Page 37 of Here for a Good Time
At first, I don’t place the footsteps as footsteps. At first, for some inexplicable reason, I think it’s a rabbit who’s hopping rapidly through the grass as rabbits do in cartoons. “Do you hear—”
“Someone’s coming,” Zwe confirms, his embrace suddenly rigid as it transforms from affection to protection.
My brain tries to decide between fight or flight. “We have to hide,” I say.
He points at a tree that’s just close enough that I can sprint to it if I don’t thinktoomuch about my ankle. Before I can even nod, he snatches my hand and starts dragging me in its direction.
“Ow, ow, ow,” I mutter through gritted teeth as we navigate the underbrush. I place too much weight on my bad ankle on one particularly forceful step, and heat shoots up my leg like the ball in a pinball machine, ricocheting against every pain nerve. The tree now seems like it’s a mile away, and there aren’t any others closer by that could hide both of us, and there are too many roots and uneven patches for me to be able to move quicker.
The footsteps get closer and louder, enough to make out that the person is not walking quickly, butrunning.
“I can’t make it,” I say, shaking my head, the pain so acute I’m tearing up.
“You have to—”
“Poe? Zwe?” yells a female voice.
A female voice that… we recognize.
“Is that—” Zwe begins.
“Leila?” I finish.
Another, younger voice also calls out, “Mr. Zwe! Ms. Poe!” A male voice.
“Antonio?” Zwe asks.
As the footsteps near, Zwe crouches even lower, and I get as low on my knees as my ankle can handle. “What if this is poison ivy?” I look around with a newfound suspicion at the various shades and sizes of green in which we’re immersing ourselves.
“It’s not poison ivy,” Zwe replies.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. Wishful thinking.”
“Zwe!” I hiss.
“Even if it is, we won’t die from poison ivy. Wewilldie from armed women who are pretending to be people we know in order to lure us out into the open, so ssshhh!”
They’re still shouting our names, getting closer and closer until the sources of the two voices come into view. ItisLeila and Antonio. Better yet, it’sjustthem, and there are no strange, masked people forcing them to call out for us at gunpoint.
They pause in approximately the same spot Zwe and I had stood in while we were hugging. “Are you sure it was this trail?” Leila huffs. Antonio gives her a sheepish look. “Oh my god!” she exclaims, shoving his shoulder.
“I’m ninety percent sure!” he retorts. “It was dark, I couldn’t seeexactlywhere they ran!”
“We haven’t seen any shoe prints for hours!”
“The wind could’ve covered them up with debris,” Antonio says, then points at the forest. “Or maybe they pivoted to a different path from here. If that’s the case, then that’s not my fault they went off track.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you come with me,” Leila shoots back.
“Letme?” Antonio scoffs. “Need I remind you—”
“Antonio?” Zwe asks. I’d been so engrossed in their conversationthat I hadn’t noticed Zwe standing up to reveal himself. He waves, and Leila and Antonio break out into relieved grins the second they spot him.
“Mr. Zwe!” Antonio’s already bounding over. “See, I told you this was the right path,” he adds over his shoulder to Leila, who rolls her eyes.
“Just go and help them,” she orders.
