Burning Moon (12 page)

What's going on?

My head was pounding and I was vaguely aware of a persistent dripping sound near my ear. I tried to roll over. Owww…my stomach hurt as if someone had kicked me in it.

I tried to open my mouth, but it felt like I was at the dentist getting a cast of my teeth taken.
Was I at the dentist?
I struggled to open my thick, swollen eyelids. What was wrong with them?

They finally opened. But nothing looked familiar.

Oh God.
Why was I so confused? I started to become aware of my extremities. One arm, another, a leg, another leg, and feet…
Hang on
, why were my feet wet?

Something strange dangled above my head. It looked like…
but how?
Why the hell did it look like my shoe was hanging from a palm tree above my head?

I looked around.
Where was I?

Okay, I was lying on a bright-pink lounger by a pool. A few lively folk seemed to be splashing in the water; some were sleeping on other loungers, but most looked like they were nursing a hangover from hell. I felt like I had a hangover, too. But I can't remember drinking.
Did I drink?

I stood up and winced in pain. Every muscle from my calves to my thighs, up to my bum and some other muscles I didn't even recognize or knew existed were on fire.
Why was I in so much pain?
A serious gym workout? A marathon?

I must have drunk last night. And then exercised. There was no other possible explanation for this feeling.
Unless
…No! Get a grip, Lilly. You aren't the victim of one of those black-market organ-stealing backstreet operations.
Fuck, remind me to stop watching so much reality TV.

My head was
so
heavy. Someone had poured cement into my skull. I looked around again and vague recollections started coming to me.

Damien brought me to a backpackers lodge. I remembered walking into the dorm, thinking it was dirty…
But what happened next?
And where the hell was Damien?

German men? I remember now…I'd played a drinking game with a bunch of rowdy German tourists. Beer. I remember beer. My stomach lurched.
I hated beer.

“Lillllyyyy…” A distinctly macho voice made me whip around. The voice belonged to a rather hairy shirtless man who was a making very quick beeline for me.

“Lillyyyy,” he said again in a tone that concerned me and with a smile that quite frankly disturbed me. His smile seemed to hold a secret that I wasn't privy to, and the way he was looking at me was just, just…he reminded me of some sleazy, hip-thrusting lounge singer. He was walking toward me as if he was about to use my body as a stripper pole.

“Lil, babe. You were great last night, babe.” I stood dead still as his clammy little hand came up and squeezed my waist.

“Mmmmmm. So good…” He pursed his lips and gave me a slow wink before he turned on his heel and walked away.

What did he mean anyway?
“You were great last night…”

“Hey, Lilly.” Another male voice startled me and I spun around. Dreadlocks the size of my arms flapped in front of me. I could barely make out what was behind them. And then a hand came up. And another. And then without any kind of warning this man had taken me in his arms for a hug. He pulled away and gave me two enthusiastic thumbs up and a knowing wink.

“You were awesome last night,” he said, before planting double kisses on both my cheeks and walking away.

Oh God
—their words punched me through the face like a knuckle sandwich. NO! Surely NOT! I would never…
would I?

I scanned my brain again, trying to remember what I'd done next, but nothing came to me. Not a single image to allay my fears that I may have…but I couldn't have, could I? I wasn't that type of girl and where the bloody hell was Damien?

I turned when I heard a whistle. Across the pool, a group of more shirtless guys were waving at me. Two of them raised their glasses in a kind of toast and another blew me a kiss.

What the hell had I done last night?

I took a few steps and suddenly became aware of a terrible sensation. I wasn't wearing a bra. I looked down…I wasn't wearing my clothes—I was wearing a men's shirt. This was a very bad sign.

I glanced around frantically. My dress was hanging from the back of a chair and the floor was scattered with other people's clothes. My fears had been confirmed in one ugly fell swoop. I had officially lost it, and in the process, had clearly slept with half of Thailand. I was mortified.

I crossed my arms and rushed inside as fast as my humiliated self would take me. I bumped straight into another smiling person…this time it was Damien.

Not him…
please
!

“Morning,” he said cheerfully. I glanced behind him and a few more smiles where being thrown in my direction. Some from women.
Could I? Would I?

“Damien…I think we need to talk.”

“Sure.” He put his arm around me and led me to the nearest table.

