Before He Was Gone: Starstruck Book 2 (14 page)

I’m hanging Stephanie’s daisy dukes over a branch when I hear the shriek. I run from the well, back down the path to the beach. The hot sand sizzles at my feet the whole way and the first thing I see is Punk, making his way through the water, surrounded by turquoise and moving fast.
What the hell?
Punk never goes in the ocean.

‘Help!’ Shan’s screaming. ‘HELP!’

Oh my god.
I spin around. Stephanie and Jaxx are nowhere. I don’t see any cameras on the beach either. Adrenaline rockets through my body as I sprint for the water, following Punk at high speed over the washed-up coral. I throw myself into the shallows and start swimming out towards Shan. He’s waving his arms in the air now, spluttering, but I can’t make out any words, except one, over and over. 
‘HELP!’

I see the camera guy’s yellow kayak way out to sea, almost at the other small island. Way over at the other end of the beach is the raft. Joshua’s still on it, I think, flat on his back, but he’s not moving. 'Joshua!' I yell, as loud as I can.

‘Help me!’ Shan’s still screaming. Punk has almost reached him now - he's doggy-paddling like a child, but even though I’m speeding arm over arm they’re drifting away from me faster than I can swim. They’re too far out - Shan must have been caught in a rip and now Punk’s going the same way. We need the raft.

‘Joshua!’ I yell again at the top of my lungs. ‘Joshua, get over here!’

‘Jellyfish! I can hear Shan now. ‘Oh my god, I’m burning, it burns… I can’t move!’

’I’m coming,’ Punk’s saying. He’s almost made it, too. He disappears almost instantly in front of me as Shan clings onto him the second he reaches him and pushes him under with a combination of his weight and panic.

‘Get off him, Shan!’ I cry out. He'll drown him and we’ll all be screwed.

‘My leg!’ Shan shrieks now, clutching for me as I reach them both. ‘I can’t feel my leg - the sting, it’s spreading to my balls, Alyssa, it’s spreading everywhere!’

I pull Punk back up and he clings to me. ‘I lost my glasses!’ he says, panicked and squinting.

‘Punk, keep floating, you need to kick your legs and help me move Shan. There’s a rip, we can’t get stuck in it!’ I turn Shan onto his back and Punk hooks an arm under his shoulder as I take his other side. We start kicking backwards together and I dunk my head under, open my eyes. I can see several purple jellyfish just meters away. My heart lodges in my throat. They look seriously unfriendly.

'Move, move!' I cry.

‘He’s passing out!’ Punk shouts at me. He's right. Shan isn’t struggling as much anymore. His body’s turning limp in my arms. I reach out, hold his head above the water.

‘He’s in shock, go faster. Faster!’ I yell, but every time we make it an inch we’re thrown back on another wave. ‘I’ve never felt the water like this before!’ I say as he coughs and splutters on Shan’s other side. I’m pretty sure I’m pulling them both right now.

‘It must be the rain!’ Punk tells me, eyes wide in terror. ‘I told him not to swim so far out, he didn’t listen!’

I see a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye. The kayak has reached the raft Joshua’s on and two guys are picking up the paddles now. I fight to head in a straight line towards the shore. Shan’s head is lolling all over the place but the raft and kayak are both coming at us now. Anger rages through me - the camera’s pointed right at us.

‘Get over here and turn that thing off!’ I yell at them angrily as they paddle frantically. They almost hit us as a wave picks them up and throws them at us. I realize I'm in another freakin' horror movie but this time I'm not the one in danger. All I care about is Shan. And not drowning Punk.

A guy in a
Deserted
baseball hat starts hauling Shan out of my arms and lying him down on the raft. He splutters and groans as he comes round again, starts wailing about the pain. Punk grabs for the kayak as the camera guy focuses on his terrified face and it’s all I can do not to smack it out of the way. 

‘Where were you?’ I shout at the crew. I’m shaking. ‘You follow us twenty-four-seven and you’re nowhere when we
need
you. Shan’s hurt, he’s been stung, we have to help him!’

I grab for the raft, but as the guy in a black
Deserted
T-shirt helps me up I see Joshua’s still on it, still flat on his back, not moving.
What the hell?
I lean over him, breathless, dripping on his chest, almost stepping on a dead fish. I kick it back into the water angrily. 

