"Are you done with your lame attempt at a prank?" I asked Pari as she finished retelling what she saw in the forest.
"I'm not lying," she shook her head, looking at me
with serious eyes. "You have to believe me."
"Don't joke about this, Pari. I'm getting a little scared," Boonsri told her.
"Yeah, you're taking it a little too far," Nia agreed.
Colin was now openly frightened, not bothering to hide his worries. He placed Sloane on his lap and further pressed up to Boonsri.
"If this was a true story then that man is long dead now. This was hundreds of years ago. You must've...imagined it," Eli offered as an explanation.
"About something I didn't know until now?" Pari scoffed. "I'm telling you I saw that man. We must get off this island."
I studied her panicked form. "Funny how you only mentioned it after Eli told us the story."
She turned her sharp gaze to me. "I told you I thought it was just a creepy local. Look, if you don't believe me you can stay here but I'm leaving tomorrow as soon as Norman arrives."
"Maybe it was just someone celebrating an early Halloween," Aurelio suggested.
"Five months too early?" Pari deadpanned.
Frida, Abeo and Nova started to look uncomfortable.
"Fine. We'll leave tomorrow. Happy?" I asked.
Several heads nodded.
"Let's go inside now. I don't want to be out here." Pari said as she stared into the fire, looking creepy as fuck.
Naturally we all piled inside and went to sleep early. I stared out at the moon through the open window next to the couch I was occupying and wondered if there was really someone out there killing people for their skin. It made me not want to be on this island on my birthday the next day.
I didn't realize when my eyes closed and sleep took over me but once again I found myself woken up by someone screaming. I groaned and pressed into the couch but it did little to drown the screaming.
"Whoever is getting murdered, shut the fuck up," I mumbled, peeking an eye open to see what the fuss was about.
Nia stood hovering over me, looking down at me furiously. "That's not funny. Get up."
"Why? What happened?" I looked outside to see the sun wasn't even properly up yet. "It's my birthday. I should get to sleep for as long as I want."
"Pari is missing." She said, completely ignoring what I said.
"What?" I sat up, looking around. "Are you sure she's not just breaking into Braxton's house? She did seem like a crazy fangirl type."
"This is serious!" She snapped. "Abeo was the last to see her when she got up to go to the bathroom and this morning he noticed the front door was open."
"Nia, chill. I'm sure she's just gone out for a bit."
But Nia didn't seem to hear me. She paced back and forth in front of me, her hands fidgeting anxiously. "She looked so scared last night. I should've stopped Eli from telling us that scary story. And she told us that she saw that man." Nia stopped her pacing. "Do you think it's true? Did Nia really see this guy? But how? He must be dead...which means she must've seen his ghost. Was she taken by this ghost."
"Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. Calm down. She must be fine. Where is everyone anyways?"
"Out looking for her. Being useful, unlike someone who's just sitting around doing nothing to help."
"Right. Pari will be so disappointed in you."
She looked like was going to argue but instead buried her head in his lap.
My hopes that Pari was just trying to scare us were dashed when two hours of us searching for her everywhere turned up no results.
Boonsri, who had been doing a good job of keeping a clear head, finally lost her cool when she grabbed Eli by his collar. "She said she saw that man from the story. Did you know that there was a killer on this island but you still brought us here?"
Eli trembled all over as her fist dug into his throat. "N-no, I....I didn't."
Frida rushed between them. "Please, he did nothing wrong. It's not his fault."
She shoved him away. Nova, Colin and Sloane returned from the direction they'd gone searching. Their worried faces were enough confirmation that she was nowhere to be seen.
Abeo and Aurelio showed up with more disappointment. "We asked Braxton. He didn't see her," Abeo told us.
"Norman is going to come back in a few hours. We'll try until then. If we don't find her, hopefully he might know what to do," I said.
We split into groups and took on different part of the island.
"Guys, please do not go anywhere alone. Now is not the time to show that you got big balls," Nia pleaded, looking pointedly at me.
We searched high and low for the girl, looked in places where others had already been but it was like Pari had disappeared, her things were all left behind. Not the way I had wanted to spend my damn birthday.
"Norman will be here soon," Eli told us.
"I hope she's safe." Boonsri said. Nia put an arm around her shoulders.
Nova tapped my shoulder and gestured to himself and the forest.
"What? You're going to look for her again?" I asked.
