Vicious Memories

Chapter 65

Felix hadn't worked alone. I was positive about that now.

Standing at the top bank of the stream, I looked down into its dark hollow and barely stopped myself from screaming.

Failure mocked me, and as hard as I tried to stare it down it kept coming back. There was nowhere for me to hide, no place to back away to. The feeling came from within me, and the infection ran deep, roots coiled through veins and arteries and nestled deep in my heart.

Maybe that was why I'd become so obsessed with the investigation. The need to be rid of that lingering feeling drove me forward, so I had latched onto the first thing I was presented with after waking up.

But I had failed at this, too.

"Ah, there you are, mate."

I jumped at the voice, feeling guilty for my self-pitying thoughts.

"Woah, relax," Cooper said, stopping next to me. "I thought nobody could sneak up on you. Caught napping?"

"Yeah," I said. "Something like that."

Cooper clucked a few times, a funny sound. "Can't let that happen again, can we? What if I'd been the killer?"

"We caught the killer," I snapped.

"Did we, though?"

I looked at him critically, then sighed. "No. I suppose not."

"It's a start, though. He did some of it, right? Now we just need to move on to the next one. Alice sent me to grab you, by the way."

"She did?"

"You bet. Said that we were something like friends before I forgot everything all over again, and I figured I like you alright, anyway."

The wind continued to blow, but it was coming from the north and Cooper acted as a sort of windbreaker, keeping me protected from the worst of it. The first stars revealed themselves overhead.

"Listen, mate, I know you're having a rough go of it right now. To be honest, you look like total shit. I don't know if you think you're hiding it well, but you aren't, and I'm not the only one who's noticed. You've looked worse and worse over the past few days, and if I couldn't hear you breathing I'd think you were a zombie pretending to be a man. Only a matter of time until you start biting peoples' arms."

"Is this supposed to be a pep talk?"

"Maybe." A shadowy arm reached up and swept loose hair out of his face. "I'm just letting you know that we all know how hard you're being on yourself. And that you're wrong to feel that way."

"What else should I feel? It took all this time to catch him and in the end he might not have been pulling his own strings. Someone made him do it. Can't you see that?"

"Sure I can. But that doesn't mean he wasn't worth catching. And you're the only one who was able to do it. Without you, someone else could be dead already. Maybe he would have managed to kill Alice last night."

Words rose to my lips but I didn't let them out. It was better to leave unsaid my fear that the timing of the first murder lining up with my arrival in the village was no coincidence.

"Will you take an outside perspective for a second? Stop being a blockhead?"

I nodded grudgingly.

"You're making things too complicated," Cooper said. "The rest of us see it simply. Bad shit happened, and from the very start you were the only one who could figure it out. You were our best chance to stop whatever was happening, and in the end you did it. You caught Felix. Nobody else even suspected him. And not everything bad that happens is your fault. When something bad happens it's the fault of the person who caused it, and that certainly isn't you.

"And if not stopping it quickly enough is your problem, stop beating yourself up and do better next time. Because the sad fact is that if you don't, it's likely that none of the rest of us will, and that means more dead friends. And who knows what else could happen. I mean, come on, we're stuck here anyway." He raised his arms and gestured in either direction, See? "If there's not some fishy shit going on in general, then I'm a fuckin' American."

Cooper let his words sit for a while. Without you, someone else would probably be dead already. Maybe he would have managed to kill Alice last night. I replayed those sentences over and over in my head, each repetition lifting some of the weight off of my shoulders, replacing it with a new, more comfortable burden, one that felt more like responsibility and leadership. I found that these burdens fit me better.

"Thanks," I said after a while, hoping that I could convey in one word how grateful I really was.

Cooper just grunted happily and nodded.

It was still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that he didn't remember the things we'd said to each other even a week ago. He seemed the same in so many ways, different in others.

The darkness around us bloomed fully, a black rose reminding the world how beautiful oblivion could be. Clouds obscured the moon and stars, withdrawing the icy white light that had lit up the stream. Cooper's hair was nothing but a deeper shadow hanging around his face in a curly frame. He could have been his own twin brother, sent to the island a few days ago to replace the man who'd lived here for the two preceding years. That was how well any of us really knew him.

"You two about ready to come back?" A deep voice asked.

"Yeah, yeah," Cooper called, "just about."

"It's getting late. Not safe out here yourselves."

"Relax, Gabriel. Who's gonna take the both of us?"

"That's a question we'd all like to answer, isn't it?"

Cooper grumbled something that included the words 'no respect', but his tone was light enough. The three of us walked back to the caves together.

"Do you ever have doubts?" I asked Gabriel before I could second-guess the question. "About the decisions you make, or the things you do. Or even about the things the rest of us do, living here like this."

"Why do you ask? Are you having doubts?"

"Of course I am. How could I not?"

He huffed a few times, a quick rise and fall of breath, more a loud exhalation than anything else. I realized he was laughing.

"Yes," he said. "I have doubts. They're useful to an extent. If your doubts make you think critically about your decisions from time to time, if they make sure you're doing what you feel is right, then you should embrace them. If they don't, you discard them. Doubts that cripple your decision-making are nothing more than distractions, or excuses you make to bail yourself out of tough choices."

"And how the hell do you know which is which?"

Another wheeze. "If I could answer that, I would be the wisest man in history."

I nodded in quiet agreement, and for a moment the only sounds between us were the light hum of the living island and the rhythmic flick of our moving feet.

"Everyone has doubts," Gabriel said as we passed through the clearing, where our nightly bonfire spat orange embers at the sky. "I have more of them now than I can remember having for a long time. Finding that file was tough, I won't lie about it. It brings a lot of difficult moral questions to mind. The same goes for the business with Felix. Am I responsible for the crimes of my past even if I don't remember them? Am I the same person or somebody totally different? If it's the first option, I should be punished. But who is going to make that decision, me? If it's the second option..."

A soft thrum of conversation floated out of the caves before us.

"If it's the second option...?" I prodded.

"Exactly. If it's the second option, then what?"

There was nothing else to say on the subject.

Our exchange followed me deep into the night as I tossed and turned. Every rustle in the dark became a Stranger's footstep, every whisper of wind turned into a promise that the worst was yet to come.

If it's the second option, then what?

Those words clung to me until dawn stabbed rudely into the eastern sky.