Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women

Chapter 849: Chapter 851

Later that night, Jude stood on the roof of his apartment building. Below, the city lights flickered like a map of all the lives he couldn’t protect. He held the tarot card in his hand, running his thumb over its rough surface. He remembered the last time he saw that symbol. It was painted in blood on a mirror. And the girl who saw it never stopped screaming, until she stopped breathing.

He pocketed the card and looked at the sky. The clouds had parted just enough for the moon to break through. Pale and distant, like the truth. He didn’t pray. He had stopped doing that a long time ago. But tonight, he wished for something. Not salvation. Not peace. Just time. Enough to fix one thing before everything else fell apart.

And deep in the city, in a place no light touched, a figure watched him through a cracked screen. He smiled, a slow, patient smile, and picked up another card.

Death. Reversed.

He whispered Jude’s name like a promise. Then he laughed, quiet and cruel, as he placed the card on the table beside a burning candle, and waited.

Jude didn’t sleep. He lay in bed with his eyes open, staring at the cracks in the ceiling that he never bothered to fix. The sounds of the city outside his window, sirens, distant shouting, the low hum of traffic, had long stopped bothering him. He welcomed them now, a reminder that the world was still moving, even when he couldn’t. The tarot card lay on his nightstand beside his gun. He didn’t believe in magic or fate, but he believed in patterns. And patterns had a way of repeating themselves when you weren’t paying attention. This wasn’t just a return. It was a message, and he needed to understand it before the next body turned up.

At six a.m., Jude got up and splashed cold water on his face. His reflection in the mirror looked worse than he felt, eyes hollow, jaw unshaven, a bruise forming along his neck where he’d collided with a pipe in the warehouse. He didn’t bother with a clean shirt. He just pulled on his jacket and left. The streets were still half asleep, bathed in gray light. He walked three blocks before hailing a cab, too wired to drive but too tired to walk the whole way.

He told the driver to take him to St. Mirin’s, an old church that had long since been converted into a shelter. The priest who once led it was dead, but the building still stood, taken over by a group of ex-volunteers and activists who had no better place to go. Jude had a history with them. They didn’t like him, but they tolerated him, especially when he brought answers, or threats.

The cab dropped him off at the corner, and Jude walked the rest of the way, hands in his pockets, collar pulled up against the chill. Inside, the scent of boiled coffee and worn fabric filled the air. People lay on cots and mats, most pretending to sleep, some just staring. A kid with messy hair and no shoes darted past him, chasing something only he could see. Jude made his way through the main hall to a side room that had once been a confessional. Now it served as a makeshift office, piled with files, old electronics, and a heater that buzzed like a dying insect.

”Didn’t expect to see you this early,” said a voice from behind a stack of boxes. A woman emerged, tall, lean, with short-cropped silver hair and sharp eyes. Her name was Petra. She had once been a medic in the southern zones before she realized her efforts were being erased faster than she could make them. Now she ran this place with equal parts compassion and menace.

”I need to ask you something,” Jude said, and she raised an eyebrow.

”You mean demand something.”

”I’m not here to argue.”

”Good, because I don’t have time. One of our people vanished last night. No note. No sign. Just gone.”

Jude’s expression didn’t change. ”Name?”

”Liam. Young, quiet, helped with supplies. He was staying out back, near the garden storage. He went out for water around nine. Never came back.”

Jude’s jaw tensed. It was too close to the time he and Elias had visited the warehouse. Too close to be a coincidence. ”He’s not the first.”

Petra narrowed her eyes. ”You think it’s connected?”

”I know it is.”

Petra moved to the small desk and picked up a tablet, tapping through a few screens before turning it toward him. A blurry image of Liam appeared, taken from an old ID badge. He looked young. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Fragile in a way that made Jude’s stomach turn.

”Has anyone checked the perimeter?”

”We don’t have the people for that. I sent Marla out to ask the neighborhood, but no one’s seen him.”

”Then I will.”

Petra didn’t stop him. She just watched as he turned to go. ”If you find him,” she said softly, ”bring him back. Whole or not.”

Jude gave a curt nod and left. Outside, the clouds hung low, like the sky couldn’t decide whether to cry or collapse. He walked toward the garden storage at the back of the shelter, past rusted fencing and overgrown grass. The shed stood half open. Inside, the shelves were bare save for a few cans and cracked buckets. But there was something else. A set of footprints in the mud, leading away from the shed and into the alley beyond.

Jude followed.

The alley twisted between abandoned buildings, lined with broken glass and crumbling bricks. He kept low, listening, watching. The tracks weren’t fresh, but they weren’t old either. They ended near a chain-link fence, bent and torn as if something, or someone, had forced their way through. Jude climbed over and found himself in another lot, surrounded by silence.

Then he saw it.

On the ground, partially hidden beneath a tarp, was a shoe. A small one. Liam’s. And near it, a card.