Chapter 1
The sky above the island bleeds—red clouds tear themselves apart over black water. My lungs burn. I claw at the air like it owes me one more second, one more heartbeat, but the air already gives up on me. That sound… that endless, high-pitched wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn drills straight into my skull, the noise you hear right before everything goes white, then red, then nothing. My vision fractures like shattered glass. Black edges crawl in. Red veins pulse across my eyes. White flashes of every stupid choice that brings me here.
“ALEX!”
His voice. My brother’s voice. But it sounds so far away, like he’s already on the other side of death calling me back just to watch me fall.
I see him then—Marcus—straddling my chest, knees pinning my arms, his face twisted into something I don’t recognize. Tears and snot and rage mix together. His hands lock around my throat, thumbs dig deep, crushing the life out of the only person who ever has my back since we’re kids.
“WHY DID YOU CHOOSE HER?!” he screams, voice cracking like a boy again. “SHE’S NOT BLOOD! I’M BLOOD!”
My mouth opens but no sound comes. Just a wet gurgle. I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to tell him I love him. I want to tell him the island won the moment we step off that boat, laughing like fools chasing ten billion dollars.
But all I can do is stare up at the big brother who used to carry me on his shoulders… now killing me with the same hands that once bandaged my scraped knees.
The wiiiiiiiiinnnnnn grows louder.
Colors bleed together.
His face blurs into the face of every monster we create out here.
And then… black.
Three weeks earlier.
This is the story of how two brothers think ten billion dollars can fix everything.
I am twenty-four. Marcus is twenty-seven. We still help each other to finish sentences. We still crack the same dumb jokes we made when we were kids. We look at that contract, at the boat waiting, and we see Mama never having to work another double shift. We see us finally being somebody. We see a future where we don’t have to choose between rent and food.
We don’t know what awaits on the island.
We don’t know the real rules yet.
We don’t know what hunger does when it gets inside you—how it turns brothers into strangers, turns love into something sharp enough to kill with.
And we sure don’t know that choosing someone else costs you the only person who ever really matters.
Three weeks later we step off that boat still believing the money is the answer.
Still believing brothers are enough.
Still fools.
