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Echoes
by Alice Reeds

Copyright © 2018 by Alice Reeds. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

The Island

We are going to die.

That was the first thought that shot through my mind. Maybe it’s just a dream was my second, but then the plane dipped down again, shaking and rattling. I gripped the armrests like my life depended on it. Maybe it did.

Movement to my left told me Miles was awake, too. His eyes were wide, like mine. Normally, I’d have delighted in seeing him shook for once. But thinking you’re about to die has a weird way of bringing people together.

“What the hell is going on?” he said.

“I don’t know…turbulence?”

At the front of the plane, the door to the cockpit was open. The pilot looked back at us, his expression tense.

He yelled, “You kids, hold on—”

The plane plummeted, and my stomach shot into my chest. A scream got stuck in my throat. Air punched out of my lungs. The ceiling screeched and tore and buckled and peeled away, exposing the sky—

Darkness.

Am I alive? Dead?

My mind swam toward the surface of an endless black ocean. When I opened my eyes, a blinding light stung my vision. The feeling of falling was gone. We’d stopped.

Blinking against the pain, the first thing I could make out was the shattered TV screen dangling from the back of the seat in front of me. The same TV I’d watched only a few hours ago. Was it hours ago? A minute? A day? I had no idea. I touched my face and head—no blood, at least.

Beyond the broken TV, where a wall and cockpit door had once been, was nothing but a hole with frayed metal edges digging into the ground. Where was the front of the plane? Outside, where the wing used to be, were shrubs and broken trees, dirt and sand. And out past the sand, endless water. The ocean.

Holy hell.

Panic tightened my throat and my hands shook.

We crashed.

I had to calm down. Deep breaths in and out. Own the moment, own your fear. Don’t let it own you. That was my mantra in moments like this, thanks to years of kickboxing, and it worked. A little. My hands weren’t trembling anymore.

I was okay. I’d survived. Which meant anyone else on the plane—

Oh no.

Miles.

When I looked from the window to my other side, I was sure there would be a bloody corpse. But no. No blood on his white button-down shirt that I could see. Good, but that didn’t mean anything. Not when he wasn’t moving.

“Miles?” I croaked, my throat raw, as if I hadn’t spoken in days. No answer. “Miles?” I tried again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

I pushed up and out of the seat, my legs unsteady. I willed them to walk the few steps toward him while I held on to the backrests of my seat and the one opposite him.

I might not have liked him, not even the smallest bit, but I didn’t want him dead. He was spoiled. The personification of everything I grew up hating. Arrogant, rich, and egocentric, all of it bundled up into a single person. Hell, my family could probably pay rent and buy a month’s worth of food using the money he spent on a jacket or shoes.

But wishing him dead? I wouldn’t go that far.

His eyes were closed. And his chest… If it was moving, I couldn’t tell.

“Miles,” I said firmly.

Still no sound or movement. My heart constricted, and my throat closed. It was too quiet. Just the awful sound of waves crashing against the beach. I put my ear to his chest. Okay, he was breathing. But unconscious.

“Miles!” I shouted.

Nothing. Now what?

Standing in front of him, I raised my hand then smacked him across the cheek, the loud crack breaking the staticy sounding repetition of waves slapping against sand. My palm stung, yet still no movement from him.

Dammit. I raised my hand to hit him again—

His light brown eyes flew open, locking on to me. In another second, they flitted with recognition.

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed.

“Did you just hit me?” His forehead wrinkled, and his fists clenched white. Whatever. At least he wasn’t dead. “What is wrong with you, Fiona?”

“Nothing.” I backed away, glad to give him space. “And we have bigger problems than—”

He stood up, swaying, a challenging glare in his eyes. “Than what?” he snapped. “Teaching you to keep your hands to yourself?”

Still alive and still an asshole. “I’m sorry for making sure you were alive. Next time, I’ll just leave you to die and take care of myself.” No, I wouldn’t. But let him think it.

He grunted, took a step away, and almost fell over. Quickly, I reached out and grabbed his arm, held it just long enough to keep him from falling. He scowled at me, but then he looked around, and something else flashed behind his eyes. Like the reality of our situation was settling in. He swayed again and leaned against the back of a seat.

“You okay?” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“I’m super. Just fantastic.” Was his speech a little slurred, or was my brain jumbled from the crash?

Pull yourself together.

I watched him for a moment longer, made sure he remained standing and wouldn’t fall over, and then headed to the exit door in the back. Summoning all those countless hours at the gym, I shoved it open. The metal swung aside, and the stairs unfolded and buried themselves in the sand.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, and instead tried to take a step on his own. But he swayed again like he was drunk. I held out my hand, but he growled and waved me off. Using the seats to hold himself up, he walked the few steps toward the exit. Twenty-four hours ago, I’d have pushed him and then beat myself up for stooping to his level. Now, I had to force myself not to help. Somehow, he managed to get down the stairs without landing face first in the sand.

