Never Ever (4 page)

But there were no curtains. And no window facing a fire escape. Wylie wasn't in her room. She quickly took in her surroundings. The shag carpet. The peeling wallpaper. The lightbulb, still buzzing. She was still on Phinn's boat, and it was morning. Her parents were going to kill her.

“Micah! Joshua! We have to go,” she tried to call out to her brothers, but her voice sounded hoarse and raspy
and nearly inaudible. Micah and Joshua were both on the floor of the cabin, quietly snoring. Wylie stumbled out of the vinyl booth, lowered herself to the floor, and shook her brothers awake with all her strength.

“You guys. Wake up! It's morning. Joshua has to be in court! We are so screwed!”

Micah and Joshua finally came to, but they were slow to react and couldn't even manage to get up. Wylie needed them to move faster. They had to leave here immediately. The sun was already up, and they still needed enough time to go back to the house, face the wrath of their parents, shower, get dressed, look halfway presentable, and make it downtown to the courthouse for an eight a.m. sentencing. Wylie had no idea where Phinn was, but at this point, she didn't care. Leaving in a hurry would just make it easier to say good-bye.

Wylie stood, but the boat lurched, causing her to lose her balance and fall back to the ground.

“Are we
moving
?” Joshua asked.

Wylie bolted up the stairs and ran to the deck, while Micah and Joshua followed. The second Wylie set foot on the deck, her jaw dropped. All she could see was ocean. The New York City skyline was gone. How could this happen? They were only supposed to have a nightcap, and now they were in the middle of nowhere.

“PHINN!” She shouted it so loudly, it made her head throb even more. Micah and Joshua arrived on deck, and both of them nearly buckled at the knees. Wylie could feel her stomach going weak. It was either the seasickness or the flying or just the fact that she had no idea where they were,
but she was seconds away from barfing her guts out. She heard Joshua behind her repeating the same words over and over, his tone eerily calm:

“I am so dead. I am so dead. I am so dead.”

Wylie tried not to show the dread that was forming in the pit of her stomach. They were in this mess because of her, and she needed to get them home as soon as possible. She spotted Phinn at the bow of the boat, leaning against the tiller, whistling to himself and sipping from a steaming mug of what she assumed was coffee. She was struck by how chipper and relaxed he seemed for someone who had just kidnapped three people.

“You're up!” he said excitedly when he saw her.

“What is going on?” she asked him, her voice trembling.

“We're going on an adventure,” he replied, practically bursting at the seams. “Can I get you a cup of coffee? Some tea, perhaps? It's a beautiful day!”

If Wylie knew how to sail a boat or had any idea where they were, she would have thrown him overboard right then and there and hauled ass to get them home.

“Where are we? What happened last night?”

“You and your brothers fell asleep as soon as we got on the boat. It happens the first couple times you take
parvaz
. I should have warned you. I didn't want to wake you, so I just took your advice and set sail. Was that wrong?” Phinn asked, seeming genuinely confused.

Micah and Joshua were slowly making their approach. Joshua had conquered his lethargy, and Wylie could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“You need to take us back to New York,” Joshua demanded. His voice was at least two octaves lower than normal.

“I don't get it. I thought this was what you guys wanted,” Phinn replied, almost dumbfounded. “I thought we'd all be celebrating right now. I told Wylie last night I could take you someplace to make your problems disappear, someplace where Joshua wouldn't have to go to jail, and she took me up on the offer.”

“What? Are you crazy?” Wylie's memories of last night were spotty, but she vaguely remembered the tail end of her conversation with Phinn. “I thought we were speaking in hypotheticals.”

“I never speak in hypotheticals,” Phinn said. “Either way, it would be a waste to let Joshua rot away in jail. Don't worry. Where I'm taking you is so much better, and we're almost there.”

Wylie could tell that Phinn was spontaneous and eccentric, even otherworldly, from the brief time they had spent together, but she'd never thought he might actually be a psychopath. How could he do this to them? She grabbed Phinn by the collar and pushed him against the tiller. Phinn's coffee spilled everywhere, but it would take more than first-degree burns to stop her.

