Ordus usually checks them—and the swing, hammock, and chair—every couple of days to make sure they’re all in perfect shape. I still like to do a once-over as well. Not that I don’t trust him, but sometimes, he’s modified it or improved it in a way I never thought of.

My footsteps slow as I approach Ordus. The threads of blue in his skin are more prominent next to the plastic, cyan drum.

I chew the inside of my cheek, watching the tendons in his back strain and feather as he tightens a bolt. Every inch of him is pure, hard muscle, each one prominent and bulging from years of honing them to lethal perfection.

Ordus glances back at me, eyes dropping to my bare legs for half a heated second before averting his attention back to the funnel.

Clearing my throat, I say, “Storm’s rolling in.”

He grunts.

Ordus never really talks anymore. At most, I’ll get a handful of short, clipped sentences.

Last week, I snapped at him because I spiraled over the fact that he only wants me at a shallow, physical level, so I told him he’s welcome to drop my ass back off on the mainland whenever he wants, and his mature response was to bare his canines at me and stalk off.

“How are your teeth?”

“Fine.” I bite back a smile. It’s one of three questions he only ever asks me—I think it might be his attempt at an inside joke.

He nods, and the would-be smile wipes off my face. Ordus may hate me, but his tentacle seeks me out the moment it notices me.

“What are you doing?” I probe, saying a mental hello to the appendage curling happily around my leg.

Something that feels unnervingly akin to butterflies erupts in my stomach when I spot my scrunchie still around his wrist. I haven’t seen him without it. Ordus kept his braid for four days after and only reluctantly took it out when there was more hair out of the braid than in it.

The same thing happened the other three times I offered to braid his hair.

“Checking on it.”

My shoulders slump. At the start, the silence was nice. I could seethe from afar, loathe him for putting me in a position where I had two options: go with him or pull the trigger, and I couldn’t do the latter. It was easier for me to pretend he’s the villain and I’m the victim, perfectly innocent to fault.

But the silence has grown claws that pierce soft tissue. Every drop of blood beading onto the surface is a reminder I’m complicit in all this.

My husband was a bad man. That alone made his hatred toward me understandable. To an extent. Ordus’ disinterest in me…it’s grating on my nerves. The little voice in my head screams it’s my own fault. My own supposed Goddess-sent soulmate doesn’t like me because all my splintered pieces have turned me ugly. I know that’s not the real reason why, though.

At the end of the day, Ordus has been the perfect jailer. He gives me more space than I’m finding I want. He’s doing everything he can to keep me fed and happy. He’s kept me safe like he promised, turned his barren island into my own slice of paradise.

And my perfect jailer is wishing he ended up with someone other than me.

I shift my weight. “I’ve checked the containers between here and the beach.”

Ordus grunts.

“Should I check the one near the eastern cliffs?”

He shakes his head.

“Okay, what about the northwest drum?”

Another shake.

I fist my hands. “Do you need help?”

“No.”

I take a deep breath, looking around for ideas on what to say. “Is there anything you need me to bring inside?” Sometimes he has pastes or seaweeds drying out.

“I’ve done it.” I wouldn’t say his tone is dismissive, but it’s definitely not suggesting he wants to keep talking.

I wipe my clammy hands on my soaked shirt. “I’ll, uh, make dinner so I don’t need to leave the cave once the storm hits.”

“It is already made.”

“Oh.” We take turns cooking. He likes to watch and learn, but he also likes surprising me. Or, at least, I think he likes it. Ordus usually hands the plate to me, face devoid of emotion, and grunts when I say thanks.

Once we’ve cleaned up after dinner, he leaves me to my own devices and only seeks me out when it's time for bed, when he wordlessly pulls me into his arms, and it becomes a race to see who falls asleep first—usually Vasz. He might be a little thing, but he can shake the walls with his snoring.

I clear my throat. “I’ll just…have a bath, then.”

“No.”

I frown. “Why not?” He’s usually very probathing, because I’m a lot happier when I can’t feel grime and saltwater sticking to my skin.

He finally—finally—looks at me. “Eat first. I want to show you something.”

I do as he says, mind whirling with possibilities. Maybe he hauled a water tank from the mainland, or a box of Kacang Disco. Or he could’ve stolen the solar panels I previously mentioned wanting—he does stuff like that very often. He might not talk or look like he’s interested, but he listens to every word I say.

I once asked if it were easy to catch crab or squid, if he’s ever tried human meat like chicken. The next day, he came back from hunting with both. A week later, I saw a chicken roaming around the island.

Now I am the mother of eight chickens, craned to me by boat in the dead of night, and much to Ordus’ confusion, I can’t bring myself to do more than cook their eggs.

Ordus says nothing when he shows up midway through my meal. I’m camped out in the chair he made, staring out the window. It’s too windy to sit outside only in my swimsuit and rash shirt.

Once I finish, I follow him silently through the tunnel into the main cavern, the stray tentacle wrapped around my waist in case I trip—a common occurrence. Ordus and I have begun planting the glowing algae along the channel walls so I’m no longer going in blind. The light is still faint, but it’s miles better than it used to be.

He leads me to the pool, where he holds his hand out for me to take, the one with the green scrunchie on it. If I didn’t know better, it looks like a seaweed bracelet.

Pensive excitement soars through my veins. He acknowledges me so little that in the dead of night, when it’s time to creep into our bed of moss, a needy bud comes to bloom at the knowledge I’ll be in his arms. That when he touches me, it won’t hurt. When he trails a finger down my arm, the goosebumps aren’t out of trepidation, but the ecstasy of being recognized as a being beyond skin and bone.

Ordus thinks I don’t know he stares at me before he falls asleep, that he presses his nose close to my hair and takes four deep breaths as his eyes drift shut.

But I do.

Every night, I let myself fall for the delusion that fate and magic don’t have anything to do with his interest in me. That whatever this is between us is more than physical. I…I want him to open up to me.

“Where are we going?” I hesitate, glancing between him and his outstretched hand.

“We will stay on the island.” His face is impassive; it always is nowadays. I hate it.

It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, not the way Tommy’s blank face did. This just kind of—hurts?

I brush my fingers over his calluses, watching as his hand dwarfs my own. His skin pulses different colors with his shudder. Tugging, I inch toward him, gnawing on the inside of my cheek while he reaches for me, curling his arm around my waist to hold me to him. I wrap my legs around him and try not to think about how his abs contract against my core.

Ordus’ fingers weave into my matted, postsurf hair to tuck my head against the crook of his neck, and I let him. I melt into him, breathe him in, soak up every inch of his warmth to fill the empty space in my heart where my loneliness grows.

His thumb snakes beneath the sliver of skin between my rash shirt and the top of my bikini bottoms. It stays there, a threat and a temptation all in one.