“What's up?” He pushed a cup of coffee toward me, and I immediately grabbed it.

“I thought you would need it this morning, especially after all that energy expending you did last night.”

“Energy?” I half choked on the black liquid.

“Yeah. You were really going for it.” A massive smile broke out across his face and I immediately face-palmed.

“Oh God. I'm so fucking embarrassed! I never, ever, I mean
never
, do that kind of thing. I've never…I can't even believe it…!”

“Don't worry.” Damien laid a consoling hand on my shoulder. “You were really good. Everyone said so.”

“EVERYONE?” A mouthful of coffee shot out onto the table in front on me.

“How…how…how many where there? Did everyone see?”

“See? Everyone joined it!”

The walls of the room felt like they were going to crash down around me. My ears started ringing, my tongue started swelling, and my face started burning with the kind of humiliation that made being left at the altar feel like child's play.

“I…I don't remember.”

“How can you not remember that? I've never seen anything like it!”

“Did you…um…also, I mean…?”

“Totally! I was your leading man. You really don't remember?”

I hung my head in absolute shame waiting for the sordid details to be regaled to me.

But then Damien did something very odd. He burst into sudden loud song…

“Mamma mia, here I go again—”

Then the whole room joined in…“
My my, how can I resist you?
” They all sang loudly and jumped up, gesticulating wildly with their arms.

I looked around in absolute shock; the whole room had burst into an ABBA song. My mother had starred in an ABBA musical years ago. I'd hated that play, more than anything. I'd lived in it. Every single rehearsal. Sleeping on the theater chairs late at night while my mother flung herself around the stage like a prima donna.

I turned back to Damien. “I reenacted a song from a musical?”

“Not just that. You taught it to everyone and the whole place joined in. It was hysterical. You even jumped into the pool fully clothed. Everyone did.” Damien laughed and relief began to creep in.

“Is that all I did?”

“You entertained the whole place for hours.”

“Oh thank God!” I exclaimed, as the full force of my relief rushed in. “Shoo! I'm so glad I didn't sleep with you.” I glugged the coffee down enthusiastically.

The smile on Damien's face melted off and was replaced by a look that I'd never seen before. “You thought we…?”

“Had sex? Yes, for a moment there! What a relief we didn't!” I laughed out loudly at the ridiculousness of it all. Of course I'd never do anything like that. No matter what state I was in. “For a moment I thought I might have had sex with everyone here.”

“Really?” He sounded shocked.

I nodded. “Yes, even with that guy with the massive dreadlocks.”

Suddenly Damien looked wildly offended. He got up and walked off to the other side of the room. What the hell was going on? I jumped up and followed him.

“Have I said something wrong?”

“I can't believe you thought I'd let that happen to you.” He sat on one of the beanbags, and I flopped down next to him.

“Let what happen?” I asked.

“Do you really think I would've let you sleep with anyone last night?”

“You wouldn't?”

“Of course not. I'd never let you do something like that to yourself. And I would never,
ever
sleep with you…” He paused for a moment and looked over at me meaningfully. My heart thumped in my chest. “…not in that state.”

Had Damien just said he would have sex with me? He looked away and sudden images from last night came popping in. Small fragments at first, then a little more, and a tiny bit more, until I could remember everything. I remembered Damien.

The way he'd stayed by my side the entire night and made sure I was okay. The way he'd warded off that hip thruster when he'd come up and grabbed my ass. The way he'd taken me into the bathroom, removed my wet clothes, towel dried my hair, and put me in one of his shirts. Wait, had he taken my bra off too?

I remember him sitting on the lounger with me, and most of all, I remember his hands. He'd rubbed my back and stroked my hair until I'd fallen asleep with my head in his lap.

“I remember now. You were so sweet last night.” I turned and smiled at him. “Thanks for looking after me.”

“I would never let anything bad happen to you, Lilly. Ever.” A solemn look washed over his face and he moved closer to me. He gazed at me in a way that caused a shiver to navigate the entire length of my spine.

I swallowed hard, my throat going even drier than it already was. I looked at this man sitting next to me, and I felt so incredibly cared for. He made me feel safe in ways that Michael never had. A sudden loud
beep beep
rang out and broke the moment, sending Damien reaching for his phone.

