The Island

9. Priorities

Jordyn

My cheeks turn pink, and I turn away in a hurry.

I wasn't talking to her. Why did she have to say something to me? I'd just gotten over the knots in my stomach everytime I tried to talk to Samson. Now, I'm back to square one. The sweat in my palms tells me that much.

"What happened?" I ask Sam in a hoarse voice as I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. The air inside the jungle sticks to me and brings out what little water I have left as sweat. It pours out of every inch of me. The humidity rises exponentially with every passing second.

"I told you," Sam says, scrunching his nose up at me. "She attacked me."

He runs a hand through his already messy hair, but the sweat works like hair gel and makes the brown strands stand straight up. Leaves cling to his jumpsuit. A bright red mark mars his left cheek, only growing darker with time.

His response forces an eye roll out of me.

"I heard you," I say. "Can you be a little more specific?"

"She took her hands and hit me with them. Over and over again, Jordy," he mumbles as he picks the leaves off himself.

"Let me rephrase that. What were you doing when she attacked you?"

Sam looks up then, raising his eyebrows. Did he really not know what I was asking? Is he that thick?

"I got lost," he says as he looks back down. "I was looking for water, and then, I couldn't find my way back to the beach. That's when I came across this clearing. I stopped to catch my breath for a minute, 'cause it's so dang hot. That's when she jumped out of the trees and tackled me."

"So, first you get beat up by fish and now a girl?"

He glares at me from underneath thick eyebrows, and his forehead creases like folds of fabric.

"Don't be so sexist," he snaps. "Her being a girl has nothing to do with anything. Look at her for five seconds. She's muscular as all get out."

I glance back over at Kaia. She's watching us with a devilish smirk spread across her face as if she isn't tied up but leaning casually against the tree behind her. Her jumpsuit is made differently than ours. The sleeves cut off at the shoulder instead of the elbow. Like me, she wears no shoes, and the legs of her suit reach down past her ankles.

"She's fast," Sam continues as I inspect Kaia, "and strong. Knocked my knife right out of my hand. After that, I didn't stand a chance."

How did she know that his knife was his strength? She couldn't have, unless she's been watching us. My eyes trace down her arms and watch how her muscles tense with every breath. They aren't obnoxious or overwhelming but subtle. She reminds me of a cat- feral and stealthy.

Strands of her black curls fall around her face, but she stares at me though the vines of hair. Her mouth rests slightly open. Her chest rises with every short breath, pulling tight against the front of her jumpsuit. For a moment, her eyes soften, and her smirk morphs into a warmer smile.

Heat rises to my cheeks again, and I look away.

Don't forget that she's a prisoner, just like you. She commited a crime so heinous that she deserved death. Too young to be killed, so they dumped her in here. She's not a harmless house cat. She's a killer, a thief, or an arsonist.

Do those three things really belong in the same list, voice? It's hard for me to believe thief falls in the same category as arsonist and murderer.