Luke was twenty again.
I smiled. “Now may we get on with business?”
CHAPTER TEN
Stephanie
Like everyone else being held in that bungalow, I knew Warner would never get his hands on this island without a fight.
But what was Rook’s plan?
And after everything, why did I still care so much about his survival? I should hate him with all my heart, but every time he looked at me with loving assurance that this would soon be over, my heart stirred with regret. Had I misjudged him? Because how, after everything I’d done, could he still love me so much? How could he not be angry when he and his people were suffering through this nightmare I’d created? And most importantly, why couldn’t I stop thinking about what would happen when this was all over? Because when I looked at him, my hate faded into the backdrop, leaving behind a hazy mixture of emotions. Love? Maybe yes. Fear? Most definitely. I’d given him my heart so completely; all the while he knew how Cici died and had chosen to hide it. Now he claimed that someone on his team had lured Cici here. I didn’t know what to believe. Still, his actions in the past twelve hours were not those of an evil, manipulative person. They were the actions of a strong, forgiving, and protective man who would risk everything to save me and the people he loved.
I glanced over at Rook, who stood talking to Warner about going down into some cave and this nonexistent underground spring. How did I think these men were the same? Warner was violent and cruel. He didn’t care about anyone. Rook, on the other hand, would do anything to protect the people he cared about. Even lie.
With utter fascination, I watched Rook spin his story, his eyes giving nothing away. Not a twitch or an out-of-place blink with those thick black lashes. Even his posture said: “Trust me. I’m telling the truth. I’m giving you everything you’ve ever wanted, and all you have to do is give in.”
Warner, who stood there in his black slacks and bloodstained white shirt, rubbed the back of his neck, looking paler than usual. His dark eyes kept gravitating toward Luke, who leaned against the wall, arms crossed defiantly over his narrow chest.
Damn, Luke looks younger than me—twenty tops. But regardless, it was Luke. The face was exactly the same, minus a few wrinkles and sun damage.
“But how?” Warner kept asking Rook. “How does it work?”
“We believe it has something to do with the electrical fields in this area. You have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, yes? We are just at its edge, and I assure you, the stories are true. Planes and boats go missing all the time. It’s why the satellites do not detect our location—the interference makes us look like a blur on the map. Meanwhile, anyone sailing in our area finds their navigation equipment useless. If they manage to reach our shores, we tell them they are on some other island in the Bahamas. We tow them to a port a few hours from here, and they are unable to trace their way back to us.”
Was this true? His story sounded so believable.
“So this, uh…spring. Can you bottle it?” Warner asked.
“No. Once the water is removed from the source, the composition changes. You must drink directly from the pool.”
“James, fah fuck’s sake. Let’s get this over wit. Take the man. Let him see for himself.”
Warner looked at Rook’s aunt. “You be quiet.”
She snarled with her eyes. “We all know this man is going to kill us the moment he gets what he wants, and I’m tired of pretending I’m not going to die. I’m too old for this.”
Warner completely ignored her. He was too caught up in the fantasy. Welcome to the club.
“Your people will stay here,” he said to Rook. “You and Stephanie are taking me down to this spring. I want to see this with my own eyes.”
Rook bobbed his head. “As you wish, but I want your word you’ll let everyone live.”
“If what you say is true, then I’ll think about it.”
Rook shook his head. “We merely want to leave quietly. After so long, protecting this place feels more like a prison sentence, something you’ll learn for yourself.”
Warner gestured for us to exit the suite. “You coming or not?”
Rook gave me a reassuring look, signaling that I should follow along.
We left the room, and one of his men closed the front door to stand guard with a large automatic handgun.
The rest of his men, all eleven, followed behind us.
“Why so many, Warner?” Rook asked.
“You just show us this spring,” Warner replied.
Obviously, the man was paranoid that Rook was setting a trap. Oh, I know he is. But what?
It suddenly dawned on me what might be down in this cave. We had the Indiana Jones-type fantasy where guests explored a system of manmade caves in search of treasure. And then, there’s the other cave. The one I’d only heard of, but had never seen.
I felt my heart start to pound furiously. Fucking hell, Rook. What are you up to?
We made our way across the narrow wooden bridge that led to a path on the west side of the island. I knew it well. There was a beach there I liked to swim at, and not far away was a stunning cliff overlooking the ocean. Rook had made love to me there. But where the hell was this cave?
“I see your limp has gotten worse. Are you all right?” Rook placed his hand gently on my back.
No. I’m terrified. But I also had to trust that if anyone could pull us out of this situation, it was him.
“I still have that cut on the bottom of my foot,” I replied. “Hurts like everything else, but I’ll live.”
He smiled tenderly at me, but didn’t speak. And I couldn’t lie; it was just the reassurance I needed.
We all filed along in silence, the sun now just peeking up over the horizon. Warner and his men walked behind me. Rook led the way.
Rook stopped and pointed to a stand of towering palm trees. “The cave is just over here.”
Strange. I never recalled seeing anything in this spot, and I’d walked this path dozens of times.
