Jade’s headache was finally beginning to fade, soothed away by the gentle roar of the ocean and the buoyant scent of seawater. As soon as she found the brightly colored two-piece and beach towel in her room, she’d known what she was going to do with her day. She wasn’t surprised to discover that her housemates had chosen to rush around trying to solve the mysteries of their presence on the island, but she was determined not to get sucked into their plans. Whatever reason for their memory loss and arrival on the island, she expected it would make itself known in time.
Running around in a panic would only feed into the plans of whoever was behind it. If they were on a secret reality show, then she had no intention of providing entertainment. Let them watch her laze around the beach and soak in the sunshine without a care in the world. How interesting could that possibly be? And if their reason for being there was something more nefarious than wouldn’t it be better to conserve energy and wait for their adversaries to reveal themselves?
They were on a beautiful island with a pristine beach and no other vacationers to compete with for space or access to accommodations. They had more than enough food to keep them comfortably fed for a week and no reason to think that their stay would last beyond that. The weather was perfect and there was simply no good reason not to enjoy it. At least as far as Jade was concerned. Did she have her doubts? Sure. But what good did it do to dwell in them when there were so many other, more relaxing ways to spend her time?
Sighing with a contented smile, she rolled over onto her back and sat up, tightening her ponytail before languidly making her way to the ocean to cool off a bit before returning to the lounger she’d set up on the beach. The water was the perfect temperature, cool enough to be refreshing but warm enough to be an easy transition from the heat of the beach. She swam around for a bit, giggling as she felt schools of tiny fish brush past her legs.
When she turned her attention back to the shore, she saw a petite figure standing with her feet just far enough from the waves to avoid getting wet, one arm crossed over her stomach so that her hand could clasp at her opposite elbow. The posture combined with the distance made Olivia look like a child. Chuckling to herself, Jade shook her head and made her way unhurriedly back to the beach. The fine sand squished between her toes in a satisfying manner that made her reluctant to leave the water, so she stopped on the wet shelf on the edge of the beach, the ocean steadily eroding the sand around her feet and burying her with every wave.
Squeezing water out of her hair, she regarded Olivia with an arched brow. “If you came to swim, then you didn’t dress for the occasion.”
A weak smile twitched over Olivia’s lips with the reluctance of a cat approaching a puddle. “How’s the water?”
“Absolutely perfect.” Jade returned to her chair with a relaxed sigh. “Seriously, you should go back to the house right now and get into a swimsuit.”
But Olivia simply sat down on the chair next to hers, perching on the side like a bird ready to take flight at the first sign of danger. “We found something in the library.”
Laying back and relaxing in the sunshine, Jade held back a laugh. “A book, I assume?”
“No. A map.”
Cracking open an eye, Jade squinted at Olivia and was struck by her earnestness. She pushed herself up on her elbows and gave Olivia her full attention. “Of what?”
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“The island.”
Jade felt a chill in spite of herself. “And I suppose you came out to tell me you’re going off to explore or something…”
“Actually, I just wanted to ask if you’d seen anything unusual at the cliffs where you met Miles.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But there was a spot on the map that had been circled.”
Thinking back to waking up on the hard stone with the roar of the nearby waterfall in her ears, Jade tried to remember if she’d seen anything strange. She’d been disoriented and confused, so she hadn’t exactly been looking for hidden treasure or secret passages. She had wandered in circles for a while before she even noticed Miles at the top of the cliff, too overwhelmed by all the nature around her to be interested in peering close enough to the vines and rocky ground to see all the creatures and bugs hiding in the shadows or blending into the camouflage of the jungle.
“Maybe Miles saw something,” she mused, “but I didn’t. And neither of us hung around long after we met up. He’d seen the house from his view at the top of the cliff, so we had a destination in mind.”
Olivia took this in with a silent nod, nibbling pensively at the inside of her bottom lip.
“What’s wrong?” Jade asked finally, startling Olivia out of her reverie.
“Nothing,” Olivia answered automatically as if this was a question she got asked often, but then she reconsidered her answer. “Everything. There’s so much we don’t know. How we got here, what happened to our memories, if we’ll get them back—if we’d even want them back after we recovered them. Are we in danger? Or are we fleeing danger? We only have enough food for a week, but are we going to be stuck here for longer? Should we be rationing our food or finding a way to get more? Do we need to start hunting? Or building a boat to leave the island?”
Sitting up, Jade put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder to stop the stream of questions. She’d been trying to get a word in edgewise, but Olivia didn’t pause long enough in her rant to notice. “Hey. Calm down. That’s a lot of questions and most of them aren’t based on anything we actually know. Why don’t we worry about learning how to hunt when we know we’re close to running out of food? And shouldn’t we wait to build a boat until we’re sure there isn’t already one docked on the other side of the island or something?”
“If we wait until we run out of the food to figure out how to get more, we’ll starve before we figure it out,” Olivia protested.
“But we don’t know that we will need to do anything to fend for ourselves. We’re staying in a luxurious house that’s air conditioned and well-stocked for fuck’s sake. It’s not like we’re living in grass huts on beach. Panicking isn’t going to do anyone any good, including you.”
Taking a shaky breath, Olivia closed her eyes and pressed her palms down on her thighs, forcing herself to breathe more deeply in a way that was obviously a trained response, not a natural reaction. Jade wondered if Olivia had anxiety medication in her room that she had neglected to take.
“Better?” Jade asked when Olivia finally opened her eyes again. “You know what you need?”
Olivia frowned. “Don’t say wine. I think we should stay sober until we figure out what’s going on.”
Grunting in annoyance, Jade shook her head. “That’s not what I was going to say, but actually wine does sound nice now that you mention it.”
Olivia huffed.
“What I was going to say is that you need a swim. Seriously. Take a step into that ocean and all those worries will float away.”
Narrowing her eyes, Olivia regarded her with suspicious.
“At least kick off your sandals and step into the waves,” Jade said, throwing her hands in the air in frustration before lying back on the chair. “It’s impossible to be stressed out with sand between your toes and water washing over your feet.”
Jade thought that Olivia was going to out stubborn her on this, so she resolved herself to the fact and closed her eyes, determined to hold on to her calm even if she couldn’t help Olivia find her own. But a few minutes later, she heard the rustle of fabric and thud of sandals hitting the sand. Opening her eyes a crack, she watched as Olivia stepped tentatively across the beach, exclaiming in shock when her bare feet hit the hot sand. She rushed across the beach where the waves were lapping against the shore and sighed in relief when her feet dug into the damp sand. Jade didn’t have a great view of her face from this angle, but she could tell from even what little she could see that the ocean was working its magic.