He nodded.
"It's no use. We've been there a few times now."
He made a gesture I couldn't understand, then gave up and started toward that direction.
I grabbed the back of his collar to stop him. "You're not going there alone when you don't even have your device with you, not that it would've helped much anyway."
He finally relented. We had no other choice but to wait for Norman to arrive. When we went out to the shore around the time when Norman told us he'd be back, we were relieved to see his yacht idling in the water with Norman talking to someone. That someone turned out to be Braxton.
"Oh my God, we meet him again!" Boonsri squealed, despite having been near to tears a few minutes ago.
They seemed to be arguing about something. Braxton disappeared inside the cabin hastily after a few minutes. As we approached, my eyes caught sight of a movement far away along the shore.
I saw two other figures talking - a man and a woman. The man was holding her hand and although they were a lot far for me to notice their features, the girl looked oddly familiar.
I saw her head turn toward us and she stepped back. She muttered something to the man and then turned back and hurried away. The man advanced toward Norman's yacht.
That was when I recognized him as Darius, the other member in Braxton's band. I stopped walking. The others would just have to go without me as Darius might recognize me. Somehow I'd fallen behind from my group, making it easy for me to slip inside the cover of the trees.
I moved toward where I saw the woman disappear. I wanted to make sure it wasn't Pari.
A few minutes of walking later I caught sight of her. She had her back to me and was walking toward Braxton's house. Even though I couldn't see her face and had to maintain some distance so that she wouldn't spot me, it was obvious it wasn't Pari because this girl had longer hair and was taller than Pari, about my height.
This was probably a model friend of Braxton or Darius. Why famous people who knew me were suddenly flocking to his island?
I was still watching her until she disappeared into the house when something landed on my shoulder and I jumped and turned to see Nova's heavy hand on me.
He made some movements but I just gave up. "I really won't understand unless you write it on paper," I told him.
He looked frustrated. Giving up, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me in the direction of where I'd come from.
When we got back to the shore, our group had broken up.
"What's happening?" I asked Aurelio as he was the closest.
"Abeo has disappeared," he said.
"What? Where's Norman?"
"He's gone to find Pari. Some of us went with him and some went the other way. When we regrouped, Abeo wasn't with any of us."
"Where are the others now?"
"They've gone to talk to the locals. Even Norman is clueless as to what to do," Frida said.
"Guys, we might actually be on an island where an urban legend has come to life."
We all looked at each other, spooked.
Our day drastically turned horrific as we were met with no sign of either of them. Norman blamed himself, saying that if he hadn't left her alone yesterday then she wouldn't have met that man she described had walked straight out of that story.
Shortly afterward, Norman spotted a girl on the shore and left to talk to her. She wasn't Pari so she must be that woman I saw at Braxton's house earlier.
Up ahead, dark clouds hung over ominously and thunder clapped in the distance. A storm was coming and two of our friends were missing.
"We should tell someone," Frida suggested. "Her parents and cops."
It was starting to get dark and we all headed back home. None of us wanted to be out at night when our group was disappearing one by one. Norman needed to be dragged inside because he insisted on going alone.
A scream pierced the air which seemed to be coming from inside the house and we all rushed to see Frida standing in the dark bedroom, her hand over her mouth as she stared at the bed where a mound buried under the covers seemed to be moving.
A mass of hair popped out and with a turn of their head, with great relief we realized it was Pari. Nia and Boonsri wasted no time in piling on top of her and starting the waterworks.
"What took you guys so long to find me?" Pari asked, giggling under the two girls.
"Where the fuck were you?" Norman stormed ahead until he was standing at the foot of the bed.
"What? I just thought it would be fun to scare you guys a little. It was hilarious. I love how you looked so worried for me," she said teasingly.
Colin, Aurelio, Frida and Eli looked annoyed but did well to hide it. Nova looked furious but didn't express it enough. Sloane crossed her arms over her chest and looked at her with her nostrils flaring.
I pulled her two friends off of her, made a fist and gave her a nice punch, her head whipping in that direction. She made a surprised squeak and cradled her jaw.
Gasps sounded from many and her two friends started to express their displeasure at my actions.
"You made us go crazy searching for you for hours and all the while you were here. You had us all worried for your safety and you're treating this as a joke. I spent my fucking birthday looking for a bitch like you. You deserved it," I spat at her.