“They sent the map out, by the way. So we should probably get going soon.” He quickly rose and pulled me up.

“Thanks again for looking after me.” I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, letting my lips linger. God, he smelled good.

“So are you ready for an adventure, Lilly?

“Ready as I'll ever be.” I finished my coffee in two last big sips and quickly flew up the stairs, despite the stiff muscles. Everyone I passed greeted me with a big hello. Some even broke into song and hugged me.

Who the hell was this messy Lilly that did such wild, crazy things? I quite liked her, even if I didn't recognize her, and I definitely didn't recognize the—

“
What the hell!
” I couldn't stifle the shocked scream as I looked down at my stomach in the shower. I had a belly ring! An actual honest-to-God ring through my belly button. I jumped out and ran for the mirror.

Who had done that? Why would I have let them and I hope it had been done under sterile conditions.

Oh shit
, maybe one of my organs was missing!

“Damien?” I screamed out the bathroom door.

Loud laughter came echoing down the corridor in reply. “Don't worry, she's a professional body piercer and you said you really, really wanted it.”

“I did?” I stared at myself in the mirror. This new Lilly was surprising me more and more with each passing moment. What the hell was she going to do next?

I'm usually the girl who's on time.

The girl who doesn't go out on weeknights.

The girl who files her books according to the Dewey decimal system.

The girl who takes her rented movies back on time. Sometimes even early.

I'm the girl with a plan.

I'm the girl with a routine.

I'm the girl with the well-ordered, well-arranged, well-organized, well-placed, well-structured, well-controlled, well-everything'd life.

So what the hell was I doing on a boat with Damien, speeding across the waters to some island, somewhere, out there, on the way to some strange, wild, mysterious party where, for all I knew, the requirement would be going totally nude, fire dancing, fire breathing, drinking alcohol filled with worms, belly dancing with snakes, having orgies, swinging with your partner, swinging from the trees, drinking blood, and participating in human sacrifice—okay, so maybe that last part was extreme, but then again, I've seen stranger things on the reality channel.

We'd left the hostel to a round of very enthusiastic hugs and a loud chorus of good-byes. Dreadlocks Guy had made one last desperate attempted at a sleazy waist clench, but after Damien had flashed him a very loaded look, he retreated.

We'd then taken a tuk-tuk across the island all the way to Rassada Pier. Once there, we boarded a ferry and sped off to the famous island of Phi Phi. From there we were to board another boat and go off to a more isolated island where the party was going to be held. It sounded pretty simple.

The scenery on the ride was incredible. The waters were a deep blue and dissolved into an incandescent light blue the closer they got to land. Small islands rose straight up out of the water; most of them simply looked like enormous rocks. Some were covered in tropical plants, while others had sheer white cliff faces that plummeted into the swirling waters below. Although spectacular, the islands looked completely uninhabitable; there was no way you would be able to access them with all those vertical cliffs.

The boat sped through the water, sending a soft, warm spray into my face. A large island came into view and soon we'd docked in a busy bay. This was clearly a very popular tourist destination, but there was no time to explore and we immediately started looking for another boat that could take us on to our final destination.

Damien found a small boat that took private tours, and after some more calculator negotiation, they agreed on a price. The tour guide scrutinized the map on Damien's phone and assured us with many happy nods and a lot of broken English, he knew
exactly
where the island was. In fact, he said, a lot of tours went past that island every morning en route to more popular destinations.

And with that, we were off again, speeding across the waters and headed back out into the open seas. It was all so very pirate-y; following a map to some secret somewhere. The island of Phi Phi started to disappear behind us, and the tourist boats became fewer and fewer. I had no idea what time it was when we finally reached the island. I barely knew what day of the week it was. My phone had been off for ages, causing my usually pedantic sense of time to feel completely muddled. And I didn't care. It felt liberating. I didn't even know where in the bloody world I was exactly.

We thanked the man for taking us and stepped off the boat and onto an island littered with boulders. There was barely any sand on the beach, it was so covered in rocks of different shapes and sizes. Behind the boulders, a thick jungle sprawled out.

There wasn't a sign of life anywhere. Not even a solitary set of footprints to indicate that a human had ever been here. Damien started looking around and I took the opportunity to inspect my surroundings.