“You have to get us home!” Wylie begged. “What is wrong with you? You can't play with people's lives like this!”

Joshua quickly pulled Wylie off Phinn and held her arms back as she tried to break free. Phinn, shocked, examined his formerly white T-shirt, now covered in coffee, and
stripped it off. It was hard not to notice the many scars and cuts on his chest and back. His body had more wear and tear than you'd expect on a seventeen-year-old. Phinn caught Wylie looking at the scars, then quickly grabbed another shirt out of a nearby knapsack and pulled it on. She could see a plastic alarm tag hanging off the hem, which meant he'd stolen it. Phinn straightened out his hair with his hands, then cleared his throat and addressed them calmly.

“This hasn't gone the way I'd hoped, but I can understand why you might be pissed off or confused. It must feel like a huge shock, and I'll explain everything soon. I brought the three of you here because I like you.”

Phinn probably meant to say it to all of them, but he was staring right at Wylie when the words came out. He pointed in the distance, where Wylie was now able to make out a small island. Good. Dry land. Maybe even civilization. Hopefully that ruled out Phinn killing them on the boat and dumping their bodies into the middle of the ocean.

“I didn't tell you that I was taking you here, because until you were on my boat last night, I didn't know I would. But after our evening together, I realized I couldn't in good conscience leave you in New York. I'm bringing you to a place you have to see to believe. If I had told you about it while we were docked in Jamaica Bay, you would have thought I was a lunatic. I admit my methods are a bit unorthodox, but believe me when I say you're going to thank me.”

The island was getting closer and closer. Wylie could make out a small dock with several other boats tied to it. Wherever they were going, there were clearly other
inhabitants, unless Phinn was some sort of boat aficionado. The island itself was small and full of greenery, while the water surrounding it was a paler shade of blue than the rest of the ocean. Oversized palm trees swayed in the wind and lined what looked like a path into the heart of the island. The sand seemed untouched, and the sky was full of puffy cumulus clouds that resembled heaps of cotton balls.

Wylie looked at her brothers' faces to see if they were also on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Micah's features were unmoved. He hadn't said anything all morning, but Wylie didn't blame him. Joshua looked like a vein might break through the center of his forehead. His jaw was clenched, and sweat was now dripping down his face.

“Phinn, please take us home. Joshua has to be in court. He'll be in a lot of trouble if we don't get him there on time,” Wylie pleaded.

“It's too late. Even if I turned around now, we'd never make it on time. But I swear, I'm going to make it up to you. I really need the three of you to calm down and put a little trust in me, just like you did last night.”

Wylie could only imagine the fight her parents were having right now back at their house. They would undoubtedly blame each other for their kids not coming home. At least it was one argument she didn't have to bear witness to. Once the boat approached the dock, Phinn, nearly giddy, turned to Micah and Joshua and asked them to help him anchor it, but neither of them budged.

“It's okay,” Phinn said, “I'm good on my own.”

He moved deftly around the boat as he maneuvered into the empty spot in the dock and tied the line to a wooden
pole. Wylie was afraid if she opened her mouth, she'd start to cry.

“This is not your fault,” Joshua said to Wylie, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We all got on the boat with him.”

“I don't have a good feeling about this,” Micah finally said, “We don't know anything about this guy. I'm not going to hang out on some deserted island with him. He could be a serial killer.”

“He's not a serial killer.” Wylie said it with total certainty, but she wouldn't put anything past Phinn at this point. Just as she began to internally weigh his potential as a murderer, he returned to the deck of the boat and pulled a machete out of his backpack.
Great,
Wylie thought. The one guy she'd found remotely interesting in years had kidnapped them and was going to chop them into little pieces.

“No need to be alarmed,” Phinn said, swinging the machete. “This is just to help us clear the trail—it gets overgrown quickly. In fact, Joshua can hold on to it.” He passed the knife toward Joshua, but Wylie grabbed it by the tip of the blade. She wasn't sure if she was worried that Joshua didn't have the guts to use it on Phinn or that he did.

