The Purgatorium

Chapter Fifteen

Daphne found a shady place near the stream and left the fox, praying he would be okay. Then she followed the stream to Central Valley. Luckily, as she moved to the interior of the island, away from rock toward grassy fields with small trees and shrubs, she found better places to hide. She was anxious to get to Prisoners Harbor but willing to take her time so as to not get caught.

She knelt over the stream beneath a shade tree and scooped up handfuls of water, saying a silent prayer for the fox and wondering if she should have kept him with her. The fear that she hadn't successfully destroyed the tracking device kept her from running back for him.

The fresh spring water tasted so good, she couldn't get enough of it. She allowed it to run down the front of her shirt, splashed some on her cheeks and the top of her head, but avoided getting her shoes and shorts wet, not wanting blisters or chaffing. Now that she was cool and her thirst had been quenched, she realized how exhausted she was. She decided to crawl into a thicket beneath a tree, a few yards from the stream, and rest. Checking for ants and other stinging insects and finding none, she hunkered in on her bottom, stretched out her legs in front of her, and leaned against the tree. Stan and Larry were ahead of her to the east, toward the resort, and Cam and Phillip would likely not double back, but would continue down Sierra Blanca to the north or west. Even if someone did pass through here, she was nicely covered. She closed her eyes.

As tired as she was, she could not sleep. She lay there thinking on the night she heard Joey in Kara's room, the night he killed her. He later said he was choking a demon from her body, trying to save, not kill, her. The banging of Kara's headboard as Joey strangled her and the pounding of the rock against the fox's tail thudded in Daphne's head, over and over, until she was sobbing again. The grief and regret Joey had expressed when he'd realized what he had done equaled to that shown on the day he had accidentally electrocuted their grandfather, except this time he went catatonic for three days. If only Daphne had gotten out of bed and had gone to check on the noise, she could have spared him that pain and saved her sister.

It occurred to Daphne now as she sat within the brush that she could easily take her life there in the stream. What was stopping her? Why go to all this trouble to be rescued if she didn't care to live?

Did she care to live? She wasn't as sure of her plan anymore, but she dismissed her doubts, believing she was just tired, hungry, and weak. She told herself that if she weren't on the run, she wouldn't hesitate to see her plan to the finish.

She scrambled from the thicket and followed the stream to where it pooled more deeply between two knolls covered in purple morning glory. A swarm of butterflies rushed from the flowers as she marched past. She tiptoed into the icy stream to the middle where it deepened to her knees and lay down, prone, submerging her face.

The water was clear when she opened her eyes, green moss visible on white rocks, and a few plants tilted and danced wildly with the flow. So that was what was meant by "going with the flow," she thought, as she held her breath. A turtle darted past, and she flinched, not expecting to see him there so close to her. She lifted her head from the water for a breath and returned underwater to try again.

This way the pain would be brief. If she had surrendered to Stan and Cam, who knows what other terrifying games and torture she must endure. This way, she had control over when and how. Her parents would be sad, but they were already so sad, and she wasn't convinced her death would add much more misery to their lives. At least they wouldn't have to look at her.

And Brock could go on with his life, if he hadn't already.

She sputtered when water got in her mouth and into her lungs. She lifted her head for air, trying not to cough, and submerged again.

This is it. No more air, Daphne. Just let it burn.

Her lungs did burn and, beneath the water, she coughed, and more water entered her lungs. She fought to hold her head under and tried to find pleasure in the burn, imagined the end, the nothingness, which was better than a life where she would continue to see the pain of her family, tried to embrace the burn and the sharp pain emerging around her eyes, hoping there was no eternity, just nothing, but it was too easy to come up and give in to the urge to cough and breathe.

She coughed and gagged, her throat burning as she glanced around, hoping she wouldn't be heard.

A gull overhead cried out and startled her.

This wasn't as easy as she had hoped. Maybe she should fling herself off a cliff. But when she imagined her body hitting hard against the crashing waves, being thrust against the sharp rocks, bones crunching and skin being split open, she cringed. No, drowning was definitely better than jumping.

She knelt there in the cold water and shivered. The sun was arching over to the west now, meaning it was past noon. Her stomach growled, but she felt nauseous and very tired. Too bad she couldn't simply lie in the water and fall asleep. She decided to turn the other way, to lie back in the stream and simply go to sleep. Then she recalled the painting in Dr. Gray's office and her heart stopped.

Daphne was the lady in the painting.

No, that was crazy. A coincidence. She sat on her knees, catching her breath, waiting for the dizziness to subside. Daphne was the lady in the painting, the painting brought to life. That couldn't have been planned. Dr. Gray wasn't really like Prospero, capable of such magic. Was Daphne meant to be lost on this strange island just like Ferdinand in Shakepeare's play?

If this was all just one big ruse to get Daphne to want to live, it was failing miserably, for she had just tried to kill herself. She climbed to her feet, angrily shouting to the air around her, "Did you see that, Dr. Gray? You've failed! I'm no more glad to be alive than I was before I got to this God-forsaken place! Get that? You failed!"

She fell to her knees, trembling and wondering what the heck she had just done. Had anyone heard her? What would they do if they found her?

The sound of a jeep in the distance caused her to lift her head and scan the valley, and that's when she realized she was kneeling in the very place she had seen the two actors—the man pulling the hair of the girl the morning she had arrived. This meant the road was about twenty yards away. She swam down the stream toward a group of tall reeds and waited. She heard the jeep stop.

"This has gotten out of hand, guys." It was Hortense Gray. "Tell me again where she was last spotted."

"The base of Sierra Blanca." This sounded like Roger.

"If we don't find her, it will be the end of us," the doctor said. "When the rest arrive, organize a grid and search every inch. I want her found today."

"We'll find her." This was definitely Stan. "She's around here somewhere. Between here and Prisoners Harbor, no doubt."

"Don't say anything we wouldn't want her to overhear," Dr. Gray said. "We may still be able to salvage this."

"Of course," Roger said.

"Here comes Larry in the other jeep," Stan added.

Daphne heard the second jeep pull up beside the first, and more voices added to the conversation, Dave's rowdy voice among them. She couldn't make them all out, but there were at least eight. A third jeep arrived. As they gathered, they were reminded again to watch what they said.

Daphne would be unable to cross Central Valley until after they completed their search. Even there among the reeds, she would be found, and if she made a run for Prisoners Harbor, she wouldn't make it across the valley in time to avoid the search party. Now was the time to move, while the group organized itself, but she'd have to go another way. She crept low in the water, moving against the stream, back in the direction she came, hoping Cam and Phillip wouldn't head her off. Her best hope was to go around the resort along the coastline while everyone else was in Central Valley. She would have to go all the way around the island to Scorpion Anchorage.