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A not-so-subtle sign. A message to me in the way only Micah would communicate.

Perhaps he’s still with us, after all, and he’s not gone completely wild.

Thomas blows out a breath. His muscles still flex, even though he’s dropped at least thirty pounds since being here. “Yeah, Micah would do that, wouldn’t he? This has Micah written all over it.”

“How did he get it to burn?” Naomi asks. “We’ve been trying to burn this wood for days. It’s too wet.”

I blink at her lazily. Her hair is pulled up tight, her cheeks are sunken, and she is hardly recognizable. I keep my face neutral but don’t respond to her. Instead, I focus on Thomas. I can’t speak to Naomi; I still hate her. Ezra might have forgiven her, but she’s yet to apologize to me for anything.

The most sinister thought consumes me. “Maybe he didn’t burn wood. Maybe he burned something else.” Like a pile of dead bodies.

No one responds to that.

“We need the flare gun,” Thomas says, rising and throwing wood into the fire before directing his attention to me. “He has it, doesn’t he?”

I merely nod. Micah has the flare gun—he’s had it since the beginning. He didn’t want to waste the only two flares in the beginning because no one would have seen it. I hope when the time comes, he will actually use it. And since he never gave it to us, he clearly wants it for himself.

I leave the others and walk to the creek, grabbing my pack to bathe. Before I do, I call over my shoulder, “Make sure you keep an eye on the sky. This fire might gain the attention we were looking for. Something’s attracting those airplanes.” This fire, in particular, is fresh, so whoever is out there will probably come looking.

At least, I hope so… Otherwise, we’ll burn alive.

Once alone, I scrub myself to the point of obsession until my skin is raw and tears burn the back of my eyes. No matter what I do, I can’t shake the feeling being caked with blood—Nigel’s blood when it splattered over me like paint. It’s like, somehow, it seeped into my pores and he’s now a part of me. Afterward, I attempt to wrap my hand, doing my best to brace it like Micah would, and get dressed. Not that it matters anymore since I no longer have any feeling in my fingers. And that numbness is spreading through every nerve in my hand. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s spreading to my heart.

Before I head back to the others, I peer at the sky. The smoke, dark and foreboding, is reminiscent of an apocalypse.

A perfect ending to this story.

It’s quiet—eerily so—as if the spring birds, critters, and insects are hiding from the smoke, knowing their time on this island is ending, too.

It takes a few minutes for me to realize I hear something strange. It’s more than the usual hum of wilderness, the distant crackling where the fire is burning, or the soul-sucking voices in my head.

It’s a whooshing sound, low and close.

Like a machine.

Or a helicopter… flying low, heading in the complete opposite direction.

I drop my bag and run to the others, who see it too, each of them standing and staring up through the dense brush in the middle of the clearing. As if on cue, every single one of us, including Jade, jumps up and down in the meadow, screaming and waving our arms.

We scream until our lungs bleed. Then we scream some more.

The helicopter disappears into the heavy smoke, and we’re all quiet again, out of breath and heartbroken. The silence is suffocating.

Naomi leans against Serena and starts to cry. I fall to my knees as my heart beats through my chest. The sense of doom I’ve been feeling takes over completely. My mind numbs, and my chest caves in on itself. We stare at each other as if silently saying, “What’s next?”

But there is no next, and we all know it.

Perhaps my plans of offing myself will happen much sooner than I anticipated.

A few minutes go by, then a few more…

“What was that?” Ezra asks, breaking the silence among us.

“What the fuck did you see?” Thomas asks, furrowing his brow, still clearly harboring anger toward Ezra, just as I do for Naomi, but casting it aside for the moment for the sake of the others.

“It was a light in the sky,” he says.

I whip my head up. “Are you sure?”