Both Liam and Michael gave terse smiles and then faced each other with stoic determination before pressing on into the jungle where Sarah had last been seen.

  Ryan and the two women turned, frustrated and afraid, back to the camp.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Jonathan Jackson wiped the sweat from his brow, his fingers trembling as he clutched his empty water bottle. The unforgiving sun beat down on the dense jungle around him, turning the air into a simmering cauldron. He’d been walking for hours, a mix of anger, hatred, and longing fuelling his every step.

  The memories of the office, of Thompson’s smug face, came rushing back. Jonathan had been on the verge of truly making his mark, the culmination of years of hard work. But then Thompson, with his conniving charm, had screwed everything up for him. Now Jonathan had nothing but a bitter taste of betrayal and a burning desire for revenge. With every step, the taste became more acidic, and the fire became more powerful.

  If only Thornicroft could see us now.

  Jackson smiled wryly at the thought, though there was nothing pleasing about it.

  When Jackson finally made his way back to the stream, he showed no restraint. He slung the bag from his shoulder onto the ground without thinking. Then, fully clothed, still wearing his dishevelled suit trousers and the T-shirt he had reluctantly accepted from Thompson’s case, now sweat-stained and dappled with dirt, he threw himself into the shallow flowing water. The chill of the stream flowed over him as he lay in its path. He splashed like an infant in a bathtub, rejoicing in the feel of the soothing cold.

  Turning, he pressed his face into the flow. Reddened by the day’s sun, streaked with salty mud splatters, the immersion brought exquisite release. Clean and cooled, he opened his mouth and let the flowing water fill his mouth. He drank greedily and without restriction. For the briefest moment, the stream consumed his every thought. Mark, the island, and even Helena swam from his mind as it was flooded by the physical relief he finally felt.

  Jackson let out a long sigh, and lay on his back, still in the current.

  A sudden thought made him snap upward, leaping out of the water like a salmon.

  No.

  His wallet.

  No.

  His heart raced as he retrieved the wallet, its leather now soaked through, heavy and limp in his trembling hand. The photograph inside, the cherished image of him and Helena, clung to the leather with the tenacity of memory.

  “No!” he exclaimed aloud.

  The image of him and Helena had adhered firmly.

  No. Please, no.

  He pulled gingerly at the corner of the print, but even with the smallest amount of pressure, the paper came apart in his hand. He withdrew his fingers to find a swirl of colours on the scrap of photograph that had separated from the rest of the picture.

  “No!” he hollered. “No!”

  He had acted rashly, acted on his instincts, and he had lost the only thing on the island that he cared about. The picture from Florence was ruined, beyond repair. And Jackson had no one to blame but himself.

  With a heavy heart and a sense of profound loss, Jonathan pushed himself to his feet. The weight of his mistake pressed down on him, a crushing reminder of his impulsive actions. He had lost something irreplaceable. Tears welled in his eyes, mingling with the fresh stream water on his face, a bitter mixture of anguish and regret. He had lost Helena. If he never escaped the island, he would never see her face again.

  His clothes clung to his body, the wet fabric a reminder of his stupidity.

  The carryall sat accusingly beside the stream. He knew that within it he held the means to provide water to his team: the bottles, the condoms that he had planned to use as water skins. Jackson looked at the zipped black bag for seconds that felt like stretched hours.

  There were two options. Take the water back to his InnovaTech colleagues or press on, ascend the vantage point and survey for a way off the island.

  I can stop for their water on the way back.

  Jackson turned his head, looking for signs of the raised ground. The trees were densely packed. If he hadn’t found the map, he wouldn’t know that the rocky heights existed.

  It’s a sign. I have to do this.

  He took his own water bottle and filled it.

  I have to find a way back home.

  He left the holdall beside the stream, and turned away, in the direction indicated on the found map.

  I have to get back to Helena.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  As they walked, searching for clues, Chen and Liam exchanged glances, their unease mounting with each step. They called out Sarah’s name repeatedly, their voices tinged with desperation, but the only response was the eerie echo of their own calls.

  Liam’s eyes darted around nervously, the humid air pressing in on him like a heavy weight. Sweat beaded on his forehead, despite the coolness of the jungle’s shade.

  “Do you really think we’re going to find her?”

  Chen shot a reproachful look.

  “Of course,” he said. “We have to believe that we will.”

  “I don’t know what I believe after the day we’ve had,” Liam said.

  Chen looked at Liam with a considered expression, as if trying to work out what the other man was thinking.

  “It’s been…unusual,” he said, in a measured tone.

  “Jackson and Thompson leap into their leader roles, finding the plane, searching for water…” Liam pouted.

  “Storming off in a huff,” Chen smiled.

  “If either of us had walked away from the camp, I’m sure no one would have even noticed,” Liam said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Chen replied. “There are only seven of us.” He couldn’t count Sarah as truly lost. Not yet.

  “Come on, you must feel it too,” Liam said.

  “It?” Chen asked. “What is this ‘it’ that you think I feel?”