‘Joshua, get up! Are you
asleep!?
’ I fall to my knees beside him, put my hand to his face, over his thick stubble, squeeze my hand over his chin to move his head. My heart skips. There’s no response.

‘We can’t wake him up,’ one of the guys tells me, paddling harder towards the shore. ‘Did he get stung, too?’

‘I don’t know!’ Dread rushes over me. I put my hands to his chest, run them over his body, his arms and legs, but there are no welts, nothing unusual…
nothing.
Behind me Shan is still moaning and wincing up at the sun.

‘I can’t feel my leg,’ he tells them as one of the guys covers his nakedness with a scrunched up T-shirt. he camera zooms in again from the kayak, where Punk is still clinging on, struggling to see what’s going on without his glasses. There isn’t room on the raft for all of us. I turn from Joshua, grip Shan’s hand. I can see the tentacle marks on his thigh; the red blistering bulges coming up on his skin, turning purple. It looks more like a lightning bolt just struck him from the sky.

‘You’re going to be OK,’I tell him as he squeezes me like a vice, but I’m struggling not to cry as I look back at Joshua. He's still lifeless.

One of the crew is on a walkie-talkie now and I can see a speedboat racing from the other island towards us, finally. Jaxx and Stephanie are wading out into the water. They reach us in the surf as the raft is swept in and they help pull us all onto the shore.

‘What happened?’ Stephanie cries, her big blue eyes taking in Shan, who’s writhing in pain; Punk, gripping the back of the kayak, now struggling to his feet in the sand, coughing, and Joshua, still motionless on his back. There’s a flurry of activity all around him. A woman I recognize from the challenge pitch is leaning over him now, checking him out. Shan’s still trapping my fingers and I can’t move.

‘We have to rinse the tentacles off,’ the guy in the baseball hat tells us as the speedboat reaches us and about five other people jump off and hurry into action. Still holding my hand, Shan is lifted onto the sand.

Jaxx goes to touch him but he’s pulled away. ‘Don’t get them on your hands, they’ll sting you, too,’ someone tells him and Stephanie pulls him further back, looks on in terror. ‘The jellyfish must have come in from deeper water, with the rain,’ another guy says, dropping a first aid box he’s brought off the boat onto to the sand. ‘Stay out of the water for now, all of you.’

‘Too little too late,’ Stephanie says, angrily.

Shan’s wheezing now. ‘I’m dizzy,’ he says as the woman pulls on gloves and starts examining his wounds.

‘You could go into anaphylactic shock if we don’t get you treated,’ she tells him. ‘We’ve called the helicopter…’

‘What?’ Shan shrieks, ‘You can’t evict me like this! Double G, don’t let them take me,’ but he’s gasping and I know they’re going to have to take him to a hospital. The sting is getting bigger; his skin is more purple than ever.

In the corner of my eye I see Joshua sitting up slowly on the raft; the woman putting a hand to his shoulder, him batting her away. I look away, focus on Shan. He’s got tears in his eyes and I can see he’s struggling for each breath, even though he wants to talk, as usual. ‘Stay calm,’ I tell him. ‘Shan, they’re going to have to help you. If that means leaving the game…’

‘I don’t want to leave!’

‘Aren’t you supposed to pee on it?’ Jaxx says.

‘No one’s peeing on me on camera! It’s nothing, this is nothing…’

Shan trails off as his face contorts. He lets out sharp breaths like he’s in labor. ‘OK, so it’s not nothing, oh my god, my leg… pee on me, someone,
pee
on me!’

He’s drowned out by the sound of the whirring helicopter blades. Ed Bernstein’s voice is booming down at us again. ‘Oh for the love of God,’ I say at the same time as Jaxx. I see Joshua being led away, two people on either side of him, back up the beach towards the challenge pitch.

‘Shan, we’re coming down to get you,’ Ed calls as the cameras all turn to him. They’ve clearly been planning this shot, this
moment
, since I saw the guy on the walkie-talkie. Journey was right. This show is evil. ‘I’m afraid this is the unfortunate end of your
Deserted
journey,’ Ed says.

