Chapter 7

“Urgh, k-kill me, ngh, ah, ah!”

Lee Soo, who had been tossing and turning with her thighs pressed tightly together, snapped her eyes wide open. The sounds of flowing water and birds chirping flooded into her ears.

A dilapidated, earth-colored ceiling came into view. In front of the ceiling stood a soft-featured Latino man.

“Lee Soo, Lee Soo? Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

English mixed with a Spanish accent reached her through her dazed, swirling consciousness. It was Manuel. Manuel’s dark, striking features were shadowed with stubble on his cheeks.

“…Manuel.”

Lee Soo squeezed her eyes shut, just like someone who had barely escaped a dark prison. Her head throbbed with a dull ache. Manuel’s voice clawed its way through her head.

“You were whimpering and groaning all of a sudden, so I woke you up. Where does it hurt? Or did you have a nightmare?”

Manuel released her wrist, which he had been tightly holding. Lee Soo wrapped her arms around her wrists, which had been bound by ropes in her dream, and nodded.

“Haah, ah. Thank you.”

“Was it a nightmare?”

“…Yes.”

Understanding washed over Manuel as he plonked down in the space next to her. “Yeah, it’d be stranger to dream of anything normal in a dump like this.”

Having apparently heard the commotion from outside, Hayden peeked inside. He was drenched in sweat from working out, or so it seemed.

Declan, standing nearby, handed a water bottle to Hayden. Taking a sip of water, Hayden stepped inside and held the bottle out to Lee Soo.

“Drink some water.”

She was so thirsty that she wanted to chug the whole bottle straight down. But the others were in the same boat. Their quota was barely a sip at a time. Lee Soo drank that single sip spread out over several small swallows.

Her heart refused to calm down. The dream from the night before felt far too vivid to simply dismiss as a random bad dream.

Perhaps she had dreamed of an incident she lived through before losing her memories. If so, what was that man’s identity? Was he really Graham? Since he was wearing a military dress uniform, was he a soldier? Were they lovers?

“We were good once, you know. I still think about you trembling uncontrollably every time my dick went inside you, and I climax.”

As the man’s sticky, cloying breath came back to her, a sensation she couldn’t tell apart from a chill or goosebumps crawled up the back of her spine.

Lee Soo shivered, her face turning pale. If she closed her eyes and opened them again, she felt like she would be cradled right back in that man’s arms, panting for breath.

She scrambled up and looked out the window. A dense pine forest. A faint light was leaking through the sharp, needle-like trees.

The rain was still falling. Somewhere in the foggy, blurred landscape, she had the eerie illusion that the man was hiding.

He probably looked on at this place with amused eyes—like someone playing with a lab rat placed right in the palm of their hand. If he clenched his fist, she might just be crushed to pieces right then and there.

Lee Soo let out a sharp, ragged breath through her teeth.

“That man… That man might be watching us.”

Manuel’s eyes widened in tandem. “That man? Who?”

As if thoroughly spellbound, Lee Soo repeated the same words over and over.

“Graham. Graham… Graham.”

All sorts of words floated through her head: Graham, woman, experiment, surrogate mother, island.

Perhaps she had caught Graham’s eye and become a test subject.

Every single vulgar phrase the man in her dream had used contrasted with an intonation as refined as a well-bred young master. That single clue was enough to tell her that he was a being whose character was not to be approached under any circumstances.

How could she escape Graham? Was blending in among people the best option? How could she escape this island? Who could help her?

With a terrified gaze, she looked over at Hayden. Hayden was slick and laid-back, but he also had a considerate streak, and he ran a security business.

If she explained her situation once more, he might be willing to help. She had no idea what he might demand in return, though.

Feeling like someone with a gun held to her head, Lee Soo called out to him urgently. “Mr. Hayden. Mr. Hayden.”

He just stared at her as if looking at someone strange. That was the composure of a man who had never once been chased.

“You said you run a security business, right? I can pay you for the rest of my life, so please, I’m begging you, truly—will you help me?”

Having likely never encountered such an urgent client before, he focused on her with a fresh, curious look. She didn’t care either way. Right now, she wanted to grab onto anything, even a straw.

“Just protect me until we get off this island. If Graham comes to catch me again, I’ll have no choice but to sit back and let him take me. If you just help me, I’ll agree to whatever conditions you want.”

The blue eyes gazing at her face instantly chilled over. It happened the moment he heard the words, “conditions you want.”

He narrowed his brow and asked, “Conditions I want?”

“Yes, I’ll agree to all of them.”

For some strange reason, the more she told him she would accommodate his terms, the colder his lips became.

“What kind of conditions do you think a man with no money wants from a pretty woman? Can you really agree to whatever I ask? How many times a day are we talking about?”

His tone was so low that she couldn’t even manage a proper reply. She had meant matching his fee or his security schedule, so what on earth was wrong with that…?

“That’s not what I meant….”

“From now on, speak precisely. There are plenty of people around here who might misunderstand what you say and pounce.”

She looked around. Manuel was pretending to look out the window while eavesdropping on the conversation, and the other men were inspecting the furniture dragged out by the door while gossiping about the woman.

If Hayden didn’t run a security business, she might have had to ask someone else just like she did him.

Was that what had displeased him? Regardless, Hayden was a very difficult and rather peculiar person.

“…So, are you going to help me, or not?”

After scanning Lee Soo’s face, which looked on the verge of tears, he relaxed his stiff lips.

