Chapter 13: Ethan's Arrival - Part 1
Day eighteen. Mac was reinforcing the beach shelters when Claire's excited voice cut through the afternoon air like a bell. He looked up from his work on a support beam to see her waving enthusiastically, her face bright with the first genuine joy he'd seen from her in days.
"Someone's coming!" she called out. "There's a man coming out of the jungle!"
Mac's blood turned to ice before he even saw the figure emerging from the tree line.
The name hit him like a sledgehammer to the skull—Ethan—screaming through his fragmented memories with hurricane force. Images cascaded through his consciousness: danger, Claire screaming in darkness, kidnapping, murder, a man who smiled while he destroyed everything Mac was trying to protect.
His danger sense exploded to life, every inherited instinct howling warnings that this approaching figure represented death walking on two legs. The man was lethal, predatory, fundamentally wrong in ways that had nothing to do with his pleasant smile or friendly demeanor.
Mac's vision whited out as the memories tried to surface fully. Pain lanced through his skull like molten metal, forcing him to grab his temples and bite back a scream of agony. But through the pain, certainty burned like a brand: this man would hurt them. Would take Claire. Would kill someone before this was over.
The stranger approached the camp with easy confidence, his clothes remarkably clean for someone who'd supposedly been surviving alone in the jungle. He was tall, lean, with the kind of controlled movements that spoke of combat training and predatory patience.
"Hello!" the man called out, his voice carrying across the beach. "Thank God I found you. I was beginning to think I was the only survivor from the middle section."
Ethan Rom. The name burned through Mac's consciousness like acid, accompanied by fragmented warnings his borrowed memories couldn't quite articulate. He was dangerous beyond measure, but how could Mac prove it without revealing knowledge that shouldn't exist?
Jack appeared from the medical area, his face lighting up with relief and welcome. "You're from the plane? From 815?"
"Ethan Rom," the stranger said, extending his hand with a smile that made Mac's skin crawl. "Seat 27C. I've been alone for eighteen days, trying to find other survivors. When I heard voices..."
He trailed off as if overcome with emotion, and Claire practically glowed with sympathetic warmth. Charlie moved to stand beside her, equally welcoming to this apparent fellow castaway who'd finally found his way to safety.
Mac could barely breathe through the certainty that everything about Ethan was a lie. The man wasn't a crash survivor—he was something else entirely, something that had been on this island long before Flight 815 ever took off. His presence here was calculated, purposeful, aimed at taking Claire away from everything Mac had built to protect her.
But how could he prove it? How could he explain that his knowledge came from memories that belonged to someone else, in a reality he'd never actually lived through?
Mac forced himself to approach the group gathering around Ethan, every step feeling like walking toward a loaded gun. Jack was already organizing welcome supplies—food, water, a place to rest—while Ethan deflected questions about his survival with modest heroism that rang false in every syllable.
"Mac!" Claire called out when she spotted him. "Come meet Ethan. He's been surviving alone this whole time."
Ethan's eyes fixed on Mac with interest that felt like being studied by a predator. His smile never wavered, but something shifted behind his eyes—recognition, maybe, or calculation.
"Mac Kerby," Mac said, extending his hand despite every instinct screaming not to make physical contact.
Ethan's grip was firm, controlled, carrying the kind of strength that came from training rather than honest labor. "Heard about you," Ethan said casually. "The builder, the healer. Quite the reputation around camp."
The words carried undertones that made Mac's danger sense spike higher. Ethan knew about him, had been watching, gathering intelligence before making his approach. This wasn't coincidence—it was reconnaissance followed by infiltration.
Mac pulled Jack aside as soon as he could do so without creating obvious suspicion. His hands shook with barely controlled panic as he tried to find words that would convey the urgency without revealing his impossible certainty.
"That man—Ethan—something's wrong with him," Mac said quietly. "He's lying about something. Maybe everything."
Jack frowned, his expression shifting to that clinical detachment he used when evaluating medical symptoms. "Based on what evidence?"