  “We’re caught up in this, but we aren’t really part of it. It’s Mark and Jonny’s fault that we’re here, and now they’ve got us into this mess, they are off doing the heroic or stupid shit, and we…well, what exactly are we here for?”

  Chen stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Liam to backtrack a couple of paces to come back alongside.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said. “But there are more important things I could be doing. I have other work to do back at the office. I never wanted to be a part of a foolish team-building getaway. I’m not even part of a team. I run my department, and that department consists of me.”

  “Same,” Liam said, nodding. “I don’t want to cause any bad blood here, mate, but I don’t see any of you unless you have a problem. The only time anyone comes downstairs is when they need something. There’s no ‘would you like a cuppa, Liam?’ or ‘we’ve got drinks after work, are you in?’. Jackson doesn’t even remember my name.”

  The resentment simmered in the humid air as they walked.

  “Perhaps that’s why we’re here,” Chen said, after a thoughtful pause.

  “We’re like NPCs. There’s no reason at all for us to be part of this. We’re just filler.” Liam explained his thoughts the best he could.

  Chen shook his head. “What would happen if you or I ceased to exist?”

  “Jeez, man. I don’t know. I’ve already survived a plane crash today, but I’m still not too confident about my chances.” Liam managed to laugh as he spoke.

  “At the office, I mean. As part of InnovaTech.”

  “I don’t know about you, but the first time one of those dumbasses can’t work out how to install their software updates or reset the password that they’ve probably got written on a pretty pink Paper Crane post-it on their desk…they’d be screwed.” Liam’s expression reflected a change in his thinking.

  “Exactly. And without me, they’d be stumbling in the dark.”

  “This is going to sound ironic under the circumstances,” Liam said, “But I’m not sure I know what you do.”

  “Mostly research,” Chen said. “And then some analysis.”

  Liam tilted his head. “Hilarious.”

  “I do everything, really,” Chen sighed. “Keep my eye on the market, look for opportunities, work out risks and benefits.”

  Liam was already looking away.

  “I know. It’s dull to you, but I spent ten years studying to be where I am now. You wouldn’t notice what I do unless I wasn’t there.”

  “Well, Toto, I’m sorry to remind you, but we really aren’t in InnovaTech anymore.”

  The two men shared a look. Talk of their office roles and mutual feelings of exclusion had lifted a burden from them, but that couldn’t help them in their current predicament. On the island, specialist skills counted for nothing unless they were those that could help the team survive and find a means of escape.

  “I haven’t seen any clues to Sarah’s whereabouts for a while,” Liam said grimly. “You?”

  Chen shook his head. There had been no more footprints, no broken branches, no sign of her at all. Although the men called her name, Sarah had not responded. Listening to the sounds of the jungle, neither of them could hear distress cries. It was as though the undergrowth had opened up and swallowed their colleague.

  With each step, their hope of finding Sarah dwindled. The jungle seemed to absorb their cries, muffling their calls for help. They were adrift in a sea of emerald foliage. Bonded by their own isolation, Chen and Liam had each other, but Sarah, somewhere out there, was alone.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Mark was sure he had memorised the path to the stream. Setting off straight on into the jungle from the beach, they had turned right a few hundred meters in, following the path of least resistance through the dense growth. Jackson had ducked beneath a low branch; Thompson had leap-frogged over it. Being more agile than the old man, Mark could make moves that his colleague must have abandoned twenty years in the past.

  But the mental map that Mark had created had the beach as his starting point, and he didn’t have a compass to orientate himself to his new position on the island. His mind was swimming as it was, without trying to align the snapshot he had memorised with his current location. He would have to either get back to the beach where they had started, or head out into the depths of the jungle, hoping he would meet the stream.

  The world swayed before him. Whatever had caused him to see the fragments of his past seemed less intense now, but Mark still felt as though he had drunk three vodkas too many. There was a taste of copper with a sour acidic undertone in his dry mouth. Even in his dazed state, a shot of vodka would have been welcomed.

  Shaking his water bottle brought the droplets together, but when he put it to his mouth, there was only enough fluid to wet his lips.

  If there was something he needed to end, it would have to wait. Far be it for Mark to ignore the command of a trippy hallucination of his young self – for he had convinced himself that this was the only viable explanation – but he needed water, or the only thing that would be ended was his life.

  Standing in the humid haze of the faltering afternoon, Mark considered his next move.

  “Afternoon,” he thought. “So, the sun is…” Mark peered through the canopy of trees. The glow of sunlight was coming from his left. “West? North? West. Of course, it’s heading west.”

  Shaking his head, Mark realised it didn’t matter what direction the sun was in, if he had no compass or any idea of the bearing that would take him to the stream.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He had to get moving. But which way?

  Think, Mark. Think.

  When they had turned from the beach that morning, the sun had been on his right. It was hardly an accurate means of locating the coordinates of the water he so desperately needed, but he needed it so desperately that he knew he had to take the shot. He faced away from the sun and began to walk.

  Each of Mark’s staggered steps forward felt like trudging through treacle. His limbs were heavy and aching. A small voice inside his head told him he should never have left the group, but Mark was an expert at blocking out the words he did not want to hear.

