Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 867 - 869

Chapter 867: Chapter 869

Jude looked at her. "That whatever’s inside the island, whatever’s in that smoke, it’s part of what I came here to find. And now it’s waking up."

Sophie shook her head slowly. "You’re saying... this was planned?"

Jude’s voice cracked. "I don’t know anymore."

No one spoke for a while. The fire crackled. The forest groaned around them.

Finally, Grace leaned forward. "Then we need to find the rest of the truth. All of it."

The others nodded, one by one. Emma was last. She moved beside Jude and placed her hand in his. "Whatever you were before... you’re ours now."

That night, they all slept together again. No dreams. No smoke.

But when Jude woke just before dawn, something was missing.

He sat up instantly, scanning the room.

Lucy was gone.

He didn’t shout. Didn’t wake the others. He moved silently to the ladder and climbed down. The mist was thicker than ever, curling around his feet like fog from a cauldron. He followed the faint trail of footprints, bare, light, careful, leading toward the edge of the forest.

He found her at the edge of the barrier, just before the vines.

She was standing still, her arms at her sides, facing the mountain.

Jude approached slowly. "Lucy."

She didn’t turn.

He stepped beside her, close enough to touch. Her eyes were open, but glazed.

"Lucy. Look at me."

She blinked. The glaze broke. Her lip trembled.

"I couldn’t stop walking," she whispered. "I heard it calling me."

Jude placed his hands on her shoulders. "You’re safe. I’m here."

She looked at him, tears streaming now. "It said... it’s almost time."

Jude held her close. In the distance, the mountain loomed, half-shrouded in mist. A silent sentinel.

The island was awake. And it was waiting.

Lucy hadn’t spoken another word since Jude led her back to camp. She walked beside him in silence, barefoot and slow, like she was afraid the ground beneath her might dissolve if she moved too quickly. The others were still asleep when they returned. Jude helped her up the ladder, steadying her gently as she climbed. They settled quietly beside the others, and he stayed awake long after the warmth of her body settled back into sleep. His eyes never left the forest beyond the treehouse. He could hear it now, not sound, exactly, but a pressure in the air, like someone was humming far below the ground.

The morning arrived hesitantly, dragging light through the trees with a thin hand. The mist remained, though it shifted and breathed like an animal curled up among the roots. Jude didn’t tell the others what happened with Lucy, not yet. He needed to understand what was happening before panic rooted in their minds. He moved through the camp with a practiced calm, checking the traps, gathering wood, washing his face in the river as if it were any other day. But inside, he was watching, waiting. The smoke had changed. Whatever it was, it was learning.

By midday, the sun managed to pierce through the clouds above the treetops, and the women began to return to their usual rhythm. Sophie was laughing again, though it felt thinner than usual, like her smile was a little too tight at the edges. Scarlett had her blade out, cleaning it with a cloth by the fire. She kept glancing toward the jungle, tapping her boot in a rhythm that didn’t match any song.

Emma sat beside Jude, handing him dried strips of fish for storage. "You haven’t said much today," she said, watching his hands move.

He glanced at her. "I’ve been thinking."

"About?"

"Everything," he replied, and that was all he could manage without tipping over the delicate balance that held this camp together. Emma didn’t push. She just nodded and leaned against his shoulder.

After lunch, Grace and Natalie volunteered to check the far traps in the western marsh, while Zoey and Susan went to dig up more root vegetables. Jude stayed behind, helping Amelia reinforce the lower walls of the southern shelter where the rain had weakened the branches. He kept looking around, waiting for the next moment, the next possession.

It came when he least expected it.

Sophie had taken a break near the stream, rinsing her face, when Jude noticed it again, the shimmer. This time, the blue smoke was more defined, pulsing like a heartbeat as it crept along the ground. He rushed toward her, shouting her name, but the smoke was faster. It entered her with a sudden rush, vanishing through her skin like water soaking into earth. Sophie gasped, her hands trembling in the stream.

Jude skidded to a stop beside her, grabbing her shoulders. "Sophie!"

She turned toward him slowly, and her eyes were wrong, too bright, too calm.

She smiled.

"I like this one too," the thing inside her said. "So much fire. So much need."

Jude swallowed. "What do you want from us?"

It tilted her head, that too-wide grin still stretching her lips. "I already have what I need. You’re the one who doesn’t know what you want."

"I know exactly what I want."

"Do you?" The thing moved Sophie’s hands up Jude’s chest, her fingers gentle, ghostlike. "You’ve buried so much. You pretend to love them all equally, but you don’t, do you? There are favorites. There is guilt."

He pulled back, resisting the chill that slid through him at her touch. "Get out of her."

"You can’t command me," it said, the smile fading. "You called this place into being. I only answered."

Jude’s chest tightened. "I didn’t call *you*."

"You did," it whispered. "When you made the first choice. When you gave up who you were to become what you needed."

Sophie suddenly sagged in his arms, her body limp. He caught her, holding her steady until she opened her eyes again. She blinked, dazed, and her lips moved, almost voiceless. "Why is it so cold?"

He didn’t answer. He carried her back to camp, the forest too quiet, the trees bending just slightly in the wrong direction as they passed. That evening, as the sun began to dip and cast long shadows through the canopy, Jude called the others together again. This time there was no pretense of normalcy. They knew something was wrong. Even the air seemed heavier.