Page 59 of Blue Arrow Island (Blue Arrow Island #1)

The shred of humanity left in me is outraged at the carnage I’ve caused. The arrogant cynic I’m becoming, though, asks if there’s even any significance to adding a few more people to my list of casualties.

- Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Randall McClain

Marcus

Niran and Nova are yelling at me. Briar’s pained expression flashes through my mind, lasting only an instant. Then Ellison is there, her brow furrowed with concern. I want to ask them what’s going on, but I can’t seem to move.

Everything is so heavy. My limbs. My eyelids. My secrets. I can’t fight any of it anymore.

“Marcus.” Ellison’s voice is sharp and insistent. “Wake up. I need you to wake up, Marcus.”

She’s the only one who knows what I’ve done. We did it together, as members of the original twenty-six. And somehow, she doesn’t hate herself. Or me.

When my leaden eyelids open, her outline beside me is fuzzy. I blink a few times and she comes into focus. Everything rushes back in a sickening wave of realization. The ravens taking Briar. The volcano. The circle. Virginia’s death.

Briar knows who I really am.

I jolt, trying to get out of bed, but I’m strapped down.

“Easy,” Ellison puts a hand on my shoulder. “The restraints are for your safety. Stay calm.”

My heart pumps hard as I struggle against the straps around my wrists and ankles, confining me to a bed. This can’t be fucking happening. Ellison would never turn on me.

“Take them off,” I command.

“I’m going to.” She levels a serious gaze at me. “You listen to me for the next two minutes, and then I take them off. You have my word.”

I’m in one of her patient rooms, and the heaviness I feel has to mean I’ve been drugged. None of this makes any sense.

“What the fuck is this?”

“You got very sick at the switch point when your aromium was turned off. You had a seizure. Nova and Niran carried you back to camp.”

The yelling. They weren’t angry. They were begging me to hold on while they got me to Ellison. I threw up all over Niran. He was a wreck, on the verge of tears.

The tension pulling at my muscles fades slightly as I look around the dimly lit room. There’s the bed I’m in. A light. Some machines. An empty chair. A small side table. And Ellison.

“Where’s Briar?”

Ellison’s brows drop a fraction. “She’s been here. It’s been almost a week. She’s working with Dr. McClain; they’re studying the flowers and trying to make a stabilizer.”

My fury ebbs, my shoulders relaxing against the pillow. I’m not the one who has anything to be furious about—she is.

“I think the aromium switching caused your brain to swell,” Ellison continues. “I thought we were going to lose you. Dr. McClain was the one who—” She clears her throat. “He saved you. You’ve been heavily sedated while we waited to see if the brain swelling would go down.”

“Briar hates me.”

There’s no fight behind the words. I’m a broken, defeated man; the house of cards I built so I could have a chance with her is in ruins at my feet.

“She’s angry.” Ellison’s voice is gentle. “But hate is a strong word, my friend. Give her some time and space.”

There’s already a chasm between us. Her expression when she turned to me after Pax told her the truth about me is seared into my memory. She didn’t even ask if it was true—she knew. My betrayal hurt her so badly that she could only look at me for a couple of seconds before she had to turn away.

Ellison starts unfastening one of the restraints at my wrists. “You have to keep resting. I don’t care if you feel like it. You haven’t eaten in a week and your body is still recovering.”

I don’t respond because I don’t care whether I’m resting or doing what I usually would. Briar won’t ever trust me again. I ruined the best thing I had.

Even though I knew I didn’t deserve her, I let her believe I was someone good. Someone she could trust. I’m no better than Pax or Virginia.

“I wanted to surgically remove your aromium implant,” Ellison says. “Dr. McClain talked me out of it. Both of us believe that even one more aromium switch will probably kill you. This last one came very close.”

I shrug. “It had to be done.”

Her eyes meet mine and I find the determination I know her for. “Nova, Niran and I all agreed that if you try to turn your aromium on again, we’ll sedate you and I’ll remove it.”

My brows drop. “What the fuck? That’s my decision.”

“We made it ours. The aromium switch has been moved to a secure location you won’t know about.”

I shake my head, disgusted that my closest friends were conspiring against me while I was laid up and drugged.

“We’ll revisit that later.” I sigh heavily, struggling to keep my eyelids open.

“Get some rest. You need to eat when you wake up next.”

My mind is a pretty fucked place to be at the moment, so it’s a relief to slip into the peaceful oblivion of sleep.

The next time I wake up, McClain is sitting in the chair next to me, a book in his hands.

“Good to see you awake,” he says, closing the book and setting it on the small table.

He stands, removing the stethoscope from around his neck, and says, “May I?”

I shrug, because who gives a fuck. He listens to my heart and lungs, seeming satisfied as he wraps the stethoscope around his neck again.

“You’re doing much better. The swelling seems to have subsided. Ellison told me about her conversation with you.”

“I’m not doing this.” I’m less groggy than I was the first time I woke up, and I get into a sitting position. “You fucked me over, and I’m not acting like you never left and everything’s like it was before.”

