Wicked Island Of Ireland - Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

“Ugh, I’ll k-kill… hah, ah, ah!”

Isu, who had been tossing and turning with her thighs pressed tightly together, opened her eyes wide. The sounds of flowing water and birdsong poured into her ears.

A shabby, earth-colored ceiling came into view. Before it stood a Latin man with gentle features.

“Isu, Isu? Why are you suddenly like this?”

Through her foggy consciousness, she heard English mixed with a Spanish accent.

It was Manuel.

His dark, intense features were shadowed with stubble on his cheeks.

“…Manuel.”

Isu squinted as if she had just escaped from a dark prison. Her head throbbed painfully. Manuel’s voice cut through the fog in her mind.

“You were suddenly groaning, so I woke you. Are you hurting somewhere? Or did you have a nightmare?”

Manuel released her wrists, which he had been gripping tightly. Isu clutched the wrists that had been bound with rope in her dream and nodded.

“Haa, aah. Thank you.”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“…Yes.”

Manuel sat down heavily beside her as if he understood.

“Right, it would be strange to have normal dreams in a place like this.”

Hayden peered in from outside, apparently having heard the commotion. His shirt was drenched with sweat as if he’d been exercising.

Declan, standing beside him, offered Hayden a water bottle. After taking a sip, Hayden entered and held it out to Isu.

“Drink some water.”

She was so thirsty she wanted to gulp down the entire bottle. But the others surely felt the same. Their allotment was just one sip each. Isu divided her single sip into several smaller ones.

Her mind remained unsettled.

The dream from the previous night was too vivid to dismiss as merely a bad dream.

Perhaps she had dreamed about events she had experienced before losing her memory.

If so, who was that man?

Was he really Graham?

Was he a soldier, given the military uniform he wore?

Had they been in a relationship?

“We were good together once. Even now, I reach the peak remembering how you’d tremble every time I entered you.”

As the man’s viscous breath came back to her, a sensation that could be either a thrill or a shudder ran up her spine.

Isu trembled with a pale face. It felt as if she might find herself panting in that man’s arms if she closed her eyes and opened them again.

She jumped up and looked out the window. A dense pine forest. Dim light filtered through the pointed trees.

Rain still fell. She had the illusion that the man might be hiding somewhere in the foggy landscape.

It seemed as if he might be watching this place with interested eyes. Like placing a lab mouse in his palm and playing with it. If he clenched his fist, she might be crushed.

Isu released urgent breaths through her teeth.

“That man, that man might be watching us.”

Manuel’s eyes widened in response.

“That man? Who?”

Isu repeated the same words over and over as if thoroughly entranced.

“Graham,” she repeated, entranced and terrified. “Graham… Graham.”

Words tumbled through her mind in a chaotic jumble: Graham, women, experiments, surrogate mothers, islands.

What if she had caught Graham’s attention somehow? Become a subject for his twisted experiments?

Though each sentence the man in her dream had used was vulgar, his accent was refined like a well-educated young master.

That detail alone told her he was dangerous, someone to be avoided at all costs.

How could she escape Graham?

Was hiding among these people her best chance?

How could she escape this island?

Who would help her?

Her frantic gaze landed on Hayden. He was arrogant but considerate, and he’d mentioned working in security.

If she explained her situation again, he might willingly help. Though she wasn’t sure what he would demand in return.

Isu called to him urgently, like someone with a gun to her head.

“Hayden,” she called urgently, her voice tight with desperation. “Hayden!”

He regarded her with a strange, measured look—the look of someone who had never known pursuit or fear.

“You said you work in security, right?” Her words tumbled out rapidly. “I’ll pay you—whatever it takes, however long it takes. Just please, please help me.”

He studied her with fresh interest, as if he’d never encountered such a desperate client. She didn’t care how she appeared. At this moment, she’d grasp at any straw.

“Just protect me until we leave this island,” she pleaded. “If Graham comes for me again, I’ll be helpless. I’ll be taken. Help me and I’ll meet any conditions you want—anything.”

His azure eyes, which had been watching her face, suddenly frosted over at the words “any conditions.”

“Any conditions?” he repeated, his brow furrowing.

“Yes,” she nodded frantically, “whatever you ask.”

For some reason, the more she talked about meeting his conditions, the colder his lips became.

“What conditions would a man want from a beautiful, penniless woman?” His voice dropped dangerously low. “Are you really offering to meet any demand? How many times per day are we talking about?”

His voice was so low that she couldn’t properly respond. She had meant adjusting compensation or security hours, but what had gone wrong with that…

“That’s not—I didn’t mean—”

“Choose your words more carefully,” he cut her off. “There are plenty of men here who might misinterpret such an offer and act on it.”

She looked around. Manuel was pretending to look out the window while eavesdropping on their conversation, and the other men were peering at the furniture outside the door while discussing women.

Isu glanced around. Manuel pretended to look out the window while obviously eavesdropping, and the other men lingered near the doorway, discussing women while stealing glances back at them.

Had she offended Hayden? Would she have made the same plea to anyone else if he weren’t in security? Whatever the case, he was proving difficult to read.

“So,” she asked, her voice small, “will you help me or not?”