Rook walked fifty feet past the trees, reached down, and removed a mat that was loaded with dry leaves and twigs. Underneath was a set of stone steps leading down into a hole in the ground.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up like quills. Whatever was down there didn’t smell like life-giving water. It smelled of rotting vegetation and death.
“Do not let the odor put you off,” Rook said. “The water has a high sulfur content.”
I stared down into the dark, wet-looking space. My mind immediately conjured images of giant snakes and spiders crawling everywhere. But Mr. cool as a cucumber, true to his form, went right in, flipping on a string of small lights stuck to the wall. I hesitated for a moment, my feet unwilling to carry me down there. You have to go. You have to follow along.
I drew a breath and went in, crouching on the way down. Oh, God. The stench. I pretended not to notice, as if it were all perfectly normal. To my surprise, Warner and his men seemed to be buying it. They entered the stairwell behind me without a word.
Once at the bottom of the steps, we continued down a narrow passage, where another string of lights, stuck to the dripping walls, lit our way to a steel gate. No one seemed to notice that the key to open it hung on the wall. On our side. Those steel bars weren’t for keeping people out. They were for keeping something in.
Please, please don’t be what I think this is.
“It’s just right around the corner,” Rook said.
“We better be there fast, Rook. My patience is running out.”
“Your wait is over.” We stepped into a small underground cavern about seventy feet wide with jagged dripping walls. A small stream trickled from a crack in the ceiling, gathering in a pool below with no visible outlet.
“This? This is your fountain of youth?” Warner asked.
“Yes.”
Warner pointed at me. “You. Drink it.”
“Me?” I pointed to my chest.
“Yeah, if it’s poison, then
I wanna know.”
“It’s not. I assure you.” Rook looked at me. “Go ahead.”
I ran my hand over the top of my snarled, dirty hair. “But I’m only twenty-six. How young will I look after?”
“I do not know. If you are already your perfect age, the most that will happen is your wounds will heal. Or you might turn out like Luke.”
Great. Just what I want, to be eighteen. But I had to remind myself that this wasn’t real. Rook was creating a fantasy, a trap.
“Fine.” I stepped forward and crouched over the pool, scooping some up in one hand. I slurped, noting the bitter mineral taste. It was like drinking baking soda.
“No. You must drink directly from the pool, you cannot remove the water with your hand,” Rook said.
I gave him a look. “You want me to put my face in it?”
“Yes.”
I could feel the tension in the air and see the excitement in Warner’s eyes. They already believed Rook’s story. They were sold. So why did Rook want me down on the cavern’s floor? It took only one second for my question to be answered.
Holy crap. What is that?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rook
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a ship full of approximately ninety men changed my life forever. They never found gold or treasures, which they punished us for, but now I realized that the events of that day had led to this exact moment. Was it fate?
All those years ago, the pirates had sailed off to plunder, rape, and murder elsewhere, leaving only myself alive and my aunt on death’s doorstep—stabbed, raped, and the baby in her womb dead. The storm that sank their ship a mile from our coastline had been violent and angry, seeming to come from nowhere. To this day, I still wondered if Father Rook’s tormented soul had anything to do with it, because the storm had disappeared as quickly as it hit. The survivors, a total of seventy-one, from what we had been able to gather, were split into two groups: The men who rowed to a nearby island in a small boat and the thirty-seven badly injured men who washed ashore here. Not so surprising given that we had been the nearest land mass. What gave me pause, however, was that five of the men had been the leaders. The worst of the worst. The ones who gave the orders, slit my family’s throats and committed the crimes while the others had watched and cheered.
A week later, my aunt was in a rage, determined to kill each of the men in the same way they’d murdered our loved ones. She took one of the men, who’d all been bound, gagged, and thrown into this very cave—a prison built by the monks—and dragged him to the lagoon. But before she could exact her justice, he stepped into the water and disappeared. Gone like a wisp of steam. She, in turn, looked even younger than she had after being healed a week earlier. That was how we discovered the true nature of the lagoon water. Over the years, one by one, those men were sacrificed as we used the water to heal the growing number of people seeking our services from nearby islands. When we finally got down to the last five, the captain and four of his men who’d led the atrocities that day, the lagoon wouldn’t take them. We assumed that Father Rook wanted them to suffer forever.
Now, in this very moment, I wondered if it was fate that had kept them alive.
I watched Stephanie go to her stomach on the cavern floor just as a form appeared from the shadows, seeming to crawl out of the walls. It had its teeth bared and dirty long clawlike fingernails.
“What the—”
The creature jumped on one of Warner’s men, and an audible crunch ricocheted off the walls.
“Jesus! What is that?” Warner fired his gun at this beast, and I dropped to the floor, trying to stay out of the light.
“It’s a fucking trap,” someone yelled before three more men came from the shadows, biting and clawing. Their tattered rags for clothes, dirty bodies, rotting teeth, and long stringy hair made them look like creatures from a grave. The undead. For all Warner knew, more would keep coming.
I looked at Stephanie. “Get in the water and swim down.”
It took a moment for it to register, but she understood.
