officials—including Sebastian—are watching me for a reaction. “He’s not my fiancé,” I force out. “We’re not getting married.”
James picks up a sizable rock,which he throws forcefully at a small boulder, eyes intent as he watches it break apart. From the wreckage he picks out a jagged piece.
“I’m sure it’s hard to believe,” Damani says to me, her eyes still glued to the screens. James has begun to use a round stone as a hammer, hitting it against the rough edges of the jagged piece, honing it into a crude blade. “Certainly no one thought Lieutenant Rivers would honor the betrothal after your family’s fall from grace. But he put forth a passionate argument in front of the council, and the motion was passed with shockingly little objection.”
I swallow. My throat feels raw.
“Oh, and you should know,” Damani adds, sparing me a glance. “Going forward, we’ve decided you’ll be reporting to Lieutenant Rivers—”
I stiffen, the statement like a slap to the face.
“—who knows you nearly as well as Soledad once did.”
On-screen, James is using the crude blade to sharpen a stick into a spear.
“We all realize the complications of having you report to your fiancé, but duty supersedes all else in this case. Until we can get you online, you’ll have to be under the command of someone who knows your history. The wedding will need to be postponed regardless—just until the mission is complete—but I’m sure Sebastian will understand.”
“Commander—”
Damani holds up a finger, her eyes unfocusing as she receives a message.She glances again at James before saying, “Affirmative.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence, a mutedboom—
A fiery explosion rattles the screens, the blast lifting James in the air before flinging him like a rag doll against a neighboring tree, from which a quiver of birds scatter like shrapnel. Angry shrieks of wildlife score the haze of fire and smoke, nearly drowning out James’s agonized cry as he slams violently into every branch on his way down the trunk, finally hitting the forest floor with a dull thud several feet from where he once stood.
He doesn’t move.
A spike of panic compels me to scream and I kill the instinct mercilessly, shuttering so far inward I begin to feel numb, alien in my own body.
