Page 53 of Here for a Good Time
“Stop walking or I’ll shoot!” the other one barks.
“There’s a fire in the forest!” Leila screams, waving behind her. “Please! You have to put it out or it’s not going to matter if you shoot because we’re all going to die! You can take me hostage afterward, I don’t care! But there’s a fire!”
They’re still too far away for her to execute her plan. “There’s no smoke,” one of them says.
Leila groans, gesturing to imply that they can go see for themselves. “By the time you see the smoke, it’ll be too late. Do you have any idea how quickly wildfire spreads? Please, we have to get the fire extinguishers!”
Still flailing and shouting, she stumbles around, at one point pretending to almost trip backward on her own foot.
“Now,” Zwe says when the intruders have shifted enough that they’re both facing the ocean, their backs turned toward us.
We leave our shoes and bags behind, moving as briskly yet quietly as we can. On the plus side, the sand automatically mutes our movement, and the sound of the waves helps cover whatever other small noises we might make. The disadvantage is that having to power walk through sand is a real fucker.
My body freezes when I realize that the next step I take isthestep—the point of no return. The step where, if even one of the masked people slightly pivots around, I’ll have nowhere to hide, no bush or bungalow steps to duck behind.
“I can’t,” I whisper to Zwe.
Pressure on the small of my back. A hand that has held mine through hundreds of terrifying scenarios.
“Just walk,” he whispers back. “Pretend it’s just us.”
I nod, and, gulping in air, will myself to pace forward and stay in step with the two of them.
The woman with a short pixie cut steps closer to Leila. Leila reacts appropriately, continuing to shift between acting scared and standing her ground. Perfect. Now to just get the other—
We all hear the engine at the same time. It’s unmistakable: blades slicing through water. A boat.
“Fuck! They’re early,” Antonio mutters as the vessel obliviously charges toward the pier.
He’s too distracted to notice his newfound attention. Having turned to locate the source of the noise, the two intruders have inevitably discovered us. “Hey! Don’t take another step!” Pixie Cut yells.
We raise our hands, Zwe yelling out, “Don’t shoot! We’re not armed!”
That doesn’t stop Pixie Cut from going to raise her rifle—but then she stops.
Leila’s removed the knives and has them pointed into the back of their necks. When she nods at us to signal that she’s got a handle on the situation, we approach.
“One word, one stray shot,” Leila warns. “Give me a reason to slice your neck, I dare you. Now, slowly, give your guns to my friends here.” When they start lifting their weapons, Leila increases the pressure, digging the sharp metal tips deeper into their flesh. Both of them flinch, but don’t say anything. “I mean it, try something funny, and you’ll be fish food before anyone can find you.”
After they’ve removed and handed over their guns to me and Zwe, Leila directs them toward the pier. Now that they’ve takenoff their masks and I see that they’re around our age, just like the first women who tackled us, I’m more convinced than ever that they’reallwomen, and that Leila mistakenly identified the two that captured her. I make a note of one distinguishing feature each: Pixie Cut has a nose ring, and the other has freckles and roughly shoulder-length bleached hair (creatively, I’ve named her Bleached Hair). They’re both Southeast Asian, too, although I can’t quite place their accents. Bleached Hair has her light hair up in a ponytail, and when she turns around, I’m now close enough to see the same blob tattoo on the back of her neck; this time, I mentally trace it so that I can draw it later on. Maybe it’s some sort of gang symbol that the police will be able to identify.
This whole time, the supply boat has been getting closer, close enough that I can make out people on it. Unable to control my joy, I shoot up my hand and give large, frantic waves. The person behind the wheel waves back, and I couldcryat the mere sight of this stranger acknowledging that they see me.
This is it. We’re going home. I—
I know it’s not actually possible, but I swear the shot makes the whole pier vibrate.
“They spotted us!” Zwe yells as another shot leaves from the top of the resort and toward the boat. It doesn’t hit the boat, but the vessel makes such a sharp swerve that it nearly topples over. More fired shots hit the three resort boats that were tied to the pier, and the air is filled with the sounds of glass breaking and bullets ricocheting off of wood and metal.
“No!” I scream. “No, come back!” I go to run for the edge of the pier, already having decided that I’d rather jump into the ocean and try to swim to safety than spend another hour on this fucking island, but Zwe’s arm captures my waist. “Let me go!” I screech,hitting his forearm. “I’ll swim! They’re so close! No! Come back! Please! Please don’t leave us here! One of you, do something!”
By the time I turn around, every inch of the picture has changed. It all happens in a literal blink of an eye, and I don’t even know it’s happened until I hear Leila yell, “They’re getting away! One of you shoot!”
Antonio now has his hands up, and both women are using him as a human shield as they slowly walk backward. “You shoot, and your friend here loses his pretty little head,” Bleached Hair tells us, the knife that was previously pushed into her skin now pressed deep into the back of Antonio’s neck, her other arm braced tightly across his chest. Pixie Cut is holding the second knife, the sharp tip aimed at us.
“What the fuck happened?” I scream at Leila, although now I notice that there’s blood dripping down one of her elbows.
“I got distracted by the shots! I’m sorry! Let him go!” she yells.
