Chapter 871 - 873
"No," Jude said. "I think you’re being watched. Like all of us. And it’s using us, one by one."
Scarlett’s mouth tightened. "I thought I was dreaming. It came to me in the water. I was bathing in the shallow stream. One moment I was alone, the next... I could feel someone’s hands. But no one was there. I even called out to Susan, but there was no answer. Then I blinked, and it was like it had never happened. Except I was already dry. I was dressed. I don’t remember doing it."
"Did it say anything?"
She shook her head. "No. Just... the feeling. That I wanted something. That I couldn’t hold it in anymore."
He nodded and made a mental note. The next few conversations mirrored the same pattern. Zoey spoke of losing time while foraging and returning to camp with a full basket she couldn’t remember picking. Grace described a moment in the night where she was certain someone was lying beside her in her hammock, whispering her name. Susan said she’d found her spear pointed at one of the treehouses without remembering ever lifting it.
Natalie was the only one who claimed nothing had happened.
"I’ve been watching," she said. "I’ve seen the change in the others. Their eyes get distant. Their words get slow. Then they blink and act like nothing happened. But I’ve been waiting. It hasn’t come for me yet."
"Yet," Jude echoed.
"It will," she said softly. "Because it knows I’m watching."