It was magical here. Picture perfect, in fact. Like one of those computer screen savers that seem to show places too perfect to be real. But this was real. The beach was covered in massive gray boulders. They looked like they had haphazardly landed there from a game of ancient intergalactic marbles.

The sea here was particularly blue. A powdery baby blue that looked almost silky to the touch, and in places it was perfectly translucent. The sand didn't seem like sand, either; it was far too white, too fine and luxuriously soft. I watched, in an almost trancelike state, as tiny swells of water lapped against the rocks, producing a soft, rhythmic swishing sound.

But I wasn't able to relax fully. I was aware that Damien seemed to be buzzing up and down behind me on the beach. I heard a gentle rustle and glanced over my shoulder at the thick, mysterious-looking jungle. Damien had just stuck his head into it as if he was looking for something. He'd started to look,
dare I say it
, concerned.

“Um…what's wrong?”

“Nothing just yet,” he said in a voice that was hardly reassuring. “Give me another five minutes and then I'll let you know if we have a problem or not.”

“A problem?” I didn't like the sound of that one little bit. I watched him intently as a growing feeling of impending doom gnawed at the back of my neck.

“What are you looking for?” I asked nervously.

“A sign. They always have a sign to let you know you're in the right place. I can't find a sign.”

The doom morphed into a supercharged bolt of panic that shot from my head to my toes and back again. “Are we on the wrong island?”

Damien stopped pacing. He looked around thoughtfully, as if he was really considering that option. It frightened me. “We could be.”

“What!” I almost fell off the rock I was sitting on. “The wrong island?”

“It's possible.”

“How possible?” My voice was quivering.

“I would say
very
, since I can't see a sign anywhere.”

“I'll help.” I jumped off the rock, and like Damien, began frantically scrutinizing the perimeter. Looking on, under, through, and around anything I could find. But there was nothing. The full implications and true gravity of our situation began revealing itself to me, slowly at first…

Okay, we're on the wrong island.

The wrong island.

But then, like a tumbling pebble picking up mass until it grows into a full-blown avalanche of catastrophic proportions…

We're on the wrong island.

Lost!

In the middle of the sea.

Somewhere in the middle of Thailand.

And no one is looking for us!

No one is ever going to find us!

We're going to die here!

“Oh my God.” The start of a panicky seizure was building. “
On the wrong fucking island!
” I yelled with the kind of sound that might shatter glass on the other side of the world.

Damien smiled and I wanted to smack it right off his face. How could he be grinning at a time like this?

“Okay…” I breathed in, forcing my brain to return to a more grounded logical place. “Phone someone and get them to fetch us.”

“No phone signal. Island in the middle of nowhere, remember?” He waved his phone at me with another grin.

“Damien! This is serious. What the hell are we going to do?” I tried to think back to all those survivor-style TV shows I'd watched, where someone gets dumped in the wild and has to survive for a week. But all I could think about was the guy who had to drink his own urine and eat raw buffalo meat. “Do you have matches?”

“No.”

“Crap! We could have sent off smoke signals.” I paced up and down the sand a few times. “
Right
…this is what we need to do. We need to gather rocks and make a giant SOS sign on the beach and—”

“Lilly, chill. That won't be necessary.”

“
Chill?
” Damien's relaxed attitude was seriously starting to piss me off. “Do you realize that if no one finds us, we might be stuck here for the rest of our lives? We'll have to fend for ourselves and live off the land like those feral people who are raised by wolves. You'll have to catch fish with sharpened sticks and nets made from jungle vines like they do in
Survivor
. Rub stones together to make fire. I bet you can't do that.”

“I've never tried,” Damien said, still looking decidedly amused.

“Well, don't you dare expect me to weave us clothes from spiderwebs and moss.
And what about shelter?
Think you can whip us up a little bamboo house strong enough to stand up to a tropical storm, huh? And you'll definitely grow a big, filthy beard and then we'll probably turn on each other, too, like in
Lord of the Flies
.
Oh God, I don't want to drink my own wee!
”

Damien burst out laughing. “I think you watch too much reality TV. Besides, you heard the guy; boats come past here all the time. We'll just flag one down and be on our way again in no time.”

“Just flag one down?”

“Sure.”

“And what about food? We might starve in the interim.”

Damien patted his backpack. “I have some snacks.”

