Page 4 of Outcast’s Vow

The women all slowly follow Elder Beckett through the hotel lobby doors and down the garden path in the direction of the beach with no sense of urgency. But, for me, Elder Beckett’s words are the sharp crack of a race’s starting gun.

The countdown is on. I need to move. Now.

I brush past a girl on my way to the doors, our arms accidentally colliding, which only gets me noticed. A few heads turn in my direction.

And here come the sarcastic digs.

“Look at Sylvie,” one girl hisses to another. “Trying to stand out like this.”

“She thinks she’s so special.”

“She’s not going to the beach. No, she believes she’s so much better than the rest of us.”

I take a sharp breath and push through. The clock is ticking.

Ignore them.

I see the open doors. I see dawn. I hear the crashing of waves just beyond the path ahead. Champagne and breakfast wait for the girls down there on the sand by the ocean. God, it would be so easy to forget all about my mission and blend in with the rest of the soon-to-be-brides. No effort required to surrender to a life of luxury.

But my pulse hammers in my ears and my eyes are focused on my goal.

Don’t stop, Sylvie. Not now. Not when you’re so close.

As I drive through the crowd, someone grabs my arm. It’s Louise Buckford, a daughter of a Castaways Elder and a member of British nobility. She’s in the most elaborate white dress and perfect doll-like makeup here, her practiced purity and rehearsed grace radiating off her.

“You’re seriously not thinking about doing this, Sylvie?” Louise asks me in a reptilian jeer, her cut-glass English accent slicing through the air while her fingers dig deep into my arm. “You’re an embarrassment. You act as if you’re so bold and independent and above the rest of us just because of who your father is. There’s always something with you, darling. Always has been. You’ve always been weird.”

Weird? Yes, the insult stings like her nails in my skin, but I’ve had that all my life. I’m too academically obsessed, too blunt, too disinterested in playing the social games of the other daughters of the elites and the Order that we’re forever bound to.

I see through Louise. She’s afraid I will ruin the ritual for her. That I make her, and her friends, look ridiculous.

I should tell her that at least I’m not as shallow as her, that at least I’m thinking for myself, that at least I’m not praying for some strange man to save me from a boring, stale, chained Castaways trophy wife life. But instead, I rip my arm free from Louise’s grasp, remaining totally silent, and I continue. I don’t have the time.

I nearly trip over a dress.

I recover.

And panic rises in my chest as I realize how far from the lobby doors I still am.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

I’ve got one job to do today, only one until sunset.

Avoid all men.

After we finally pass through the doors, I take a different path away from the other women. I go the opposite direction from the beach. I head into the tropical rainforest. Into the dense unknown. To my only escape.

To freedom.

3

BAPTISTE

I’m headed exactly where I would go if I were Sylvie Levine and didn’t want to be found.

The island’s rainforest.

I’m out of the plane before any of the other men. Hollering, hooting, and still drinking, my fellow passengers take their time staggering down the ramp and then, like toddlers learning to walk on a rocking boat, they wander over to the beach where the girls will be eagerly waiting for them with open arms.