Mac scrambled for explanations that didn't involve transmigration and borrowed memories. "Instinct. The way he moves—that's combat training, not civilian survival skills. And he's too clean, too healthy for someone who's been alone in the jungle for eighteen days."
Jack's expression hardened. "Mac, we don't condemn people based on paranoid hunches. The man needs help, not suspicion."
Mac wanted to scream that Ethan WAS the danger, that his presence here represented a threat that would destroy everything they'd built. But he had no proof, no explanation that wouldn't expose his knowledge of events that hadn't happened yet in this timeline.
"Just... be careful," Mac said desperately. "Watch him. Something's not right."
Jack's look suggested he was beginning to worry about Mac's mental state rather than Ethan's true nature. He walked away to rejoin the welcoming committee, leaving Mac isolated with his terrible knowledge and growing certainty that he couldn't prevent the disaster approaching.
Kate appeared beside him, having observed the exchange from a distance. Her expression was carefully neutral, but Mac caught the question in her eyes.
"Later?" she mouthed silently.
Mac nodded gratefully. At least someone was willing to listen to his warnings, even if she didn't understand the source of his certainty.
That night, while Ethan settled into camp life with disturbing ease, Mac worked frantically to build hidden alarm systems around Claire's sleeping area. Tripwires that looked like random debris. Arrangements of stones and sticks that would tell him if someone approached in darkness. Early warning systems that might buy precious seconds when Ethan finally made his move.
Kate found him working by moonlight, his hands moving with Phase Two efficiency as he wove protection around the pregnant woman who trusted him to keep her safe.
"Talk to me," Kate said quietly. "Why Ethan? What makes you so certain he's dangerous?"
Mac's hands stilled against the rope he was weaving into an improvised alarm system. How could he explain that his certainty came from memories of a television show he'd watched in another life, in a reality where these people were fictional characters following scripts he'd somehow forgotten in crucial details?
"I can't explain how I know," Mac said finally. "But he's going to hurt Claire. Take her away. I feel it the same way I knew the marshal was dying, the same way I knew about your past with him."
Kate studied his face in the moonlight, her fugitive instincts weighing his words against her accumulated observations of his impossible perceptiveness.
"Okay," she said after a long moment. "I trust your instincts. What do we do?"
The relief nearly overwhelmed him. Someone believed him, trusted him enough to act on warnings he couldn't properly explain. Kate was choosing to follow his lead despite the lack of rational evidence, and that faith felt like the first solid ground he'd found since arriving on the island.
"Watch him," Mac said. "Never let Claire be alone with him, especially not away from camp. And be ready—because when he moves, it'll be fast and we might not have much warning."
Kate nodded grimly. "I'll organize rotating watches. Make it seem like general security rather than specific surveillance."
"She understands the game," Mac realized. "Kate knows how to protect people without creating panic, how to prepare for threats without destroying the group dynamics. Her fugitive experience is exactly what we need right now."
They worked together through the night, Kate coordinating security while Mac built physical defenses around Claire's area. By dawn, they'd created a web of protection that would alert them to any approach while appearing to be random camp improvements.
But Mac knew it wouldn't be enough. Ethan wasn't just dangerous—he was superhuman, backed by resources and knowledge that exceeded anything their small group could marshal in defense. When he moved against Claire, it would be with advantages they couldn't match and planning they couldn't anticipate.
Mac sat in the pre-dawn darkness where he could see both Claire's tent and Ethan's sleeping area, crossbow he'd built resting across his knees. Around him, the camp slept peacefully, unaware that a predator now walked among them with patience that could afford to wait for the perfect moment to strike.
Ethan's tent was thirty feet away, and Mac swore he could feel the man's awareness even through the fabric walls. The Other wasn't sleeping—he was planning, waiting, watching for the opportunity to complete whatever mission had brought him to their fragile sanctuary.
The game had begun, and Mac was playing with incomplete knowledge against an opponent who held every advantage except one: Mac knew Ethan was coming, even if he couldn't remember exactly how or when.
That would have to be enough. It had to be, because the alternative was watching Claire disappear into the jungle while he stood helpless with warnings no one would believe until it was too late to matter.
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