The Missing by Kiersten Modglin (essential books to read txt) 📕

“Who said you could use my knife anyway?” he asked, though he swiped the blade on the side of his swim trunks and stood up, finally making his way toward the rock.

No one bothered to argue. At that point, I think we were all too unbelievably joyful to think about it. Instead, we rested on the sand, laughing and smiling to ourselves in pure delight. I heard Noah crack his coconut over the rock a few times and then his thirsty swallows.

Once he’d joined us back in our unintentional circle, James sat up once again. “So, where did you get these?”

“Yeah, where did you go today? Were there more?” Harry added.

“Plenty more,” Noah said, expelling a belch.

“Where at?” James asked again.

“Not far from here.” We waited for him to say more, but he remained silent.

“Are you seriously not going to tell us?” Harry asked pointedly. “We need to know.”

“Why do you need to know? It can be my job to go and get them every day from wherever they are.” He paused and gave a lopsided grin. “As long as you keep me happy.”

Harry wasn’t amused. “We’re going to need more than this. A lot more. It would make more sense to move closer to wherever they were. Was there somewhere we could shelter nearby? You were gone for several hours; you could’ve walked miles in that time. Did you mark your trail? Do you know how to find your way back?”

“Calm down there, Indiana,” he said, Southern drawl on full display. “I know how to get there, yeah. And there were plenty more, but I’m not taking you there. For all I know, that’s the only reason you’re keeping me alive.”

From behind me, James snorted. “Yeah, ’cause we’re all about to start killing each other.”

Noah’s eyes darted to James, then back to me, and they widened. At that moment, I knew he’d seen the note. Or else, he’d been the one to plant it…

“You didn’t tell him?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. He clicked his tongue, obviously pleased. “I underestimated you…”

“Tell him what?” I feigned ignorance.

Noah sat up farther, squaring up his shoulders. “The note is gone, so I’m assuming you found it.”

“You put it there?” Ava demanded angrily.

“Put what where? What are you guys talking about?” James asked, looking between us all.

When no one spoke immediately, Noah smirked, leaning forward over his legs. “Do you want to tell him, or should I?”

“Why would you do that, Noah? Is this all some sort of joke? Do you think it’s funny?” Harry spoke up, his voice quivering with anger.

“What are you talking about? Of course, I didn’t put it there. I came back at one point to tell you all I’d found the coconuts, but when I saw the note, I left again. I gave it a little while, until you’d had enough time to find it yourselves, and then came back. I was testing you, to see how honest we were going to be with each other.” He ran a hand through his hair casually. “I guess now I have my answer.”

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” James demanded.

“There was a note left next to our camp.” Harry pulled it from his pocket, shoving it toward James. We watched as he processed the words, then looked up, his eyes wide.

“What does this mean?”

“What do you think?” Noah asked, standing up.

“Why didn’t you tell us when you found it if you weren’t the one who left it?” Ava asked pointedly.

“I told you why. Because I was testing you,” he said simply, stretching his arms up over his head. “Why didn’t you tell me about it? Hm? You weren’t planning to tell anyone else, were you? If I hadn’t said anything, you three would’ve just kept it as your dirty little secret, wouldn’t you? You weren’t planning to breathe a word of it. Maybe you were even planning to act on it.”

“What? Kill each other?” I groaned. “Get real, Noah.”

“We were still processing it. We didn’t know whether to show everyone or just throw it away,” Ava argued.

“And we obviously got no say in the matter,” Noah spat.

“Well, you’d already seen it, so I don’t—”

Noah interrupted Harry’s argument. “Yeah, but you didn’t know that at the time.”

I needed to find a way to calm the rising tension. But as Noah raised his voice more and more, it seemed to be impossible. “Look, we didn’t see a point in telling everyone,” I said, interrupting Harry as he started to speak again. “We weren’t going to act on it. We didn’t see any reason to pit everyone against each other.”

“But who left it? If not any of us, that has to mean there’s someone else on this island,” James said, his brow furrowed. “And if that’s the case, what if what they said is true? What if they’ll only let one of us off the island?” Something in his eyes darkened, sending a bolt of fear through my chest. I didn’t trust James with this knowledge. That was the truth. He was hot tempered and naïve, and I expected him to act impulsively.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, too quickly. “If someone else is on the island, they’re obviously just messing with us. They can’t seriously want us to…to…kill each other. It’s insane. We wouldn’t dare…” I trailed off. It was too unbearable to think about.

“No,” Harry agreed with me. “No. They can’t. And even if they did, you’re right, we would never do it.”

“You’d really rather be stuck in this place forever than even consider the possibility that they could be serious?” Noah scoffed.

“Yes,” Harry and I said at the same time, and I continued, “because it takes more than just considering the possibility. If it’s real, if getting off this island means we’d have to kill each other…that’s just not an option.” As I said the words, my throat grew dry. I hadn’t thought about it like that until that moment. Was I really