As I came out and got my first look at the plane from the outside, my legs turned to jelly. My heart beat as hard as a jackhammer, and my entire body trembled. The plane, if one could even still call it that, had crashed with the front half of the tail section slightly digging into the ground, trees, and shrubs. Half of the windows were broken. Cracks ran all over them like spider webs, and some were completely shattered. And the gaping hole in the side of the plane where the wing used to be… So screwed.

Backing away a little farther, closer toward the ocean, I could just make out a column of smoke rising from the jungle. Was that where the rest of our plane was? How far away was that? A mile? It had to be at least that, and I couldn’t see anything between us and the smoke but trees. We were isolated. Alone.

Except we hadn’t been the only people on the plane.

“We have to find the pilot,” I said. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Assuming the pilot is even alive.”

Shit. “But he’s got to be. We’re okay.”

“Maybe we were just lucky,” he said. “What we really need is the plane’s computer. It’s got an SOS signal. It’s how anyone will be able to find us.”

Someone could be dying, and he was thinking about an SOS? Only thinking about us. But on our own, we wouldn’t be able to use the plane’s computer. “We need that pilot, need to make sure he’s okay, if we want to survive.”

“Survival won’t mean shit if we don’t get off the island.”

“Getting off the island won’t mean shit if we’re dead.”

He took a deep breath. “Listen. It doesn’t matter. The computer was in the cockpit. So, we find the pilot, we find the computer. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

He stood up and started toward the jungle, but he was still shaky on his feet. Another second and he’d probably fall over.

I took his arm and lowered him to sit on the sand. “Easy.”

“Must have hit my head,” he murmured. “You’ll have to go alone.”

“What? No.” Going together, that I could do, but on my own? Not happening. “Forget about it.”

“You have to,” Miles argued. “Please? I can’t…”He looked pale and sick, and were it anyone else, I would’ve felt bad for him, maybe even asked if there was anything I could do to help him feel better, but he wasn’t anyone else. He was the person I liked least out of our entire class and had the misfortune of being sent on this trip with.

“What if you get worse? Who’ll help you?”

I had exactly zero medical knowledge beyond what to do when you get punched a little too hard during a fight or training, so it wasn’t like I was in any way useful, but pretending I cared about his well-being was easier than having to admit that I didn’t want to go into that jungle alone. For all I knew there could be wild animals or other kinds of predators hiding in there, just waiting to pounce.

“The smoke is right there, I can see it,” he said, his speech wobbly. “Just follow it and voila.”

“That easy, huh?” In theory, I knew it was nothing more than that. We’d survived a plane crash without much harm compared to what could’ve happened, and I wasn’t willing to get myself killed in a jungle five minutes later. Even if there wasn’t anything evil in there, I could still get lost, and then what?

“Come on, you’re the one with the bad-girl reputation, this amazing and brave fighter you supposedly are, something title here and something trophy there—or was all of that just made up?”

I resisted the urge to kick him. Who did he think he was? I’d fought for those awards, very much literally, and I surely wasn’t going to let some rich, snobby asshole question my achievements.

“One more word and I’ll throw you in the ocean,” I threatened, my voice the closest thing to cold I could muster.

“You’re awfully stubborn. Has anyone ever told you that?”

I smirked. “Says the donkey.”

Even as I argued, I knew I’d lost. He wasn’t in any shape to do anything. He probably couldn’t even make it to the edge of the jungle, even if he crawled, let alone wander through it for possibly hours.

Hours of wandering alone…

But what choice did I have?

“Fine,” I conceded. “I’ll go, and you get in the fuselage. Stay out of the sun.”

I tried to help him, but he shrugged me off. To his credit, he got to his feet and made it to our broken half of the plane with me just following. Good, he wasn’t totally helpless.

Once he was sitting inside, I turned toward the jungle. Cracked my neck. Quietly sighed.

I so didn’t sign up for any of this.

“Just do it,” he said. “The quicker you go, the sooner you’ll find the pilot, radio for help, and we’ll be out of here. I’ll be fine.” Groan. “Just get it done.”

Gut punch.

He sounded straight up like my father—the sort of person who never really cared about fears or why something frightened me. No. According to him, I was simply supposed to do it and that would teach me that there was no reason for me to be afraid, because obviously that was a much better way to go about these things than taking two minutes to talk to me and tell me that it would be okay.

No, that was Mom’s job. Dad pushed me. Mom consoled me.

Push. Pull.

Rinse. Repeat.

Miles was right, though. I had to go in there. I had to pull myself together. It was just trees. Walls of giant plants, hot and dank and teeming with danger and death and horrors I didn’t want to imagine. I shivered. I needed a distraction. Something to focus on. Something. Anything else.

Normally, I’d focus on my opponent, whoever was in front of me in the ring. But here?

Miles. I could focus on how much I hated him. How much I hated that he was right.

Yeah, that was better. I clenched my fists—my palms were unusually dry for how anxious I was—and took a deep breath. All I could hear was the rush and yawn of the ocean behind me. Within a minute, I was focused. Calm. Serene.

“Fiona,” Miles pressed. “Sometime today, please? Before it gets dark.”

I exhaled sharply. “Try not to piss anything off while I’m gone.”

Before he could snap a retort, I headed for the jungle.