PREDATOR ISLAND (Sea Lab Book 2)

CHAPTER 27

Sarah pondered everything she discussed with Jake during their last break, especially the subject of post traumatic stress disorder. Maybe she was experiencing PTSD? But she wasn't ready to talked about what happened with Ocean Blue with anyone else other than Jake. Three and a half weeks wasn't enough time to process it all in her mind. She didn't want to entertain the topic with Dylan and Savannah for their magazine article, although, an interview for a feature story would have been the perfect opportunity to beat her chest and sound off to the world that she was still alive. That she was an overcomer. But was she? Or, was she a victim?

No, she shook her head as they continued on the trail. I'll be anything but that.

Call her troubled. Call her whatever term came to mind, but she would not be a victim. Somehow, she would get through this...and with Jake's support, she knew she could. Even though she could make it on her own, at the same time, she didn't know what she'd do without him. He was someone to talk to, and more than anything he listened. And even in the darkest moments, he could see a ray of hope. He was there for her, and that's what mattered most.

As the journey continued, the eastern cliff face morphed from a steep-sloped mountainside into a vertical rock that shot straight up in the air. The trees on that side faded in number until they vanished altogether. As the band of treasure hunters sidled along the narrow ledge next to the river with hands pressed against the rock wall for support, Sarah oddly enough, revisited again her earlier conversation with Jake. He'd mentioned that there might not be any side effects with the serum. That there might only be benefits. She pondered that thought, rolling it around in her mind as if doing so would validate her in some way. Like she could make herself okay, will herself to be normal again...but better. New and improved.

The ledge shrank to ten inches wide and the river dropped lower beneath them.

Sarah sidled next to Jake with Dylan and Savannah in the lead. Dr. Graham moseyed along as if he'd done this before. Behind him, Tony coached Rachel who whimpered and complained with each step. Sarah wasn't afraid. She didn't know why, but she remained calm.

Until Jake slipped.

He slid down the cliff face faster than fast.

Rachel screamed and Tony cursed. Dylan and Savannah looked on in horror.

But Sarah reached out for him and grabbed him by the wrist before he fell into the river. Jake's weight dragged her over at the waist, but she stiffened against his momentum and halted his plunge.

He dangled thirty feet above the water held by nothing but Sarah and her will to keep him alive.

His eyes stared back at her, wide and darting about, searching the cliff face for a place to grab ahold of, but quickly he realized, he was held completely in Sarah's grasp. She had ahold of him and she wasn't letting go. As she balanced herself on the precarious ledge, she lifted him in the air until his boots scrambled for a grip. Jake grunted and groaned, and when he was steady, he buried his face against the rock wall, his lungs heaving for air.

"You have got to be joking?" Dr. Graham said. "How did you...how did you bloody do that?"

Sarah offered him a tight grin as she clung to the cliff face. "Do what?"

She turned to Jake. "You okay?"

"Good as gold." He sighed. "Thanks to you."

"I should have gotten a picture of that," Dylan said. "I suspected something was up with you when you ripped that treasure chest open on the bottom of the ocean. What did Roland Zanderthal do to you? Now, I know there's more to what happened in Australia than what's being reported in the media."

"Any normal person would have been pulled into the river with him. That will have to go in the article." Savannah stared at Sarah. "Might make a good cliffhanger."

"If you breathe a word of this to anyone?"

"Sarah," Jake said. "What you did was not a bad thing. And what you can do is beyond amazing. Besides that, they're gonna die before we get off this island."

"Excuse me?" Dylan said.

"If Sarah can do what she just did, then El Tunchi is real and he's going to have a feast on you two for plundering his island for the lure of treasure." Jake turned to Sarah and winked.

"Ha." Dylan laughed. "I see the lust in your eyes too. He's gonna eat us all."

"Both of you may be right," Dr. Graham said.

"I'm not liking this El Tunchi thing," Rachel said. "But right now, I just want off this ledge."

"With you on that," Tony replied.

With that, they crept along until the ledge under their feet slanted down into an incline. They moved a step at a time, clinging to the rock wall. Fragments broke off and plummeted to the river below with tiny splashes. Tony instructed Rachel. Sarah comforted Jake. And finally, the incline led them to a wider slab of rock that turned into solid ground. Each of them celebrated when their boots skittered to the sweet flatness of the jungle floor. Before long, they were back in the thickness of palm fronds and ferns. And thankful for it.

"Thanks for what you did back there," Jake said when they entered a small clearing. He sat down on top creeper vines that snaked along the ground, climbing up an pond-apple tree. He took off his backpack and leaned against the trunk, wiping perspiration from his brow. "I need a break."

As he swigged from his canteen, Tony walked up and swiped a pond apple off the tree. Took a bite. "Not bad," he said. "A little green, but it'll do."

"That's because it's best to grab them after they fall off, or when they're just about to drop to the ground," Graham said. "Best when they're yellowish."

Tony took another bite and kept eating. Shrugged.

"Are you okay?" Sarah asked Jake.

"Who me?" He smiled. "I'm fine. Couldn't be better."

"You almost..."

"Died?"

"Yes."

"Maybe not? I might've washed down river and made it out okay. Who knows?"

"There you go again seeing the silver lining in every situation. But sometimes I think it's a front."

Jake looked away.

"It's alright to feel fear. To be afraid. To be human."

"I'm okay," he replied. "Really. But I don't want to do that again. Not any time soon, anyway."

Sarah brightened. "Agreed."

Ten minutes later, Dylan said, "Break's over. We still haven't found the serpent's head."

Sarah was ready to forge on. If for any other reason, to put as much distance between her and what she just did. Saving Jake's life wasn't what bothered her. She'd do that all day, everyday, but she didn't want people to look at her differently. And they already were.

Dylan unsheathed his machete and aimed a finger down the overgrown path ahead them. "From the clue at the waterfall, it appears we need to stick close to the river. The tree density will make it difficult to hug the bank, so we need to keep it in sight at all times and not get separated from it. And keep your eyes peeled for that rock formation. If we miss it, we might miss it all. Then we'll have a long walk back to Chatham Bay with nothing to show for it."

After Dylan's instructions, the party hit the trail again. Sarah didn't know how Dylan became the self appointed leader of them all. But that's what he was becoming by asserting himself.

They slashed their way through the jungle, keeping the river in sight as Dylan so humbly suggested. Everything was going well until Savannah spotted the human corpse hanging high up in a tree. The man's blood had darkened over time as it dripped down the trunk and stained the bark. It was a park ranger. And he'd been hauled up there by something big and powerful.