“Alright, I’ll take care of you.”

She didn’t care anymore. Having stared out the window as if she were about to die any second, Lee Soo felt the strength drain from her legs and slumped to the floor.

“Haah… Thank you.”

“Instead, don’t go wandering off where I can’t see you. And give me an address to send the bill to with whatever you remember.”

Listening to Lee Soo and Hayden’s conversation, Manuel looked out the wide-open doorway. The rain was still falling. Her mood felt heavy and unsettled.

“When on earth is this damn rain going to stop?”

Though less than yesterday, the heavy rain continued. The sky was thick with fog and hazy.

If this weather kept up, they might die of a lightning strike rather than being rescued. Lee Soo sat with her back pressed against the wall, drawing her body in like a fetus.

Just then, Nate, who had been looking around, picked up a gray booklet from the floor.

“What’s this?”

The booklet was an old travel guide, and its cover read Blasket Islands. Declan, who was from Ireland, narrowed his brow.

“The Blasket Islands….”

Nate scratched his brown hair and opened to a page. Then, as if reading aloud for everyone to hear, he read the text written inside.

“The pristine, beautiful Blasket Islands, transformed into a tourist destination! …The Blasket Islands were once an island where lepers lived together. However, it was transformed into a tourist spot in 2004 after they all left. Tourist attractions include Hedina Cliff, a place where auroras and rainbows appear in winter….”

Nate read endlessly from the text in the booklet. After listening for a while, Jenna crossed her arms and stood up.

“Lepers? A disease where your skin rots and falls apart?”

Soon, Jenna began looking around the dwelling with an anxious expression. After all, lepers must have stayed in this place marked by the passage of time.

“Suddenly it feels like my skin is itching all over. What if we stay here without any precautions and catch a disease?”

Jenna grabbed Hayden’s vest and wrapped it around her face. Then, looking restless, she walked outside the door. She looked on the verge of bursting into tears if anyone scared her further.

Watching her, Lee Soo said to Jenna with a drained voice, “The chances of accidentally catching leprosy in a place like this are slim, so don’t worry.”

She was filled with the desire to reassure Jenna as much as possible. However, contrary to her intentions, Jenna’s eyes widened.

“Didn’t you say you lost your memories? Then how do you know that?”

Flustered, Lee Soo widened her eyes, too. The words had just slipped out before she even realized it.

“It just popped out, so I don’t really know myself.”

She had to endure Jenna’s suspicious glare. Noticing this, Declan soon lost interest and motioned to Nate.

“Nate, hand me the book.”

Declan’s brown eyes scanned the booklet. His gaze quickly turned bleak.

“This island must be Blasket or somewhere nearby. A tourist probably dropped the booklet while touring the islands.”

Jenna asked Declan with a nervous look.

“Then is this place a tourist spot right now? If it’s a tourist spot, people might come looking for us before long! We need to go out to the coastline.”

Declan shook his head as if it were a waste of time.

“Unfortunately, the islands in southern Ireland were bought by Graham about 10 years ago. No one will visit this island now unless they’re members of the Graham family.”

Jenna clutched her hair in utter despair.

“With rain pouring down like this, it’ll be hard to search. Even if they do search, they’ll start with the islands closest to the plane crash site…. We’re going to starve to death. We’re all going to die!”

It wouldn’t be strange for Jenna to cry in horror. The food was far too little for eight people to share, and the shelter was as rundown as a beggar’s den. Touching or eating just anything might lead to catching some unknown disease.

People started murmuring in agitation one by one and closed their mouths. The only one among them who showed no reaction was Hayden.

He was like a germaphobe incapable of feeling fear.

“I can’t take this. I’m going to wash up.”

He took off his shirt, laid it on the floor, and stepped into the lake to wash his entire body. Soon after, he began to swim.

Streams of water splashed repeatedly across the densely fogged water surface. His back, cutting through the bright blue water, was sculpted and toned like a swimmer’s.

It seemed his long arms and broad shoulders were the result of swimming for a long time. Though why his waist was unusually flexible as he did the butterfly stroke, she wasn’t sure.

Attracted by the refreshing sound of splashing water, Declan came out. Then, looking at Manuel, who followed right behind, he said, “That guy must have really enjoyed swimming.”

Manuel watched Hayden freely roaming the water surface with a low exclamation. Still, he was confident he wouldn’t lose when it came to swimming.

“Should I go, too? It’s starting to get a bit warm.”

Though it was raining, it was a summer afternoon, so the air was warm. However, Declan shrunk back.

“I’m afraid of losing muscle mass.”

With that, he stared fixedly at a tub of protein powder stacked among the belongings inside the dwelling. Since there was a tub the size of a person’s face left intact, they could share it, but running out of water was a major problem. They needed to come up with a plan.

“Should we catch the rainwater? The air quality on a pristine island shouldn’t be bad, so it should be fine to drink.”

Standing under the roof and watching Hayden, Lee Soo replied to Declan, “It would be better to drink the water we collected in the life raft yesterday. The impurities should have settled to the bottom.”

Declan moved his eyebrows in a twitching motion, as if hearing welcome news.

“Smart. You must have been smart before you lost your memories, too.”

Since the topic came up, Lee Soo tried to go fetch the water. However, Manuel, standing nearby, stopped her.

“You’d better just wait here. It’ll be troublesome if you catch a cold getting rained on, so we’ll go get it.”