Page 84 of The Resort

I open my mouth wide, drawing on whatever little energy I have left. And I scream.

39

BROOKE

My bones mash together as Doug drops me in the mud. I hear Alani crumple beside me, and I reach out my hand to her. She grabs it and gives it a small squeeze.

I blink several times, trying to clarify the familiar sights through my blurred eyes. Logan has draped a tarp above the wooden posts in Frangipani’s courtyard, providing a covering, but the wind forces rain in from all sides.

I look around at the ramshackle bar, which now looks like nothing more than a piece of abandoned waste ground. The storm has tossed over leaves and branches from the jungle across the street, littering the area with detritus, and the wind has toppled over the lone picnic table. The fairy lights that are usually lit this late at night remain dark, and a harsh fluorescent glow comes from generator-operated industrial lamps I’ve never noticed, situated at all four corners of the courtyard. They illuminate the two people standing in front of us. Doug and Greta. Blood cakes her nose, and the makings of a bruise bloom along her cheekbone.

Doug walks over to me, and seconds later, I feel his hands on me, making me stifle a cringe. The scruffiness of rope burns my skin as he draws my ankles together and my wrists behind my back.

I try to kick as he does this, but he holds me down easily with one hand. I watch as he does the same to Alani, who is only a few meters away, seated in the mud. Guilt forces its way through my skin. I should have driven her back to her apartment and gone to find Cass myself. After everything this poor girl has been through, I’ve dragged her into even more danger. I think of the promise I made to keep her safe, and my stomach turns. I want to throw Doug off her, to run over and protect her. But tied up like this, there’s no way for me to reach her.

I worry for a second that he may gag us to stop us from screaming, but then I realize that’s not necessary. No one will be out in the storm. And even if they are, they wouldn’t hear anything through the rain.

A moment later, I see a third person arrive, scurrying in as if he’s late. I recognize his bulky build from behind, but when he whips off the hood of his windbreaker to reveal the mop of reddish hair resting above his freckles, I feel myself sink farther into the mud.

The sense of disappointment that washes over me is unrivaled. The only thing that comes close is how I felt after Eric. But Neil’s betrayal bothers me more. I thought he was different, that I was finally safe to have feelings for someone. But I was wrong.

He stands there next to Greta, his head down, refusing to meet my eye.

I hear a scream, a piercing wail that comes from mere feet away. I turn to see Logan deposit a broken hulk on the ground, next to the overturned picnic table, and it takes me a moment to realizeit’s Cass. Blood stains the ground around her and leaves Logan’s shirt streaked with red. Her clothes are drenched from the rain, suctioned to her skin. She looks so small and beaten. I wonder how I could have ever thought she was behind all this.

I watch uselessly as Doug ties her arms behind her, just like he did to me and Alani. But with Cass, he forgoes tying her ankles, apparently concluding, as I did, that she won’t get far with the amount of blood seeping from her leg.

I stare at her. Her face is paler than I’ve ever seen. As if sensing my gaze, she turns her head, taking me in. Despite the blood loss, her eyes are clear and lucid.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “For all of it.”

“Me too,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine. And I know, more than anything I’ve ever known, that we both mean it.

I want to say more, but before I can formulate the words, my attention is drawn to the others. They’ve moved away from us to talk. The rain’s percussive beat against the tarp drowns out their words, but Greta is waving her arms in anger. I watch Doug cut a sharp glance at Alani.

What are they planning?

I don’t have to wait long for the answer. I see Logan reach his hand behind him as he pulls something from his waistband. As he shifts his arm back in front of him, the object in his hand gleams, the silver refracting off the harsh generator-fueled lights.

Logan has a gun.

I have no idea where he got it from, but by now I’m not surprised by any of the shady shit these people get into.

Doug reaches for the gun, as if he has a sense of ownership, and Logan hands it to him easily.

Doug starts talking again, animatedly, and as the wind blows in our direction, I make out two words over the din of the rain that stick in my gut with alarming sharpness.Murder suicide.

And it all makes sense. They’re planning to blame this on Cass. To make it look like she took revenge on me and then killed herself. They just hadn’t planned for Alani.

Every muscle in my body clenches. I can’t die here, because of these people. I won’t.

And I won’t let Cass and Alani either.

I shift, inching the thumb of my right hand up so that it connects with the rope looped around my wrists. Over the course of the last three days, my perfectly self-manicured fingernails have become jagged, my right thumb worse than all of them. I start to work it against the rope, realizing as I do that it’s much less substantial than I originally thought. Closer to string than rope, really. Doug probably thought that through as well. Stronger rope could leave marks on our wrists, evidence that would make it hard for even the Koh Sang police to conclude our deaths were a murder suicide. Plus, even if we did escape, it’s not like we would make it far with four people barreling after us.

I can already feel several threads of the rope break off under my fingernail, but it’s not enough.

Apparently reaching some resolution, the others turn to face us. I see Doug’s fingers tighten around the gun, and I know I have to buy time.

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