"How dare you?" She tried to lunge at me but her two friends held her back.
Nia and Boonsri stopped and looked at Pari disapprovingly. "I hate to say this but she's right. You wasted a lot of our time, Pari. You shouldn't do this. You took it too far," Nia said.
"Hey, why am I the only one getting yelled at and punched when Abeo did the same thing."
"What? But he was helping us look for you," Nia said.
Norman stormed out of the room and returned dragging Abeo with him. "He was at the back of the house."
I glared at him as he looked at us sheepishly. "Sorry?" He mumbled.
"That's not fair. Punch him too!" Pari said, with one of her cheeks turning red.
I heaved a sigh and did just that. "Both of you, why did you do that?"
"Well, I was still mad at Norman for leaving me alone yesterday so I wanted to think it was his fault." Pari said, an infuriating smile on her lips.
"You're insane," Norman told her. "Eli, your friends are fucking insane."
I turned to Abeo. "And what was your reason?"
"He-" Pari began but was cut off when Abeo slapped a hand over her mouth.
"I was going to tell you all but she wouldn't let me go," he said.
Pari struggled to get his hand off and shook her head. "That's not it! He's lying."
"Shut up," Abeo said, his cheeks reddening. He almost strangled her in an attempt to stop her from speaking but she managed to get the words out.
"He did that...so Julia would be worried...for him." Pari bit his finger and he howled and pulled his hand away. "He did it for your attention."
"What are you - a fucking dog?"
Abeo opened his mouth but I left.
After a tense dinner spent glaring holes in both their heads I went out to sit in the front yard.
Colin joined me a few minutes later, suprising me.
"Are you okay?" He asked after I made no move to speak first. "Happy birthday."
"Thanks. I'm still a little angry," I said tersely. "We were supposed to leave today," I said. "Instead we are stuck here because of those idiots. And there's going to be a storm tonight."
He nodded. "Me too. We could've spent all that time having fun."
"Can't believe we wasted so many hours looking for her."
Nova came out the door at that moment, looked left then right at us. He raised a had pointed a finger up at the sky, then gestured for me to get inside.
"Later," I told him.
He glanced at Colin, then nodded and walked back inside.
"It must be difficult for him to talk to us without his device," Colin said, still looking after him.
"It's not like you guys tried to talk to him much anyway," I shrugged.
He gave me a sheepish smile. "It's just that he's older. I don't know what to talk about."
"That's keeping him from missing his other half too much," I said. "His device," I clarified.
"How did he lose it?"
I was reminded of yesterday, of how distracted I was from keeping Boonsri away from Colin that I hadn't even realized that Nova had taken a hard tumble down the side of a steep slope and hurt his leg.
"Because of you."
His eyes widened in surprise. "Me? How?"
"You're starting to hurt my pride, Colin. I don't chase after boys."
"What?" He pushed his glasses up his nose and bunched his eyebrows together.
"I always want to keep my eyes on you."
"I don't understand."
I gazed at his confused face. How had this oblivious fool managed to reduce me to this – a jealous girl trying to break them apart?
I put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at me attentively. Slowly I slid it to the back of his neck and pulled his face close to mine.
His shoulders went rigid and awkward and he looked anywhere but at my eyes.
I leaned forward, closing my eyes and the distance between us. Colin let out a surprised gasp as I pressed my lips to his. He moved back but I followed, not letting us break away.
His hands wavered in the air uncertainly before he rested them on my shoulders and I felt the smallest of resistance.
My other hand went up to cup his face and soon I was devouring his lips which were unresponsive beneath mine.
I sighed when I pulled away. "Do you understand now?"
He wouldn't meet my eyes as he covered his mouth with the back of his hand. "Why?"
"You're probably the first guy who didn't kiss me back. You have good self restraint," I told him.
"I'm with Boonsri. You're my friend."
"I think I finally understand Carissa and Vince."
Despite his shock, he asked, "Who?"
"My ex who cheated on me with my ex friend. People from back home." The reason I ran away from home and ended up here, living someone else's life.
"Why did you kiss me? This is not like you. You wouldn't do that."
"Oh really? What do you know about me? Why do you think you know anything at all about me?"
"What?"
I extended my hand. "Nice to meet you, Colin. I'm Juliet Jenson."
END OF JULIET'S POV IN SEASON 1
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