His gaze softened slightly as he took in her expression, tears threatening to spill. His rigid posture eased a fraction.

“Then I’ll be in your care.”

That was good enough. Isu, who had been looking out the window as if she might die soon, collapsed as the strength left her legs.

“Haah… thank you.”  she whispered, her shoulders sagging.

“On two conditions,” he added. “First, don’t go anywhere out of my sight. Second, remember your address when you can—I’ll need to know where to send my bill.”

Manuel, who’d been pretending not to listen, glanced out through the open doorway. The rain continued unabated, mirroring his troubled mood.

“When will this damn rain ever stop?” he muttered.

Though less torrential than yesterday, the downpour persisted. The sky remained hazy with fog, obscuring any hope of rescue.

If this weather continued, they were more likely to be struck by lightning than found by a search party. Isu curled against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest like a frightened child.

Nate, who had been exploring the room’s corners, suddenly bent down and picked up a gray booklet from the floor.

“Hey, look at this,” he called.

It was an old travel guide, “Blasket Islands” emblazoned across its cover. Declan, being Irish, narrowed his eyes with recognition.

“The Blasket Islands…” he murmured.

Nate ran a hand through his brown hair before opening the pages. “Listen to this,” he announced, clearing his throat:

“‘The Blasket Islands: A natural paradise transformed into a tourist destination! The Blasket Islands were once home to leper colonies. However, after they all departed in 2004, the islands were transformed into tourist havens. Visitors flock to attractions like the Hedina Cliffs, where auroras dance in winter skies and rainbows form after rain…'”

As Nate continued reading, Jena slowly rose to her feet, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“Leprosy?” she interrupted, her voice rising. “As in the disease where skin literally rots away?”

She began frantically scanning the shelter, her anxiety visibly mounting. “These lepers would have stayed in this very building.”

“I suddenly feel itchy all over. What if we catch some disease by staying here without any precautions?”

Jena picked up Hayden’s vest and wrapped it around her face. Then, unable to settle down, she went outside. She seemed on the verge of bursting into tears if scared any further.

Watching her, Isu said with slack lips:

“The chances of randomly contracting leprosy in a place like this are extremely slim, so don’t worry.”

She was full of desire to reassure Jena as much as possible. But contrary to her intentions, Jena’s eyes widened.

“Didn’t you say you lost your memory? How do you know that?”

Caught off guard, Isu blinked in confusion. The words had slipped out without her knowledge.

“I—I don’t know,” she admitted. “It just came out.”

She had to endure Jena’s suspicious glare. Declan, who had been observing this, soon lost interest and gestured to Nate.

“Nate, give me that book.”

Declan’s brown eyes scanned the booklet. His expression quickly became grim.

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

Jena asked Declan with an anxious expression:

“So is this place currently a tourist destination? If it’s a tourist spot, people might come soon and discover us! We should be at the shore.”

Declan shook his head as if it were a pointless idea.

“Unfortunately, the southern islands of Ireland were purchased by Graham about ten years ago. Unless it’s someone from the Graham family, no one will be coming to this island.”

Jena grabbed her hair in dismay.

“It’s hard to search in this heavy rain. Even if they do search, they’ll start with islands close to the plane crash site… We’re going to starve to death. We’ll all die!”

It wasn’t strange for Jena to panic and cry.

The food was far too scarce for eight people to share, and their shelter was as squalid as a beggar’s den. Touching or eating just anything might lead to an unknown disease.

People fell silent one by one, becoming agitated. Only Hayden remained unmoved.

“I can’t take this anymore. I’ll go wash up.”

He took off his shirt, placed it on the floor, and entered the lake to rinse his entire body. Then he began to swim.

Streams of water rose in succession on the foggy surface. His back view, cutting through the deep blue water, was curved and firm like a professional swimmer’s.

His long arms and broad shoulders seemed to be the result of swimming for a long time. The unusual flexibility of his waist as he performed the butterfly stroke was puzzling.

Declan came out, drawn by the refreshing sound of splashing water. He said to Manuel, who followed:

“That guy seems to have enjoyed swimming quite a bit.”

Manuel softly admired Hayden as he freely traversed the water’s surface. But he was confident he wouldn’t lose in swimming.

“I might join him. It’s starting to get hot.”

Despite the rain, the temperature was warm in the summer afternoon. But Declan shrank back.

“I’ll pass. Don’t want to lose my hard-earned muscle mass.”

Then he stared at the protein powder among their piled belongings inside the shelter. The container, as large as a human face, was intact and could be shared, but the dwindling water supply was a serious problem. They needed to come up with a solution.

“Should we collect rainwater? The air quality on this pristine island can’t be bad, so it should be safe to drink.”

Isu, standing under the roof watching Hayden, replied to Declan:

“The water we collected in the life raft yesterday would be better. Any impurities will have settled to the bottom by now.”

Declan raised an eyebrow as if pleased by what he heard.

“You’re smart. You must have been smart before losing your memory too.”

Isu took a step toward the door, intending to fetch the water herself. Manuel quickly blocked her path.

“You stay here,” he insisted gently. “The last thing we need is you catching cold from the rain. We’ll handle it.”