He looks about twenty-five years older than he did when I was first introduced to him by one of my college professors eight years ago. He was a guest lecturer in my premed program, and my professor wanted to get me on the radar of one of the leading research physicians in the world.

I was starstruck. He was maybe five feet, nine inches and a hundred and sixty pounds, with thick glasses and salt-and-pepper hair that always looked like it needed a trim.

Soft spoken. But to me, he was a giant. A pioneer in his field.

Any university in the world would have hired him in a heartbeat, but he was too passionate about his research to teach full-time.

“I know things are different now.”

He sits back down and I study him, his body still almost as emaciated as those of the Tiders I saw at the circle. The skin on his face doesn’t hang quite as much as when we first found him, which must mean he’s put on a little weight.

“What do you think of the flower?” I ask him.

He pushes his glasses up on his nose, his intent expression matching the one he used to have when we were working on the aromium project. After I interned with him the summer after my junior year, he helped secure my place in my top choice of medical schools.

I fell hook, line, and sinker for his bullshit. Basked in his compliments about my intelligence and strong work ethic. When he told me my genetic makeup, including my physical size, made me an ideal candidate to be part of the most exciting project he’d ever worked on, I jumped at the chance.

It landed me here. If I could go back, I’d do things very differently.

“There are a lot of promising components in the specimen plants and flowers. Briar has been a tremendous help studying them.”

The sound of her name is like a knife twisting in my chest. “Can you make a stabilizer?”

“I’m going to do my best. Testing it will be a challenge, but we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.”

I loathe him, but part of me is relieved he’s here. I’m not carrying all the weight of finding a way out of the disaster we created. Not that I was ever qualified to figure out the things he can.

Deep down, I thought he was dead. Hoped so, even. I didn’t want to think he was a big enough asshole to leave our camp and never look back. I figured his guilt became too overwhelming and he threw himself off a cliff or something.

It would’ve been a cowardly way out. The worst punishment, which we both have to endure for the rest of our lives, is seeing the destruction we caused.

Not that it’s even over. Aromium is far from contained.

The compound was created on this island, and since it only takes a very small part of the flower that’s key to its makeup, we made a lot of it with the flowers we had and sent it to the mainland so Whitman’s people could inject test subjects.

We don’t know if it was used on people in other places.

“I’m pretty sure I made the volcano start to erupt,” I say flatly.

He crosses his arms and sits back in his chair, studying me silently for a couple of seconds. “We saw it happen. I thought we were on the verge of a full eruption. But then it stopped.”

I nod. “The ground shook before it started erupting. Niran saw me and figured out that I was the one making it all happen. It wasn’t on purpose.

Virginia’s ravens were taking Briar away and .

..” I run a hand over the stubble on my jaw.

“I’ve never felt so ... I mean, there was fury, but also helplessness.

Agony. I was sure she was about to die and there was no way for me to help her. ”

There’s warmth in his gaze. “It’s nice to know you finally care about someone enough?—”

I cut him off with a sharp glare. “Don’t. I’m only talking to you because you’re the only one who might know. We’re not having a tender moment—just tell me how the aromium made me do it.”

He pinches his brows together, considering. “Are you familiar with endoliths?”

“Not really.”

“They’re organisms like bacteria, fungi, and lichens that live in rocks and soil. They can absorb dissolved nutrients like iron and potassium from rocks.”

“It’s ringing a bell. I probably studied them in a bio class. But what’s your point? They’re alive, so ... did you put aromium in them?”

He shakes his head. “Not directly. But there are plants all over this island with aromium. They could have spread it into the soil through their roots and rain runoff.”

“I don’t remember the team having any conversations about that possibility.”

His shoulders fall slightly. “That’s because we never had any. I’m shocked that this is even a possibility.”

“I made the ground shake again at Rising Tide. It’s just like the wolves—the ground is responding to my emotions.”

McClain’s face shutters in a grave expression. “You can never use aromium again, Marcus. You’re too powerful. And after what happened, I’m afraid the next time will kill you.”

Ellison opens the door, brightening when she sees I’m awake. She glances between me and McClain, brings me a tray of food, and departs immediately.

The tray has a plate with buttered toast, a bowl of bean and vegetable stew, and a bowl of fruit. My mouth waters from the savory scent of the stew.

“I never wanted to use it again,” I say. “But Flavius even follows me when my aromium is off, and Briar’s vines sometimes do the same to her. So what if I connect to the endoliths even without it?”

McClain’s expression clouds with worry, though he says, “Don’t borrow trouble. You were able to turn it off both times it happened and no damage was done.”

His reassurance falls flat. I could be one horrible mood away from destroying this entire island and everyone on it.

Including Briar. She’s not mine anymore, but I’d still do anything to protect her. It’s what I’ve been trying to do this whole time, but now reality is setting in, and it’s a gut punch: the biggest danger to her on this island is me.