“I'll hold it,” Wylie said.

Phinn paused as they reached the end of the dock. “All I'm asking for is twenty-four hours of your time. That's it. Once those twenty-four hours are up, we can all get back on my boat and I'll have you home in no time. But I want you to be prepared. If you follow me onto the island, everything you know to be real and true about the world will change forever. Can you handle that?”

“We don't really have any other choice, do we?” Wylie asked.

Phinn grinned. “Welcome to Minor Island.”

Joshua was the first to step off the dock and onto the island. Wylie quickly tied her hair back in a ponytail, applied a coat of lip gloss from a tube she had in her purse, tightened her grip on the machete, and followed him onto the sand. Micah took a small sip from his flask and stepped into the shadows of his brother and sister. Wylie was right: they had no choice but to follow Phinn.

minor island

the
trail was not as arduous as Wylie had anticipated. When she stepped off the boat and onto the island, she felt like they were setting off on a journey straight out of an Indiana Jones movie
,
her dad's favorite franchise. It had never occurred to Wylie that all the years of rewatching
Raiders of the Lost Ark
would help prepare her for an excursion onto a mystery island. So far, there were no signs of snakes or rats or any of the things Indy had to overcome. She used the machete sparingly on the few plants and branches obstructing their path. They hardly needed it, and she wondered if Phinn had thought they'd feel safer if they were wielding a weapon.

Wylie checked her phone to see how much time had passed since they'd stepped off the boat, but the battery was dead. She had no idea whether they'd been walking for an hour or ten minutes. She snuck the compass Joshua had given her from her purse and it showed they were
moving east. The trail was peaceful and beautiful, and despite her tension, Wylie couldn't help enjoying their unique surroundings. Bright green sticks of bamboo lined the corridor of rich, white sand that from a distance looked like freshly fallen snow.

The sun was warm on Wylie's back, but there was no trace of humidity and when she felt herself start to perspire, a cool breeze would blow just long enough to prevent her from sweating. Certainly not the kind of weather one would expect in the Northeast in February, even with global warming. Wylie had always been prone to bug bites, but there were no insects or gnats to swat away. They'd been walking for at least a mile in complete silence and the only creatures they'd crossed paths with were monarch butterflies and bright yellow ladybugs.

Even if Phinn didn't have any more surprises in store, Wylie couldn't get around the fact that he'd brought them here in the middle of the night without their consent. It took a special kind of person to pull off a kidnapping the way he did. The kind of person who couldn't, under any circumstances, be trusted. But every so often, he'd turn back with a reassuring smile, perhaps to make sure Wylie was still walking behind him or to gauge where they stood with each other since last night. His tendency to check in gave Wylie hope that he wouldn't let anything bad happen to them. He had to have good reason to bring them here.

“Phinn.” She meant to say his name quietly, but it came out angry and forceful. Phinn stopped walking and turned to face her.

“How much longer do we have to go?” she asked.

“Come on. You're New Yorkers. You're used to walking,” he said, bouncing with excitement.

“That doesn't answer my question. How much longer?” Wylie asked again.

“Not too far. A few more minutes.”

“Why is it so warm here? It's winter in Manhattan. We couldn't possibly be that far away from the city.”

“Isn't this weather a nice change of pace? I don't know how you guys do it. The temperature in New York is brutal this time of year.”

“Yeah, the winters suck. Now answer the question,” Wylie said.

“I can't. I'm not a meteorologist. As long as I've lived here, the weather has been mild.”

“Where exactly are we?”

“We're on the west side of Minor Island, heading east, but to be honest, we've never named this trail.”

We.
So there
were
more people on this island.

“How many people live here?”

“You'll see. Like I said, you'll have all your answers soon.”

If Phinn kept up with the vague responses, then it was only a matter of time before Wylie took the machete to his throat.

