Page 257 of Evil Hearts

Oriana had thoughthis warnings about treasure hunting were annoying, but it was his silence she truly couldn’t stand.

“So why do you camp up here, dress up like a pirate, and tell people not to hunt for treasure?” she asked.

That dark chuckle was enough to turn her mind blank. “I suppose because everyone has a purpose, and this has become mine.”

Not really an answer, so she pressed, “So you’re not just doing this to mess with the tourists?”

“I do not mess with tourists.”

Yet he’d made a point of following her, and warning her.

“So why follow me?”

The silence stretched again, as though he’d gone away, but he was still standing there. Finally, he said, “Because you asked for my help.”

When she’d tripped? Or when she’d laid the stone with her name on it on that altar? Was this guy the deity the locals had built a shrine to? “So you’re some sort of volcano god?”

Of course he couldn’t be. Even Oriana knew enough about this island’s history to know there had been no previous inhabitants before the English military base was set up here in the eighteen hundreds.

Another dark chuckle that did things to her insides. “No, I am not a god. Gods answer the prayers of the deserving, and I will not help you find Dampier’s treasure, as I have already told you.”

“Because you want to keep it for yourself?” Oriana guessed. For who would know more about Dampier’s treasure than an actual treasure hunter who didn’t want anyone else to find it? No wonder he’d warned her away.

“Something like that.”

She mulled that over for a moment. Swaran certainly had secrets, and they were probably none of her business. Except…she did know he wasn’t being entirely honest with her. “But you did help me. When I fell, you brought me back here. Why?”

She half expected him to say he’d dragged her back to his cave to ravish her, caveman style, and she had to admit she wasn’t entirely averse to the idea. Especially if he talked dirty to her in that voice.

He frowned. “There is something about you. The need to protect…and you asked for my help.” He stared at her, dark eyes attempting to read her soul. “What kind of woman would come to the top of a volcano so far from anywhere, to walk through these caves? Why do you need the treasure so?”

“For the last time, I’m not looking for some dead pirate’s treasure!” Oriana snapped. “I’m a scientist. A geologist.” God, it had been years since she’d said that aloud. She’d been teaching so long… “I like rocks and caves and volcanoes! I came here to see a freaking volcano and lava tubes and stand on top of it and see everything there is to see! Because maybe…if I can see the world clearly, then I can work out what the future holds for me, now everything else in my life has exploded like bloody Krakatoa!”

When he looked blank, she explained, “Krakatoa? The Indonesian volcanic island that erupted in the last nineteenth century, and the eruption was so huge that now there’s almostnothing left of it? Everyone learns about it at school, or at least they do back home.” Judging by Swaran’s accent, he likely hadn’t gone to school in Australia, so she probably shouldn’t assume the curriculum had been the same wherever he’d grown up.

But he nodded like perhaps he had learned about it. “That was before the air raid siren. Very large waves. It would have been good to have a warning, like today.”

Almost like he’d been here, watching the waves roll in, washing over Georgetown. But that wasn’t possible – that had been more than a century ago, and no one lived that long. Well, unless they were volcano deities, of course, and he was one of them.

“Are you sure you’re not a volcano god? Because if you are, and you’re in the mood to answer prayers, I could really do with some help right now,” she blurted out, then wished she hadn’t. He must think she was insane.

Oh, that chuckle. She wanted to record it so she could listen to it forever.

“I am no god. But that does not mean that I cannot help. As long as you are not seeking Captain Dampier’s treasure, perhaps I can help you.” He settled on the floor, with his back to the cave wall. “Miss Oriana, tell me your troubles.”

She stared at him for a long moment. He was a stranger, and a strange one at that, and she still wasn’t sure what he was, even if he wasn’t a volcano god (and she wasn’t certain about that, either, because if you were a secret volcano god, wouldn’t you deny it when people asked?), but there was something about him that made her want to talk. To trust him with her deepest, darkest secrets.

If he hadn’t brought her here to ravish her, and the rest of the town was on its way up the mountain soon…she may as well tell him everything. She was sick of lying to people about Hunter. Time someone knew the whole truth.

Nine

“If the worldwas perfect, and everything is as it should be, I’d be on my honeymoon right now, with my new husband. We’d been together for almost ten years, since university, but never had the money to get married and buy a house, so we were waiting, and waiting…and I took a job teaching at remote high schools, because it paid better and came with a cheap rental house to live in, while Hunter stayed in Perth in his parents’ house, doing IT support and playing games when he wasn’t working. I’d come down and stay at my parents’ house during the school holidays, and we’d video call and sometimes game online together to start with, but I kept getting sent to smaller and smaller towns, and the internet was so shit the lag made it impossible to play, so I can’t remember the last time I played computer games, or at least with Hunter. Maybe that’s the problem. If I’d stayed in Perth, maybe we’d still be together, and he never would’ve found someone else. Or maybe he always had other girls and I just didn’t know…”

The thought of it twisted up her insides like snakes cagefighting to the death. If she’d done things differently, would she still be with Hunter? Or would they have broken up sooner,and she’d already be on her way to the better future she couldn’t see right now? Not knowing was the worst.

“You’d think it was the cheating that first made me wonder if I was making a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was the honeymoon. This honeymoon, the cruise I’m on now. Or I’m supposed to be on now.” The ship would come back for her. It had to. They couldn’t just leave her here. “We agreed to take our honeymoon on a cruise ship because it was the best of both worlds. Civilisation on the boat, with beds and bathrooms and technology and a bit of luxury, and then activities and day trips when the boat docked, so we could have a bit of adventure, too. That’s why I picked this cruise. I mean, lots of people just go to the ones that visit New Zealand, or Bali and Singapore, and that’s fine. There’s even volcanoes on Bali, but they’re super active and still erupting, and definitely not safe to visit. Not to mention New Zealand…earthquakes and eruptions every other week. Whereas this one…unless you’re working on the British military base or for NASA, the only way to visit this island is if you’re on a cruise ship. And the volcano hasn’t erupted in centuries, so it’s about as safe as you can get.

“So I showed it to Hunter and he agreed and I booked it. Sure, it cost a bit more than the Bali or New Zealand cruises, but I figured it was worth it. And now I’m here and I’ve walked around the mountain and it’s everything I was hoping it would be, but…it was supposed to be both of us. Together.”

---