‘No, please, no,’ Shan cries out and beside me Stephanie’s got tears in her eyes as she leans into Jaxx. Punk walks to his side, grips his other hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Punk says now, dripping ocean water from his curls, and Shan looks up at him as the helicopter lands a way up the beach and two guys from the raft race to get a stretcher. 

‘You rescued me,’ Shan says to Punk. ‘You came to get me.’

‘You almost drowned me,’ Punk replies, squinting without his glasses, but I see a look of pride cross his face as Shan ignores his words, pulls him closer.

‘I would’ve been swept out on the current. I would’ve been found somewhere dreadful, all blue and… ugh, bloated. Oh, Jesus, it hurts…’ He t
rails off again, starts to pant as the stretcher’s placed beside him and he’s lifted up onto it. It’s real – they’re evicting him. He’s out of the game. I’m losing Shan
.

‘I can’t believe this, god, I’m so sorry,’ I say, grabbing the side of the stretcher, walking alongside it.

‘You’re going win this, D.G,’ he says, looking straight into my eyes. He looks fierce, through the pain. ‘You’re going to win this.’

‘I'll miss you so much,’ I say, swiping at my face, and Stephanie grabs my hand as Shan’s lifted into the helicopter and two of the crew members climb in after him. The others head back onto the boat and within five minutes it’s just me, Punk, Jaxx and Stephanie again, standing alone under the blazing sun, stranded in our so-called paradise.

‘What happened, man?’ Jaxx asks as he hacks into a coconut by the well. ‘Punk says you were passed out and they couldn’t wake you up?’

‘I was tired,’ I tell him, reaching back up for the tree, climbing up with all my strength and swiping the spear across the coconuts. They fall with a thud and I stay amongst the palm leaves for a moment, catching my breath, feeling the bark beneath the denim of my jeans as I grip as tight as I can. I’ve seen the looks they’ve all been giving me since Shan got airlifted out of here. They saw me getting dragged away by the producer.

‘We’re all tired,’ Jaxx carries on, ‘we've all eaten fucking air and rice for days, but dude, no one could wake you up. Does that happen a lot? Did you slip some valium or something?’

‘Why are you asking me all this, Jaxx? I told you I’m OK,’ I snap, reaching up and swiping another bunch of coconuts free. I hear him jump out of the way as they crash around him and instantly I feel like a dick. I slide down and jump to the ground, throwing down the spear. ‘I’m sorry… look, if I’m being voted out because of this, just tell me,’ I say. ‘If you’re not gonna lend me that immunity charm, just let me know, man. I need to know.’

Jaxx's eyes widen and he throws his hands in the air dramatically. ‘I never said that. I just wanna know what’s up.’

‘Nothing’s up,’ I say again. I narrow my eyes at him, picking up the machete and lining it up with another coconut. ‘Who’s voting me out?’ I say. ‘Tell me.’

‘Alyssa,’ he says after a moment and my heart stops. I bring the machete down hard and it hits the floor right between my bare feet. He’s lying. Or is he?

‘Watch it!’ Jaxx yells at me. ‘Jesus, what’s wrong with you, man? Are you trying to lose your toes?’

‘Alyssa and who?’ I say, without looking at him. My blood feels like it’s literally boiling.

‘Stephanie. And Punk.’

‘That’s everyone, Jaxx.’ I pick the machete up again and throw it at the tree, hard. It bounces off and lands on the ground in the exact spot the goat would’ve been if we hadn’t murdered it already. I should’ve known. I screwed up big time. I shouldn’t have been out there on that raft, feeling the way I’ve been feeling. Idiot. I told everyone I was asleep but it’s a lie. One minute I was staring up at the sky; the next I was being shaken by some crew member covered in the
Deserted
logo, being hammered with a thousand questions and hearing Shan screaming. I should’ve been there for him. I know that. I should’ve gotten to him before Alyssa and Punk did
.

Jaxx steps forward. ‘Listen. I’ll give you the immunity charm - you still have my word. But the others are starting to think you’re a liability. Is there anything you want to tell me?’

‘Nothing. We lose Punk next,’ I say, straight into his eyes.

Jaxx shakes his head. ‘Stephanie’s promised him she won’t vote for him. He went in the water after Shan, he deserves it.’