“Do you think for one minute you could stop being so mysterious?” she said. “I'll ask you again. How many people are on this island?”

Phinn scratched the back of his neck. Something about the way he looked off into the distance made it clear he wasn't used to being questioned and he wasn't sure how to
handle it. But he was the one who'd dragged them here. They were supposed to be in a courtroom in downtown Manhattan right now.

“There are about fifty people who live here. I can't guarantee that you'll like them all, but I can tell you that I do, and I'm a very good judge of character.”

Wylie's heart rate suddenly sped up. She normally got along with all types of people, but the idea of meeting fifty strangers at once unleashed the butterflies in her stomach. If she was feeling anxious, then she could only imagine how terrified Micah felt at this point. There wasn't enough Xanax in the world to get him through this, and she was pretty sure he'd left his anxiety meds at home.

“I know I haven't given you any reason to trust me. In hindsight, my methods were . . . inexcusable. I messed up,” Phinn continued, sounding remorseful. “But the sooner we reach our destination, the sooner you'll understand why I did what I did. If you can muster up a little patience, then we can keep moving.”

In about another half a mile, the path they'd been on widened and forked. Phinn's legs started to pick up speed as he veered to the left and gestured to the Daltons to follow quickly. Wylie could see him tense up as he hurried around the corner. And when she and her brothers looked in the direction opposite the path they'd taken, it was impossible to miss what Phinn was rushing away from.

Barbed wire and an oversized wooden fence blocked off the other trail. Yellow caution tape was strung between two palm trees a few feet ahead along with signs that said
KEEP OUT
. It looked like a crime scene. Scrawled in large letters
on the fence in red spray paint were the words
HOPPER WAS H
ERE
.

“Who's Hopper?” Wylie asked.

“No one of consequence. Don't let all that freak you out,” Phinn said. “The fence is just a safety precaution.”

Right. A safety precaution for an entire section of this strange, unknown, mystery island that was apparently off limits.
That doesn't seem ominous at all,
Wylie thought. Before she could demand that Phinn elaborate, her eyes landed on a row of bungalows perched in the distance. From where the Daltons were standing, it looked like there were at least a dozen. Phinn gestured toward them.

“And those would be our crash pads. They're made from wood and bamboo. The roofs are stucco and they keep the rain out.”

Abigail had once told Wylie that her grandparents met each other on a commune in the sixties. It was a farm in upstate New York where a bunch of hippies lived in a barn together without running water or electricity, and they slept on hay. These bungalows were charming and a step above sleeping in a barn, but Wylie worried they were a preview of what was to come.

As Phinn walked faster down the path and they moved twice as fast to keep up with him, she was sure she heard the faint drumbeat of what sounded like a hip-hop song. Eventually she could hear a girl's voice rhyming over the beat. It was still too distant for Wylie to make out the lyrics, but it wasn't exactly the kind of song you'd expect a bunch of hippies to have on rotation. Wylie and her brothers looked at each other.

A huge goofy grin took shape on Phinn's face, and without giving them any warning, he started running toward the music. They practically had to sprint to catch up to him, and as soon as they followed him around a corner, they found themselves standing at the edge of a vast clearing. Wylie's eyes went wide as the loud drumbeats shook the ground under her feet.

At one side of the clearing lay a lagoon with water the color of turquoise. The surface sparkled so much, it looked like there were a thousand tiny diamonds floating in it. A waterfall spilled perfectly frothy water from a small cliff that stood at least a hundred feet high.

Wylie felt like her head was spinning and her vision was getting blurry. She tried to slow down the adrenaline with quiet breaths, but every direction she turned, there were pockets of teenagers partying as if it were their last day on Earth. A steady line formed at the top of the waterfall as people dived off the cliff and into the water. A small dance circle gathered in the lagoon. The music they'd heard wasn't a recording: a live band played on a stage near the lagoon and a young girl fronting the group rapped along flawlessly. When she arrived at the hook of the song, every person at the party sang along at the top of their lungs as though it was their national anthem.

