BROOKE
I squeeze my eyes shut as I hear the gun erupt and brace for the hot pain that’s about to flood my body. But after a moment, there’s nothing apart from a terrible ringing in my ears and the distant sounds of screams. I must be in shock, I realize—my body’s method of protecting me from Logan’s bullet.
The first thing I see when I lift my eyelids is the crumpled mass in front of me, dark liquid pooling around her. The blond hair, the skinny legs.
How did Cass get here? She was tied up over by the picnic table just moments before. But through the confusion, the thoughts come at me half-formed and abstract. Her untied legs. She must have run toward me when Logan raised the gun. The bullet hit her, not me.
And then I hear it. A wail, guttural and garbled, as if rising from the depths. I try to focus my blurred eyes, and when I finally do, I find its source. Logan, running directly at me.
I watch Greta try to stop him, but he easily breaks free from her grasp. Within seconds, he’s dropped to the ground, inches from Cass’s lifeless body. He pulls her head into his lap, heaving sobs shaking his entire body.
A red plume blossoms across Cass’s pink tank top, the rainwater blurring it at the edges like some grotesque watercolor painting. Her eyes stare up at the sky, registering nothing. Her chest is still.
At that moment, I know, just as Logan does, that Cass is gone. She threw herself in front of the bullet meant for me.
“It was for us. It was all for us,” he mumbles over and over into Cass’s ear.
And that’s when I finally feel the rope break free beneath my fingers. I shimmy my hands out of it, going to work on loosening the rope around my legs while everyone is distracted.
I need to get to Alani. To help her.
But before I can stand, Logan’s eyes shoot to me, as if he’s only just remembered that I’m here.
“You.”
Vines of emotion crawl around the word like ivy. The menace of it solidifies in my bones, nailing my feet to the muddied ground. One thought pierces my skull, a phrase my brain sounds out backward and forward in the split second it takes Logan to get to his feet.
The gun.
The thought ricochets through my brain. Logan still has the gun in his hands.
I’m running across the courtyard before he can raise it, and then I’m diving, flying through the air. As the pistol blasts so close to me that I can feel the vibration from the barrel, I fall to the ground behind the picnic table.
The bullet lands just to my left, exploding the mud around me like a firework.
I duck behind the table, bracing myself for him to fire again, but the gun is silent; all I hear are yells and groans.
When I open my eyes, the chaos in the courtyard pauses in freeze-frame. I see Logan with the gun, but it’s no longer pointed at me. And he’s not standing but lying in the mud, just meters away from his dead fiancée. I blink, forcing my eyes to come into focus.
When they do, I see a man standing over Logan. I take in his reddish hair, his freckled skin. I see the blood covering his hand, and that’s when I notice the small knife sticking from the side of Logan’s neck.
My brain registers it in flashes.
Neil stabbed Logan. To protect me.
I watch as Doug and Greta rush toward them, Greta dropping to the ground next to Logan, Doug attacking Neil, fists flying.
I want to do something to stop Doug. To protect Neil just like he did me. But I know it’s futile. I know I can’t fend off Doug, especially when he’s in such close proximity to the gun.
Instead, I run back to Alani, frantically trying to loosen the rope around her hands. Just as the knot comes free, I hear her scream.
“Brooke!” My name comes out garbled from her mouth, and when I lift my head to process why, I see Greta running toward us, her hair—almost white in the light—flying behind her, witchlike.
And then she’s on me. The force knocks me to the ground, the air exploding out of me, leaving me gasping. One of her hands is on my throat, crushing my esophagus, her face knotted in a purgatory between grief and rage. The other hand is pulled back, preparing to make contact with my cheek. She’s strong. But it’s a strength that’s built in studios, on cushy yoga mats. She’s never had to fight. She didn’t have one of her mother’s boyfriends teach her self-defense so that she wouldn’t keep getting the shit beaten out of her in junior high.
I did.
I manage to shift my head just in time for Greta’s fist to impact the mud next to me. The contact catches her off guard, and her hand unclenches from my throat for a moment, which is all I need.
I flip her easily and crawl atop her so that she’s pinned face down. I pull her wrists back behind her, securing them with my left hand, and I wrap my other hand around her hair. And then, as hard as I can, I shove her head down, as far as possible into the mud. And I hold it there. Just like she held Lucy’s head under the water.
Her body squirms and shudders beneath me, but I don’t let go. I grasp her hair tight in my hand, channeling all the anger that’s flooded my body for years. I don’t know how much time passes. Two seconds? Five? Ten? I imagine the dirt invading her mouth, clinging in clumps to her tongue. I picture her swallowing it, filling up her trachea like an earthy grave.
Time seems to stop at that moment. Nothing is real other than the feel of Greta’s hair wrapped around my fingers, everything else fading into a blur.
Until a sharp sound drags me back to reality.
The gunshot reverberates throughout the courtyard, the deafening blast turning my blood to concrete.
I whip my head toward the source of the sound, my fingers reflexively loosening around Greta’s hair. The next thing I see is blood. I didn’t think it was possible for there to be more. But now it’s coming from Neil’s leg, which he’s on the ground clutching.
“Get off her.”
Doug is mere feet from me. And in his hands is Logan’s gun.
He shot Neil.
And again, the gun is pointed at me, this time at close enough range to blow my head clean off my neck. I drop Greta, feeling her body clench beneath me as she lifts up, desperate for air. Slowly, I raise my dirt-encrusted hands above my head, facing toward Doug.
I surrender.
I look to Neil, who’s still on the ground. His one free hand—the one not clutched around his wounded leg—is also raised.
“Get on the ground,” Doug commands. “You too.” He nods toward Alani.
And I know it’s over. For real this time.
I drop, my knees hitting the ground with a wet thwomp. The sound of defeat. I hear Alani do the same, joining Neil and me in the mud, a trio of victims lined up before the firing squad.
I try to prepare myself again for what’s coming. Scenes from the last few weeks flash before my eyes. I expect them to be filled with anger, the rage that’s been following me for the last three years. But to my surprise, I see Cass. My arm wrapped around her on the summit of Khrum Yai. And Neil and me laughing into our drinks in the Tiki Palms.
“Drop it!”
This time, I’m sure it’s a voice I don’t recognize. My eyes flick back and forth, ultimately realizing the command didn’t come from any of us.
“Drop the gun, now!”
I watch the indecision play out on Doug’s face as he weighs his options. I’m too nervous to risk taking my eyes off him for the second it will take to identify the source of the voice.
After an interminable pause, Doug obeys, bending down to deposit the gun in the mud. Within seconds, a swarm of black is on him and Greta. I register the uniforms, so much more official than the Koh Sang police, the guns in their hands, other weapons holstered to their waistbands.
Who are these men? How did they know we were here? Can they really be on our side?
But none of the answers matter as much as the man to my left. I crawl the few meters to Neil, pressing my hands over the wound in his leg. He’s clearly in pain but still coherent. I position my mouth near his face, close enough for him to hear me over the chaos around us.
“You saved me,” I say.