“Water? Or shall we dehydrate in the sun while we wait to be rescued?”

“I have a bottle, too.”

He was still smiling at me. “Stop smiling, Damien. This isn't funny. At all!”

“Fine.” Damien forced his face into a serious grimace.

I slumped down on the sand and took my head in my hands. I couldn't believe this was happening. Of all the bad, crappy, crazy things that could possibly happen to someone, this had to be right up there on a list somewhere just under “being digested alive…slowly.” I felt Damien sit down next to me and put an arm around my shoulders.

“Don't panic, I bet a boat will come past in an hour or so.” Even though the tone of his voice was gentle, it did absolutely nothing to allay the terror that had taken up residence inside me.

“Lilly, it's going to be okay.” He pulled me toward him. The close proximity did seem to take the edge off my terror, especially when his hand began rubbing my back in a very reassuring way.

“Besides, for all you know, there's a village on the other side of the jungle. We could go and look?” Damien added, trying to sound upbeat.

“I'm not moving,” I said. I was going to sit there and watch those waters for any sign of a passing ship or boat or canoe or bloody rubber dinghy. Any kind of floatation device would suffice. I would even take a buoyant log at this stage and fashion oars out of coconut shells if necessary. Anything to get us safely off this rock.

“I'll go and look.” With a swoosh he was up again, as if this didn't faze him in the slightest. In fact, it looked like he was actually enjoying himself. He probably was with his happy-go-lucky-adventure vibe.

“Wait. You can't leave me here.”

“You'll be fine.” And with that he disappeared into the jungle like a man on a mission. If I wasn't so damn panicked, I might have found it vaguely attractive.

“There might be large poisonous snakes in there,” I screamed after him, only to hear a laugh. It wasn't the reaction I was hoping for. “And I forgot to bring the antivenom.”

I sat on the beach not daring to take my eyes off the water. I didn't even move them as I reached into my shopping bags and riffled for a sarong I could drape over my head. The sun was relentless and the heat almost unbearable. But as the time passed, I started to worry. Damien still hadn't come back and I was starting to feel that familiar panic again.

I stared up at the jungle; it looked like the kind of place that if you ventured into, you might emerge with an extremity missing and a deadly insect bite between your eyes. It spread out in all directions, and I wondered how deep it went. On top of my own feelings of worry, I also started to worry about Damien's safety. I hoped nothing bad had happened to him. And then I was overwhelmed by an irrational compulsion to go and find him.

I abandoned my bags on the beach and cursed the fact that, like a magpie, I'd been so tempted to buy all the pretty, shiny things. And now I was just lugging them around with me. I walked in Damien's footprints all the way to the edge of the leafy darkness. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. I was no tracker, but it was easy to follow Damien's path. The squashed plants and bent branches were a dead giveaway.

I followed the trail for only a few minutes before seeing a clearing ahead and heard someone splashing in the water. I pulled a giant palm leaf away and looked into the clearing. Damien was swimming in a small pool of water. He looked like he was having fun. How could he be frolicking merrily at a time like this?

Then in one swift, splashy movement he climbed out of the water and…
Oh God!
He was naked. My hands immediately flew over my eyes just as he turned around. Luckily, it was just in the nick of time. Thank God I hadn't seen his…

Giant penis!

I jumped back in absolute shock-horror, as I caught sight of the rock that was poking out of the thick bush and staring straight at me. The rock in question looked like it should be starring in an ad for Viagra. Not just that, but plastered across a giant billboard, or one of those ad banners that covers the entire side of a massive building.

“Lilly…is that you?” Damien called out.

My hands flew over my mouth this time, and I wished he hadn't heard me. It would've been nice to silently run back to the beach, pretending that I hadn't been anywhere in the general vicinity of his naked body. I didn't want to get into an awkward conversation about whether or not I had just seen his manly bits. Which I hadn't! Let's be clear, I had not seen
his
…

But instead, I was staring at a giant penis-shaped rock and thinking about it anyway.

“Yes. It's me.”

“Hang on, give me a second,” he called out. I could hear him fiddling with clothing.

“It's okay…I'm still…well, I hit a rock, I'm still a little way—um…” I stood dead still for a few moments, hoping to convey the sense that I was still en route. I stamped a few times for authenticity as I “approached” him.