All of Wylie's senses were working overtime as the smell of salt and grilled vegetables lingered in her nose. She looked to her left and spotted two chickens cooking on a spit above a massive fire pit. Not far from the pit was a charming tiki bar, where people sipped drinks out of coconuts and pineapples. It wasn't until Joshua tapped her on the
shoulder and pointed to the sky that she noticed a handful of teenagers flying in the air.

This was definitely not your typical high school party. At the get-togethers Wylie attended, there was always at least one drunk girl crying over a guy, or a dramatic lovers' quarrel bringing everything to a halt, or a few wasted football players letting their 'roid rage take over. This party was tension-free. Happy was too weak a word to describe the teenagers in its midst. Whatever these kids were smoking, Wylie wanted some immediately. There were no signs of any adults, but at this point it was safe to assume they were either very progressive or out of town for an extended vacation.

It took a while for anyone at the party to notice them, but as soon as one person caught a glimpse of Phinn, the band stopped playing. Everyone stood perfectly still, except for the kids in the air who hovered over the lagoon. It was like they'd been caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing. Wylie waited for Phinn to confront them, but instead he simply took a bow, and they all broke into loud cheers, as though they were in the presence of a rock star.

“Phinn's home!” Wylie heard a guy's voice shout. An orderly line instantly formed in front of them as various kids greeted him warmly with hugs and high fives, without so much as glancing in the direction of the Daltons. Wylie watched and listened as Phinn enthusiastically said hello to each person like he or she was the only human being in the world who mattered to him.

“Bailey, how's that ankle? Still swollen?” he asked
the girl who'd been rapping onstage. “It definitely hasn't messed with your stage presence.

“Bandit, I got you the contraband you asked for.” Phinn unzipped a pocket in his knapsack, took out a bag of bite-sized Kit Kats, and tossed it in the air. A kid floating right above the lagoon caught it and shouted an enthusiastic thank-you.

The longer the greetings continued, the more Wylie felt invisible. No one acknowledged their presence or even glanced in their direction. Before she could say anything, a girl dived down from the sky and gracefully landed inches away from Phinn. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist.

Wylie felt her stomach tie up in knots while the girl clung to Phinn tightly and showered his face with kisses. It shouldn't matter if he had a girlfriend. Nothing romantic had gone on between them in Brooklyn. He'd just conveniently forgotten to mention he was already dating someone before he kidnapped her.

Phinn peeled the girl off him and slowly lowered her to the ground. She had pale pink skin, enormous blue eyes, and a short blonde pixie cut. Her body was tiny and compact, and Wylie couldn't help noticing how small and perky her breasts were. It was hard not to look at her chest, since she was clearly not wearing a bra underneath her cotton summer dress. She was barefoot and couldn't have been taller than five feet, which officially made her Wylie's physical opposite.

“I missed you,” the girl whispered.

“I was only gone for a day,” Phinn responded casually.

“One day too long.” Then the girl turned her attention to Wylie. “Who's this?” she asked, her eyes taking full inventory. The island went from ignoring the Daltons to staring at them suspiciously. The girl circled around her and sniffed her like a dog.

“She smells awful.” She announced it loudly so everyone could hear. A few people laughed. Wylie's face turned crimson. She hadn't showered or brushed her teeth since the day before. She'd been sweating last night from all the dancing and flying. She'd slept on Phinn's boat, which smelled of mothballs and mold, and then she'd hiked through a trail onto the island. The pixie girl was right. But Wylie didn't appreciate being publicly humiliated.

Wylie leaned down so her face was level with the girl's and held up the machete. She inhaled deeply, then confidently exhaled with her mouth wide open right in the girl's face: morning breath. It was the perfect revenge. The girl nearly gagged as most of the crowd, including Phinn, erupted into laughter. Wylie stood up straight, smiled, and winked at her brothers, who were visibly mortified.

Phinn raised his voice, addressing everyone.

“This is Wylie. And these are her younger brothers, Joshua and Micah. Wylie, this is my
friend
Tinka.”