Page 107 of The Eighth Isle

“I always want you to find me.”

“And now I’m sick.”

I jumped at the sound of Valentine’s voice coming from where Grey had come through just now, but Grey had his arms around me still and he didn’t let me move away.

Valentine was coming closer, looking both bored and irritated at the same time.

I’d been so consumed by Grey, by the peace he brought me when he was near that I hadn’t heard a single thing—not the door opening again, and now his footsteps.

“Then close your ears,” Grey said when Valentine stopped to my left, staring out at the yard, the big wall that surrounded the Paradise, the forest and the ocean beyond. The sky had already begun to turn orange, and in a few minutes night would fall. The many colorful lights of the Paradise would come on, transforming this place into an even more magical one.

“Maybe I like to cringe so hard I’ll die of it,” Valentine muttered, and Shadow jumped off his shoulder and landed on the balcony railing, watching curiously.

“You’ll be doing everyone a favor,” Grey said.

“You wouldn’t last a day without me, brother,” Valentine said.

“No—I wouldn’t be running for my life with my wife and my baby without you,” Grey said, and both Valentine and I flinched at the same time.

We locked eyes for a moment, and I thought he’d have something else to say to Grey. Instead, he just turned toward the ocean in silence.

“Behave, boys,” I said. “We’re all in this together no matter how we got here.”

Even though I wanted to be angry enough at Valentine to set him on fire with my own hands, I couldn’t. Something inside me didn’t let me, that same part of me that insisted that this whole thing was for the better. That living in the dark in the Whispering Woods forever would have turned me bitter, even if I’d spent every waking hour with Grey. It would feel like my life was indeed stolen from me for the rest of my days.

It insisted that death was better.

“Unfortunately, I have to put up with your insufferable personality because I want to see Fall free by the end of this,”Valentine said to Grey. “So, yes—I’ll behave. Just until this is over.”

Grey sighed, shaking his head and smiling as he stepped to my other side.

He said nothing though, and for a moment, the three of us looked out at the yard in silence as the sky lost more blue and became a fiery orange.

The dolls had noticed us there, and even though we were far away and it was getting darker by the minute, I recognized the three who moved away from the umbrellas to see us better—Melahni, Peanut, and Hannah.

Hannah with the colorful eyes who’d been Mama Si’s offering the year before but wasn’t chosen. Hannah who’d tried to warn me about this since day one, but I’d been too much of a fool to listen.

“I was like them once,” I said, more to myself than them. I used to wear a sparkly bikini and lounge by the pool all day long, too. It was only months ago, not years, notdecadesthe way it felt to me now.

“You were never like them,” Valentine said, as if he knew it for a fact.

“If you were, you wouldn’t be here right now,” said Grey, but they were just being kind. I knew that, and I appreciated it, but I really was those girls. And back then, that had been the biggest blessing of my life—to be like them. To be…not me.Not the Fall who felland stayed down, but the Fall who rose again. Chose better. Choseherself.

Valentine’s words came back to me again—would you have rather lived like that?—and this time I went further back, before the ritual.

Would I have rather Mama Si hadn’t lied to me, hadn’t manipulated me, and ultimately hadn’t offered me in the ritual at all? Would I have rather she’d just treated me like one of herdolls and let me stay here, and Ireallywouldn’t be here right now?

“They’re waving at you,” said Valentine, bringing me back to the present.

He was right—both Melahni and Peanut had raised their hands to wave at me, while Hannah just watched me coldly like always.

I smiled and waved at them, too. Maybe Amber had done Mama Si’s deeds when she took me to the triangle room that night, but she had no idea what the hell she was doing. I was sure she’d had no ill will—she was just doing her job, that’s all.

The girls weren’t bad. Not at all—they’d been my friends once. I’d cared about them.

“What now?” I asked, both myself and the brothers. “What the hell happens now?” Because I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to try to figure anything out. I just wanted to sit back and forget and let them take care of everything for a bit. I wanted to refuel myself because those days on the Eighth Isle, and the night before? They’d drained me completely—and I still hadn’t even come to terms with what my life was looking like right now.

Or with the end of the goddamn world as Mama Si so kindly reminded me.

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