Page 82 of Reckless Girls
A Teva sandal.
Even in the oppressive heat, my body goes cold as I make my way toward Nico.
He’s lying facedown, and I’m grateful for that.
I’m too numb to cry as I stare at his body, and the thick black cloud of flies hovering above his head. His hair has turned dark and tacky, matted with blood, and I can’t look any closer to see what happened to him. I’m still so cold, shivering so violently it hurts, and my mind is racing so fast, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
He fell. He hit his head and died here. Like Robbie. He fell, and it was an accident. A horrible accident.
Except.
A machete lies just a few feet from Nico’s body, no doubt tossed there once it had done its job.
I recognize the blue tape around the handle—I remember seeing it in Jake’s hands as he hacked a path through the jungle—that day that feels like it was years ago, a lifetime ago.
It’s Jake’s machete, and it killed Nico.
He’d had it on the beach the night of the party, too. I’d seen him use it to cut down branches for the fire.
What happened? Had they argued? Had Nico confronted Jake about me? Or had it been something else?
All it would take was one hard blow, and then it would be over. Nico never would have seen it coming.
Like so much about Nico’s life, even his death would have caught him by surprise.
I pick up the machete.
There are flies on the blade, too, Nico’s blood still staining it, and I steel myself, wiping it on a nearby tree to clean it as best I can. It may have killed Nico, but it’s going to save me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I have to move faster.
You’re a survivor, Lux,Brittany had said after the storm on the boat, and I hope to god she’s right.
I know I’m tougher than I let myself believe. I held that knife on Robbie, and if it had come down to me or him, I know I would’ve killed him.
But I didn’t want to then, and I don’t want to now. I want to get to theSusannahand get out of here.
I want to forget that Meroe Island ever existed.
As I walk, sweat drenches me, stinging my eyes, making the little cuts and scratches on my arms, my shins, my hands, burn. But I keep moving, and as I walk, I think of those sailors again, left to die and rot in what should’ve been an Eden.
I think of the skull we found and wonder where it came from. Who it belonged to.
The more I walk, the hotter I get, my head swimming. I haven’t had any water to drink in ages, and now my body is losing fluidby the gallon, it feels like. My stomach cramps, my brain feels foggy, and I think I hear footsteps behind me.
I whirl around, the machete lifted, but there’s nothing—just leaves, more trees, more jungle.
Robbie’s words about someone living out here are pounding through my brain.
But he had just been fucking with me. There’s no one else here, and that’s almost scarier. No stranger killed Nico, there’s no boogeyman hiding in the jungle: it had to be either Jake, Brittany, or Eliza.
It was one of the people I trusted—one of the people I called a friend.
It would be easier to believe almost anything else, but I don’t have that luxury anymore. I can’t close my eyes to what’s happening around me, and I push on and on, thinking,Just let me get to the other side, let me find theSusannah…
And then, out of nowhere, the jungle thins.