  The trees were more tightly packed the further he walked into the woodland. Roots jutted out from the soil, threatening to trip him, and slowing his progress. His footsteps were uneven, faltering. Mark’s body felt alien, heavy and slow, as if he were wading through a quagmire. Every step was a battle against gravity and confusion, his thoughts a tangled web of anxiety and disorientation.

  The blister on Mark’s hand throbbed with each heartbeat. He could still feel the sticky sap from the tree that had scratched him, traces of its resin clinging to his skin like a malevolent curse. It had been an agonising, fevered haze since that encounter, and Mark no longer felt he could trust his own mind.

  Mark’s first thought, when he heard the voice, was that the hallucinations had returned. The second was that it wasn’t a voice at all, but that the short, sharp yelp he had taken for a “no” was the barking of a tropical dog.

  What he knew about the flora and fauna of tropical islands was limited to coconuts and palm trees, but he had left those behind at the shoreline.

  Mark stopped in his tracks, first afraid, and then intent on listening for further information to help him work out what or who was calling out, and whether he needed to find them or flee.

  “No!” the voice sounded out again. It was clear, even through the muggy haze of the jungle air. It was a man’s voice, raw with desperation.

  There was no mistaking the whining tone. It was Jackson.

  Mark rested his trembling hands on his thighs and leaned forward, thinking, thinking, thinking.

  What was Jackson doing out here? Was he in trouble?

  A surge of conflicting emotions washed over him. Part of him wanted to rush forward, to find Jackson and see what had driven him to cry out in anguish. But another part, a self-preserving instinct, told him to hang back, to remain unseen.

  Mark crouched amidst the thick trees, his breath held, his eyes fixed on the direction of the voice. He watched as Jackson came into view, his dishevelled figure stumbling near the stream. The man’s shoulders were hunched, his posture one of defeat.

  Mark’s curiosity battled with his fear as he observed Jackson. The man clutched something in his trembling hand, something Mark couldn’t quite make out from this distance. Then, as if in a moment of vulnerability, Jackson’s shoulders heaved, and he brought the object to his face.

  It was a photograph. Mark recognised it instantly. The photograph that had been in Jackson’s wallet at the airfield: Helena, Jonathan’s wife.

  Mark watched, hidden in the shadows, as Jackson gazed at the image, tears streaming down his dirt-streaked face. The sight was both heart-wrenching and strangely intimate. For a moment, Mark forgot about his own thirst, his own predicament. He felt a pang of empathy for his colleague, a flicker of understanding about the things that truly mattered in life, far away from the corporate rat race they’d left behind.

  But then Jackson’s actions shattered that fragile connection. Mark watched as his rival got out of the stream, leaving behind the bag of water bottles that should have contained vital hydration for the team. Instead, he filled only his own bottle, as if driven by some newfound selfishness.

  Mark’s brow furrowed as he realised what was happening. Jackson was slipping into a survival mode of his own, a mode that left no room for teamwork or compassion. In this unforgiving jungle, it was every man for himself.

  As he watched Jackson walk away, Mark’s earlier empathy turned to a steely resolve. He couldn’t rely on his colleague for help or guidance. None of the team could.

  FORTY

  The campsite was bathed in the relentless heat of the afternoon sun, and the air hung heavy with tension. Emily sat on a fallen log, her expression one of quiet concern as she surveyed their surroundings. Karen paced back and forth like a caged animal, her frustration palpable. Her footsteps created erratic patterns in the dirt, mirroring the turmoil in her mind. She could feel the weight of their predicament pressing down on her shoulders, and it was becoming too much to bear.

  Emily finally broke the silence, her voice calm but tinged with weariness. “Karen, you’re wasting your energy. You should sit for a while.”

  Karen’s head snapped towards Emily, her eyes blazing with a mixture of anger and desperation.

  “And what exactly are you doing, Emily? Huh? Sitting there staring into the jungle won’t change a damn thing!”

  Emily sighed, the tension in the air thickening.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. We’re all worried, but pacing won’t make them come back any faster.”

  Karen’s shoulders slumped, her frustration turning to resignation.

  “I just can’t stand this waiting. We don’t even know if they’re okay out there. And Sarah…”

  Her voice trailed off, and the mention of Sarah’s name hung between them like a heavy, unspoken truth. One woman felt the responsibility of Sarah’s disappearance on her watch, the other bore the memory of the fight that had taken place between them only hours earlier.

  “It’s okay,” Emily said. “I know you’re not exactly the best of friends. You can still be concerned about her.”

  Karen nodded, her eyes glistening with tears.

  “I never meant to…I mean, what if she left of her own accord too? First Mark, and then Sarah? No one can bear to be around me. They would rather take their chances in the jungle than be here with me.”

  Her voice broke as she finished the sentence, and Emily rose to her feet and hurried to Karen’s side, wrapping her in a warm embrace.

  Karen’s pent-up tears turned into sobs, and she pressed her head against Emily’s shoulder as she released the emotion that had been building for far longer than the time they had spent on the island.