“What?” He looked annoyed. “Who are Katty and Peter?”

“What?” I responded back at him. “You never saw The Hunger Games movies? I mean, the books were better, but I thought most people saw the movies at least. The second movie was much better than the first one though.”

“Bianca,” His voice was growing impatient. “I need you to focus on the matter at hand. I don’t know The Hunger Games, and unless that movie is going to provide us with some answers we can use right now, I don’t care to know either.”

“Well, the main characters were in a similar situation to us, so I was trying to think about what they would do in such a situation.”

“They were kidnapped and placed on an island as well?”

“Not exactly.” I made a face. “I mean it’s kind of similar. They knew what they were signing up for, only, they didn’t really know.” I shook my head. “They had no real concept of what they were going to be faced with.”

“Bianca, I do appreciate the fact that you’re a walking movie machine. You might even be the next Ebert, but right now I don’t give two shits about any of your random movies. This is serious. We need to figure out a plan.”

“I know that. Trust me, I know that. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’m sorry that you chose to sit at a table with me and now you’ve been dragged into my mess.” I pushed past him and started walking quickly away from him. I hadn’t appreciated his tone or words. Movies were my answers to everything. They always had been. Movies had been my teaching guides as I’d grown up. They were easy to fall back on. I often talked about characters from movies as if they were people I knew in real life.

“Wait.” His voice wasn’t humorous anymore. “Don’t walk ahead of me.”

“Are we going to go—”

“Bianca.” His voice rose. “Enough.”

“What?” My jaw dropped open in shock. Was he seriously speaking to me as if I were a kid? Again?

“I said enough. We can’t have you just . . .” He started lecturing me and I felt like a petulant kid as I stood there silently. His lips looked so luscious as he stood there mumbling about something. I’d already tuned him out and was admiring his chest. His abs looked so pronounced, and I had an urge to run my fingers down each ripple. I wonder what he would do if I stepped forward and ran my fingers all the way down? I chastised myself silently at my dirty thoughts. I was about to interrupt him, when I saw something moving in the bushes. I gasped and blinked quickly to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. There were two empty dark eyes staring back at me. I screamed out and the face backed away from sight. My eyes watched the branches shaking in front of me; I felt my heart stop as leaves fell to the ground. I heard a loud thud, and then I screamed again loudly, pushing past Jakob to make my way back to the sandy beach.

I ran back to the beach as fast as I could, my legs moving swiftly, while my mind thought back to what I’d seen in the bushes. “Bianca, slow down!” He chased after me and grabbed ahold of me when he caught up. “Bianca!”

“I saw something!” I gasped. “I saw two eyes looking at me.” I stared at him with wide eyes as I tried to control my breathing. “Oh my God, we’re totally going to die.”

“Bianca!” He took a deep breath and pulled me into his arms. “Take two deep breaths and calm down.”

“How am I supposed to calm down when Godzilla is on the island with us? Ready to eat me!” My voice was dramatic, and my hands rose to the sides of my face. “I have very sweet blood, you know. Predators can smell me.”

“Really?” His lips started twitching again.

“Yes! I eat a lot of chocolate.” I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths. “I’m not going back in there.” I shook my head and fell to the sand. “I’m not going back. No way, José.”

“Bianca, I’m sure all you saw was a bug or something. Or maybe it was Steve spying on us.”

“Steve has blue eyes.” I shook my head. “And I’d like to know what bug has big white irises and black-red eyes?”

“Black-red eyes?”

“You know what I mean.” I glared at him.

“Not really.” He sat down next to me and leaned back. “So you’re too scared to go back into the jungle today?”

“I don’t want to die today.”

“So you’d rather die tomorrow?”

“I’d rather not die.”

“Bianca.” His voice was serious. “If I could go into the jungle and carry back what we needed without you coming with me, I would. If I felt safe leaving you on the beach by yourself, I would go. Unfortunately, I don’t know where Steve is and I’m scared what he might try to do, especially if he is tracking our movements. We can’t be apart from each other. So I’m going to need you to be a big girl today. I need your help.”

“You’re such a condescending asshole.”

“Thank you, but you don’t even know me yet.”

“I think I do.”

“I could be a lot worse.” His lips were thin as his eyes stared into mine with an intense light. “I could be more than an asshole.” His voice dropped, and his fingers ran down my arm.

“Get your fingers off of me.” I shook him off me and moved back.