My smart Stephanie. The water had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was an underwater tunnel that led into the next cavern.
She went in, and I watched Stephanie disappear. She would feel that the pool flowed down a bit and then to the right. As long as she trusted me and stayed calm, she would find her way easily.
I slid in, ready to follow, but someone grabbed my foot. “I’ll fucking kill you, Rook!”
Warner held a gun in one hand and my heel in the other. I kicked up, slamming my heel into his nose. He fell back with a grunt and released me.
I dove quickly, swimming hard through the dark, narrow tunnel, emerging on the other side of the wall.
Stephanie was already out.
“Ohmygod. Are you alright?” she said, dripping with water and panting hard.
“Yes,” I climbed out quickly, “but we need to get out of here. Warner and his men might follow.”
I took her hand and guided her down a passage, following the string of lights.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“It’s our prison.”
“And those…things, what the hell were they?”
“Men who have been trapped down here for over two hundred years, more animal than human.”
“Jesus, it’s them—the ones you told me about.” I had told Stephanie most of the story the day she’d asked me a question no one ever had: “If you could have one fantasy, what would it be?”
I had replied that I wanted her. To marry her, have children, and live a long happy life together. I still wanted it. She’d then asked what was next on the list, and I told her. For over two hundred years, I had wanted to kill these men. I wanted them to die because of what they did. But I had made a vow to care for my aunt and this island. Above all, I vowed to carry on Father Rook’s beliefs. I could not murder these men just to satisfy my thirst for revenge.
But to save an innocent life? That was always permitted.
“Yes, they are the pirates I told you about,” I said.
“Sonofabitch, I thought they were zombies or something.”
“They are shells of the violent men they once were.”
We trudged along carefully, hand in hand. I wanted to kiss her and hold her, but couldn’t. I simply had to be happy knowing she would be safe now.
“Why did we have to stay low?” she asked.
“They’re nearly blind from being down here for so long. They are attracted to movement in the light.”
“I’ve never seen anything like them.”
Luckily, Captain Smith was kept in a separate cell. Had he been there, no one would have gotten out. He was the only one who still spoke and maintained his mental faculties though he’d become more vicious over the years. We kept him separated because he required very special handling. He was smart.
“Let us hope you never will come across them again.” We arrived at another set of steel bars, where Luke waited on the other side.
“Luke? Ohmygod,” Stephanie said.
“How’d it go?” I asked Luke.
“As planned. Warner’s guy never saw it coming,” Luke replied.
“Saw what?” Stephanie asked.
“We have our own men with guns, and ours are better trained,” I said. “They’ve had many, many years to do so.”
“The other fifty people,” she concluded.
“Yes.” Every one of our permanent employees served a purpose. Those fifty men and women who’d remained hidden when Warner arrived were chosen specifically to defend our home.
Luke popped open the steel gate and let us through, locking it behind us.
“What happens next?” Stephanie asked.
I honestly did not know because while Warner and his men would soon be dead, if they weren’t already, I was back at my crossroads. I was a monk again, unable to be with the woman I was born to love.
“You are safe, Stephanie. That’s all that matters.” I gave he
r hand a squeeze.
“What about Warner?” she asked.
“He’s not going anywhere.”
“So, it’s over, just like that?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“But, but…”
“You’re safe now. I promise.” At least, she would be as soon as I got her off this island.
“Rook! You fucking bastard! I’ll kill you,” Warner yelled from behind the bars down the tunnel. I could see those eyes. So dark, so full of fury. And so shit out of luck.
I looked at Stephanie. “You go on ahead with Luke.”
“What? Why?” she asked.
“I need a moment.”
“Come on,” Luke said to Stephanie. “I need to get you to Dr. Rosy and have you looked at.”
“Luke, keep my aunt away from her. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Stephanie gave me a worried look. I could see in her eyes that she didn’t want to leave me, but what I did not know was why. Did she still love me? Or did she want to tell me how much she hated me for all that I had done and all the ways I’d failed her.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We will have our words after your injuries are taken care of.”
“But—”
“You’ve spent more than enough time with this animal, and I have a few words to say.” I took her hand and kissed the top, wishing I was kissing her soft lips instead. “Trust me. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay. If you say so.” Stephanie nodded hesitantly and left with Luke.
I walked back down the tunnel and stopped on the other side of the bars, staring Warner in the eyes.
“Rook, you fucking think you won’t pay for this? You think I didn’t have a plan to take care of you if you double-crossed me?”
“Warner, Warner, Warner.” I shook my head. “You’re not the first asshole to come to our island, nor will you be the last. What you need to understand, my friend—what’s really important—is that you accept you will never leave this cave. We will let you rot slowly until your mind is a hell unlike anything you could ever imagine, where you’re left with nothing but your sins and the faces of the people you’ve wronged. And just when you think death is imminent and your freedom is just a few breaths away, we will bring you back.” I leaned in. “You see, we weren’t lying about the fountain of youth. And those things back there that just attacked your men, they’re the original gangsters. Oh, and they’ll be your cell mates for a few centuries.”