‘Then Stephanie goes next.’

Jaxx looks away.

‘Jaxx, she does nothing for this team…’

‘She deserves to be here as much as Alyssa does,’ he says. ‘We all cook, we all clean…’

‘You want Stephanie here because you want to screw her! Seriously, man. You really think she’s going to give you her virginity on this island? Or ever?’

He folds his arms over his Abercrombie shirt. ‘You’ve been fucking Alyssa since the start,’ he says. ‘Come on man, you know we don’t give a shit what you do, unless it affects the game. And
now
it’s affecting the game.’

I clench my fists. ‘Both of them have to go, Jaxx, you know that.’

‘Alyssa’s more of a threat – she could beat me, you
or
Stephanie in a challenge. It makes sense to lose her; to keep Punk here till the last minute. He’s easily disposable.’

‘Am I?’ We swing around. Punk is standing at the entrance to the clearing, a metal container in his hand. We say nothing as he walks forward in his sleeveless sweater, glowering. He looks different without his glasses – older somehow. The crew got him contact lenses. The camera guy is panning around us, grinning.

Jaxx shuffles somewhat awkwardly. ‘Punk, we didn’t mean…’

‘I know what you meant. So, you have the immunity charm?’ he says, lowering the container into the well without looking at us. ‘Interesting. Do the girls know?’

‘No,’ I lie. I haven’t told Jaxx that Alyssa knows. I promised her I would get it from Jaxx somehow if it came to her being voted out; but no one’s ever wanted her out. The news that she might want
me
out is wrapping itself around my vital organs like a strangling rope. I wouldn’t speak to her when she pulled me aside earlier, demanded to know what happened. I walked away, out to the waterfall, alone. I was humiliated, angry, I didn’t want to say anything I might have regretted. I’m my own worst enemy in this damn game right now.

I grab the bucket from Punk’s hands as he pulls it up from the well and over the side. ‘Listen,’ I say, pulling my thoughts together. ‘No one knows Jaxx has the charm, but if you want to keep your place here we need to vote Stephanie out next.’

‘Or Alyssa,’ Jaxx starts.

‘If you think about it,’ Punk interrupts, folding his scrawny arms and scrutinizing us both. ‘It kind of makes sense to lose the strongest players at this point. Or at least, the physically stronger players. I’m sure the girls would agree with me. It would give us
disposable
people more of a chance, right?’

Jaxx’s jaw is clenched, like his fists, but he lets out a sigh. ‘We need to work together,’ he says. ‘Let’s think about this. We have immunity to share. Punk, if you keep your trap shut, we’ll save you too if it comes down to it.’

‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘You don’t. You’re just gonna have to.’

Punk tuts, like he’s in the presence of imbeciles. ‘Jaxx, you clearly want Stephanie here as long as possible. Joshua’s infatuated with Alyssa. They’re hot chicks. I’m the geek. I’m the weakest link. Or at least, I was.’ He takes the bucket from my hand. ‘You’re going to have to do better, guys. Good luck at the council meeting.’ Punk turns and walks away and the camera lingers on him dramatically.

Jaxx turns from him to me. He looks like a bull about to charge. ‘We need to go talk to the girls…’

‘No we don’t.’ I reach for his arm. ‘We need to think this through.’ He yanks his arm away from me angrily, starts pacing the space between me and the well. The rain’s started up again. I know Jaxx doesn’t want Stephanie thinking badly of him. They’ve gotten pretty close since Mia and Karin left. I don’t know how close but he’s been working pretty hard on her. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t told her about the immunity charm himself. Or has he? He could be playing me now, for all I know.

‘What do we do?’ Jaxx says, but the rain’s getting heavier and I know we’re going to have to head back to the shelter.

‘We’ll tell the girls we have the charm, make some kind of deal so they don’t all turn against us,’ I say, cutting through the trees with him behind me.
Not that being here could get any worse.

Several hours later I’m lying on my side in the shelter, listening to the soft rain and the sound of the others breathing. I’m trying to come up with a strategy but the way things are going, I have no clue what else I can do. If everyone wants me out, the immunity charm won’t make any difference in the end. Maybe I was an idiot for thinking I could win this, all things considered. My head’s pounding again; cloudy. I can’t even focus anymore. I need to talk to Evan. I need to talk to someone.

