Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 861 - 863

Chapter 861: Chapter 863

The fire crackled as Jude sat still, his gaze flickering between each of his wives as they exchanged worried glances. The silence after his question hung thick in the air, almost suffocating. Somewhere, far off in the trees, a nightbird called out, but no one paid it any mind. Their world had narrowed to the small circle around the fire and the unspoken truth that hovered just outside their reach.

Serena was the first to move. She shifted closer to Amelia and whispered something too quiet to hear. Amelia gave a tight nod but didn’t speak. Jude watched this quiet exchange, wondering if there was more happening between them than they were ready to share. He could feel the uncertainty building among them, not just the confusion of lost memory, but something more primalfear of the unknown.

"I thought I was just tired," Natalie said finally, her voice barely more than a breath. "Like... like I’d been working too much or not sleeping right. I’d blink and feel like I missed a moment, but I didn’t think it was important."

"It’s not just sleep," Lucy said, her arms folded across her chest as if to protect herself from the cold, or something else. "It’s like something else takes over, just for a second. I feel different. Hot. Like my skin is on fire and my head is full of noise. But then it’s gone. And I forget what I did."

Sophie was fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, her brow furrowed. "When Jude asked the question... it was like I remembered something I didn’t even know I forgot."

Susan leaned forward, staring at the fire. "Maybe it’s the island. Maybe it’s showing us dreams again. You remember those days, early on? When we’d wake up and not know if what we saw was real or just some kind of vision?"

Zoey gave a tight nod. "It’s worse than before, though. It’s not just dreams. We’re awake, we’re living, and then... something else takes our place."

Emma sat across from Jude, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She hadn’t spoken since their return from the beach. Her face was pale, not from fear, Jude realized, but guilt. A kind of guilt she didn’t understand. She looked like she was trying to remember what she’d done wrong, knowing she wouldn’t find the answer.

"It’s not just happening randomly," Jude said quietly. "It’s going through all of you. One by one. I don’t think it’s over yet."

They all looked up at him.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on the fire. "And none of you remember anything when it happens?"

Heads shook slowly, one after another.

"That’s the worst part," Scarlett murmured. "I don’t know if I said something, did something... something I’d regret. And I can’t ask, because I don’t even know when it happened."

Stella was pale, but her voice was steady. "You don’t think it’s just us, do you?"

Jude didn’t answer immediately. He looked at each of them in turn, then turned his gaze out toward the darkness beyond their camp. The trees stood still and silent, but they seemed to lean in, as though they too were listening.

"No," he said. "I don’t."

A long silence stretched over the group. The fire crackled. Grace stirred the coals with a long stick, the glowing embers swirling like spirits trapped just beneath the surface.

"I’ve lived here too long to ignore things like this," Jude continued. "I know how the island works. How it plays with memory. With desire. With fear. But this... this isn’t just the island whispering in our dreams."

Serena looked up. "Then what is it?"

"I don’t know yet," Jude said. "But I’m going to find out."

They didn’t sleep right away after the fire burned down. The usual comfortable routine of returning to their shelters was disrupted by the lingering weight of the conversation. No one wanted to be alone. A few of them clung to each other a little tighter, whispered a little softer. Normally, Jude would’ve slipped back to his treehouse with one or two of them, bodies tangled comfortably beneath woven blankets, breath syncing with the rhythm of crickets and wind. But not tonight.

He stayed awake long after the others had drifted to sleep. Lucy and Grace curled beside him again, as they often did, but even in their sleep, they clung to him with a kind of unconscious desperation. Jude didn’t move. He watched the moonlight dance through the canopy above them and listened for anything, anything, that might offer an answer.

He thought about Emma again. The way her eyes had changed. The way her voice had lost its playful edge and turned... hungry. It hadn’t just been strange behavior. It had been like she was possessed by someone else. Someone older. Someone darker.

What disturbed him most was how natural it had looked on her. Like it belonged.

At some point, he drifted into a light, restless sleep. His dreams were fractured, images of blue smoke, familiar hands pulling him into shadows, voices whispering things he couldn’t understand. When he woke, dawn was breaking, painting the sky in soft hues of gold and pink. Lucy stirred beside him, her breath warm against his collarbone. Grace was still deeply asleep, her fingers curled around the edge of his shirt.

He left without waking them, his mind still heavy with the conversation from the night before.

The camp was quiet as he moved through it. A few of the others were already beginning their morning tasks. Zoey was gathering herbs from the garden patch they’d planted near the edge of the forest. Scarlett was boiling water over the fire. Jude nodded to them but said nothing.

He moved to the river, hoping the cold water would clear his head. The fish traps had been reset, and he busied himself with checking them, pretending, for just a few minutes, that everything was normal.

Then, he heard it.