Page 80 of Here for a Good Time
“I don’t know! Do we go?” Nita replies, helplessly looking around at her cousins. “We can’t leave them here!”
“No, we’re not going anywhere!” yells a voice that sounds like mine after it’s been scraped across rocks.
Leila is on her knees again beside Nita, tugging at the bottom of the rope.
“Move! I might cut your finger!” Nita yells.
“I don’t care!” Leila cries. “We need to free him!”
“Let’s just drag him out!” Nita says, gripping and sawing the shears with so much force that her fingertips are red. “You and me, let’s just drag him out sideways if we need to.”
“We’ll have to jump through the flames at this point,” Leila points out. “There’s no way to drag him out.”
I start thrashing around, trying to pull away from Garima and Nita so I can go over and help untie Zwe. “What are you—” Nita starts, then, following my gaze, tightens her grip on my hand. “No, you can’t go there. If it comes to it, we have to run.”
“I’m not leaving without him!” I cry. “You all go! I’m not leaving!”
The fire has entered the room by this point, all the wooden furniture in here acting as oversized tinder. Heat pricks every ounce of my exposed skin, and my body screams for a large body of water to dive into.
“We’re going to die!” Nita is still going at it, but she’s slowed down from exhaustion. Noticing it too, Leila takes the shears from her without a word, and continues on, white knuckles gripping the dark green plastic handles.
“We arenotgoing to die,” Leila says, her red, splotchy face marked with tears and sweat. “I—”
Without any warning, Zwe kicks the shears out of Leila’s hands.
“What the—” she starts, but can’t finish because Zwe pushes both of them with enough force that their backs slam onto the floor.
While we’re all stunned, he bends over, scrambles for the shears, and tosses them into the flames.
“What the fuck,” I whisper, refusing to believe what I just saw with my own eyes. “What did you just do? Why did you do that!” I scream, wanting to slap him.
“Go,” he orders.
“No!” I say. Then, because I’m so angry I don’t know what else to do: “Fuck you.”
But he doesn’t even flinch.
At this point, I can feel all of their eyes on me, but I can’t stop shaking my head at Zwe.
There’s movement beside me, and I turn to see Leila helping Nita up. “We have to go.” Leila’s voice is the quietest I’ve ever heard it. She catches my eye for only a second before assessing the burning room. “We have to go now, it’s our last chance.”
“You guys go,” I repeat. “I’m staying.”
“No, you’re not,” she and Zwe both say at the same time.
Anger overtakes the rest of my emotions. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I reply.
“Leila, knock her out again if you have to. Get her out of—” Zwe orders.
“Screw you!” I yell.
“Poe, we have to go! Now!” Leila says, then nods at her cousins. Faith and Garima start moving, but I dig in my heels. “Poe!” Leila repeats.
Zwe’s hands are curled into fists. “Listen to her!” he pleads. “You’re going to die!”
“Then I’ll die!” I cry. “I don’t want to do any of it without you anyway!”
Zwe looks like he’d knock me unconscious himself if I were close enough. He’s going to yell at me to leave until his dying breath, and I’m going to refuse until mine. Unstoppable force, immovable object.
