Susan snapped the compass closed, stretched her arm around Archie’s shoulders, and began to slowly ease him fully onto the floor. She anticipated him to groan or wince or cry out, but his face remained lifeless. When he was flat on his back, she crawled around his body and bent and lifted each of his legs. His hands were at his sides on the concrete. She reached for one to give it a squeeze. It felt cool and dead, like refrigerated meat. Susan lifted it and held it to her chest, trying to warm it. She glanced around the ransacked room. There was nothing to cover him with. She lifted the other hand, sticky with blood all the way to his elbow, and pressed it against her chest and neck. Three hikers had gotten lost once on Mount Hood and they’d kept each other alive through a snowstorm by staying pressed up against each other through the night. Susan stretched out next to Archie, wrapped her arms around his chest, and curled her body around his. The tiny hairs on her arms stood up and her skin goose-pimpled as a chill instantly radiated down to her toes. She felt something wet and she realized that the pool of Karim’s blood was slowly spreading under them. Susan gripped Archie tighter. The compass was still in her hand, hard and smooth against her palm. “We’ll be fine,” she told him. Then she reached down and slid the compass back into Archie’s pocket.

Chapter 44

CHAPTER

44

Archie comes to consciousness gasping for air. Leo and Star are gone and he is alone in the guesthouse bedroom. His head is pounding, but he remembers everything. It unfolds in his mind like a Kinetoscope. Star coming down the stairs, Leo washing blood off in the sink, Leo putting his arm around Archie’s neck.

Archie props himself up on his elbows.

Susan is in danger.

She is on the island.