***

I wake up to a loud explosion. I don’t remember falling, only that there is sand between my teeth and Chase is at my side, turning me over. “Are you okay?” He asks frantically. Askal nuzzles the side of my face, barking when he realizes I’m awake.

There is a throbbing in my head—like my skull is about to split open. Like something that isn’t me is inside of me, screaming all the hurt into my bones to rid itself of that pain.

“Give me a second,” I gasp. As intense and as sudden as it was, I can already feel my dream starting to recede. I stagger to my feet, aided by Chase. “We need to go back to camp,” I manage to say, and to his credit he asks no further questions.

The group emerges from the cave just as we reach it, and they’re breathing hard like they’ve been running. The explosion must have caused them to flee. Hemslock sees me and smiles cruelly. “Thought your pet god would kill us?”

“He didn’t stop you because you’re a psychopath who would have shot any of us if we had tried to,” Gries says sharply.

“I’m the psychopath who saved you,” Hemslock snarls. “Your guide has been so thoroughly brainwashed by the fucking demons in this place that he was about to serve you all on a platter to appease this holy fucking cannibal.”

“What the hell, Reuben,” from Hawaiian Shirt.

“He’s been lying to us all this time. Before we lost all communication with the mainland, I’d been sending letters, asking the team to verify everything they can about ol’ Alon here.”

“And then I thought, what if we checked our tour guide’s background, to see how this kid knows so much about the island and its curse when so many other local residents didn’t. No one seems to even know where the family lives, or why they’ve got free rein over the island. Wanna know what I found?”

Nobody speaks. Chase quietly reaches out to clasp my hand.

“This father who’s been sick for the longest time? The reason the kid even took this job with us, to help pay off the bills for his treatment?” Hemslock leans forward, his gaze never leaving mine. “No one knows who he is.”

The crew moves uneasily, glance at each other, and then at me, as if hoping I would proclaim my innocence. I don’t.

“The locals know who you are, kid, but nobody knows where you’re from. Certainly not from any of their villages. The fishermen you befriended admitted to seeing you often, but word is they fear you as much as they fear the curse. But I’m willing to bet that they know, and that they’re protecting you. They stood by and let Lindsay Watson and her followers get killed because they didn’t want some foreigner gaining the god’s favor. You didn’t like that I performed the rituals before you could. You wanted to sabotage us right from the start. That’s why you kept lying, saying you didn’t know shit about anything.”