‘Joshua?’

I hold my breath. Alyssa’s right next to me. I thought she was asleep.

‘Are you OK?’

I say nothing and she’s silent for a second, but she shuffles closer to me in the half-light. I feel her hand sweeping over my bare chest before she moves it up to my face. I jolt away from her but she catches my fingers. ‘Are you crying?’ she whispers.

Am I? Damn
. I swipe at my face, hold my breath, but she felt my tears and she’s shuffling closer still, forcing me back onto my side. She puts a hand to the back of my neck. I can feel the familiar warmth of her spreading through me like a heat wave as she takes my other hand and holds it between us on the dry leaves. Our noses are almost touching on the scrunched up T-shirt I call a pillow. ‘You have to talk to me,’ she whispers.

My heart’s a bomb exploding over and over. She strokes my face again and my hand moves to her hip, then her back as I pull her against me and bury my face in her hair. She lets me hold her for a moment. Our bodies meld together like they always do and I never pray, but I pray to the goddam island now, in this second, that everything we've built won't shatter around us and burn her in the fallout. She cares more than she should, and so do I, and it's my fault.

Selfish.

She lifts her head, kisses me softly. The magnetic pull I always feel keeps my lips moving with hers until my tongue joins in; softly at first, then harder, till we’re gripping each other like life rafts in the damn ocean and I can’t even stop my tears. ‘Joshua,’ she says, so softly I barely catch it. ‘I want to be here for you.’ 
My hands clutch fistfuls of her hair as I keep on kissing her, anchored to her mouth like it’s holding me together. I think it actually is. ‘Let’s go outside,’ she whispers.

My joints move on autopilot, crawling behind her on all fours till we’re outside on the sand and she’s leading me down the beach towards the rocks. She stops halfway, turning to me in the drizzling rain, still holding my hands. She’s lost so much weight; her hipbones are poking out above her bandana skirt. Her hair is braided at the front, tied at the bottom with bits of a fishing net we found washed up. ‘Talk to me,’ she says.

‘Punk knows we have the immunity charm,’ I say, swiping a hand over my face. 

She steps towards me. ‘I know. He told me. Everyone knows. Why are you crying?’

I step past her, scanning the tree line for the cameras. She follows me down the beach. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about what’s really happening to you, Joshua, but whatever it is, you can’t just pretend it’s going to go away - it’s hurting you.’

I say nothing. I keep on walking till she steps in front of me again in the sand, puts her hands against my chest. Her eyes are pleading now. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with me.’ The cameras are everywhere. A thousand pairs of eyes; maybe a million by the time this airs.
Pull it together.

‘What happened to you today, out there on the raft? It happened to you before, in the challenge, didn’t it?’

I bite my cheeks. Alyssa notices me looking at the camera, steps towards me and lowers her voice. ‘Please, tell me what’s going on. I’m worried about you!’

‘Don’t be,’ I tell her as anger… no,
mortification
flares through me. This is everything I didn’t want. I keep on walking. We’re at the rocks now. I’m about to climb up but she catches my arm, forces me back to the sand, puts her hands on my shoulders. The wind catches her hair and blows it around her face in the moonlight.

‘Joshua. You can’t keep telling me you’re OK. You’re not OK. I know you,’ she says. Her face is pained as she looks up at me.

‘You don’t know me, Alyssa,’ I tell her quickly, and her eyes widen. They’re kryptonite. I can’t look at them. The cameras are probably zoomed right in on us now, too. I turn sharply, walk away from her in the other direction across the sand.

‘Why did you shut out your ex?’ She’s yelling now, running to catch me up again. She sounds angry - she's flipped in a heartbeat.

‘We were never together!’

‘
Because
you shut her out! You admitted it. And now you’re doing the same to me. Joshua, just tell me what’s wrong with you!’

‘The only thing wrong with me is
you
,’ I say before I can stop myself. I stop an inch from her pleading eyes. ‘This is a fucking
game
, Alyssa, and you can’t be here for me. You can’t be anywhere, or anything. We’re
nothing
. OK?
Nothing
.’

I turn around, head into the trees and this time she doesn’t try to follow.