by Alexis Bass
He’s hard to spot at first, popping in and out of view, sprinting quickly through the greenery—or trying to. He’s limping, but still moving fast. He’s tall and dressed all in black, covered in dirt. There is mud streaked across his face, but I think he looks about my age. As he gets closer, I can hear his rapid breathing louder than the sound of his feet pounding into the ground, his leg dragging. He falls against a tree, either trying for a rest or because he can’t make it any farther on his bad leg. That’s when he sees me. His eyes widen. For a second, we stand there staring at each other from across the expanse of wilderness.
I wait, gauging whether my presence is a good or a bad thing to him.
Maybe I should run. What is he running from? But he’s already seen me. And he doesn’t seem dangerous. He looks hurt and terrified.
“Do you need help?” I call.
He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but he’s still breathing too hard to speak. There’s something in his face—an expression of despair—that makes me start toward him. He shakes his head, but I keep walking. For a second, when he sees I’m not going to turn away despite his insistence, I see the crack in his fear, and relief passes over his face, like he is letting in the smallest dose of hope, and I know helping him is the right thing to do.
But then I hear the other noises: a whole chorus of stampeding feet. The boy glances quickly over his shoulder. His eyes scan the trees, like they are searching for somewhere else to go, somewhere else to hide. I can see silhouettes in the distance, darting between the trees, coming toward us. Three, four, maybe five people—all guys, judging by the sound of their yelling, though I can’t make out what they’re saying.
I’m still standing in front of the boy, listening to the voices getting closer, watching him grow tense as he hears them, too. Maybe right now I should be tearing out of here and hiding, getting far, far away from the middle of the island.
He speaks. “Will you help me get behind that rock?” His voice is hoarse and struggling. He nods at a moss-covered boulder coming off a small creek about three yards away. “Please,” he says when I glance behind me. If I ran, where would I go? And the boy is desperate. Now that I’m close enough to him, I can see that there is not only mud on his face, there is also blood.
“Yes,” I say, because my heart is racing and I’m afraid in that compulsive-glorious way I’m accustomed to.
Without hesitation and without warning, he throws his arm around my shoulders. “Go, go!” he whispers as we slide over the slick wet ground of moss and leaves and mud and pebbles.
He’s heavy, and his left foot drags. I can feel his heart beating quickly, and soon my heart rate matches, and I’m out of breath, too. We fall when we get to the rock. He scrambles to press his back against the cold stone, drawing his legs up in front of his chest so every part of him is as close to the rock as possible. I follow suit, getting in the same position, and he reaches out, pulling me in so I’m right up next to him.
“Shh,” he says.
This time, I feel it all over. Vivid and enraged fear. The kind of fear that starts in my toes and makes my heart beat quickly and turns me into someone with no limits by the time it reaches my brain.
The footsteps are louder now, the voices clearer. These are not boys. They are men.
“Finn!” they shout. “Finn, we know you’re out there!”
I glance at him, and as if he knows I’m about to ask if he is Finn, he puts a finger to his lips, signaling me to stay silent.
“Maybe we can still work something out.” Their voices are scattered.
“That’s all we wanted, man. To make a deal.”
“It doesn’t end this way, and you know it.”
They laugh, but there is anger, frustration, and wickedness in their low chuckles.
The boy—Finn—is trembling. He brings a shaky hand to his lips again. He does not seem to trust me, even though I haven’t made a sound. Even though I helped him.
The voices are spreading out and getting closer. They aren’t shouting to Finn anymore; now they speak to each other.
“He could barely walk; he’s here somewhere.” This, to the left of us.
“How’s your neck, Archaletta?” This, to the right.
“How the hell do you think it is?” The voice that says this is weak and nearby. “I can’t believe that motherfucker stabbed me.”
“Maybe he made it to the shore, after all.”
“He wouldn’t risk being seen.”
The voices are closing in on us. They are going to find us. The boy knows it, too. He hugs himself tighter, looking to the sky like he is begging for mercy, pinching his eyes shut, then letting them fly open, like he is too afraid to be in the dark.
Even though I am scared, even though we are surrounded, I am not petrified by fear. I never am—not for long anyway. My adrenaline gets going, and my brain starts working, analyzing the situation, and then all of a sudden, I see the way out so clearly. For the handful of things I got caught doing, there was an armful of things no one ever found out about. And I have an idea now that might save us. Maybe they will only want the boy. There is a chance I could be collateral damage. In my experience, there are almost always casualties of some sort. But taking the risk—it’s better than squatting here waiting for them to find us.
I feel around in front of me for a stick or something sharp and find a small jagged rock with a rough edge. It will work. Beside me, Finn is shaking his head—he doesn’t know what I’m up to, and he doesn’t like it. I ignore him. I drag the pointed edge of the rock across the side of my wrist. The skin breaks, and blood oozes out of my arm and drips down my hand, but I’m a pro at stifling pain, keeping it quiet.
Finn’s mouth hangs open. I hear him whisper, “Don’t!” as I dart out from behind the rock. My shoes slide over the slick ground, but I’m careful. I am confident none of the surrounding men hear me. And they will not see me until … now, when I am crouched in position by the side of the creek, pretending to clean my wound.
“Hey, what’s that—there?” A man a few feet directly in front of me wearing a red hat points. The others gather quickly, and I scramble up as though I’m startled to see them.
There are three of them. They all look as though they’re in their midtwenties, maybe. They have gruff faces and stern eyes. Like Finn, they are dirt-covered, blood-covered. One of them is badly injured. His shirt is off and tied blood-soaked around his shoulder and neck in a makeshift bandage.
I act like I’m surprised and frightened by their presence. Really, I am roused by it. I can feel my blood pumping furiously through my body. It’s like that time I was fourteen and floating down the river, and I jumped off my tube with the older kids, the ones who drove us there. I climbed the hot rocks and stood on the ledge, about to jump off the twenty-foot cliff as all those eyes from the water down below stared up at me, and I had no idea if the water was deep enough or if anyone had ever been hurt before. But the older kids were doing it, and I desperately wanted to feel what it was like to drop through the air, even if I was so afraid of the landing. And when I pushed off and felt the wind in my hair, I knew that it’d been worth it.
The one in the red hat puts his hands out in front of him, motioning for me to calm down, as though he’s anticipating that I’m going to scream. Now that I see how skittish he is, my fear starts to disappear and is replaced with confidence that I’ll be able to tell them whatever I want, and they’ll believe me.
“What are you doing all the way out here by yourself?” His voice is fake and pushy and degrading, like he’s scolding a puppy. His face registers irritation as soon as he hears himself. I recoil accordingly.
“Jesus,” the one with the apparent stab wound mutters—Archaletta, that’s what they called him before. He has crystal-clear blue eyes, made drastic against his dark hair.
“Do you need help?” the one in the red hat says, using his real voice this time, annoyed, but genuine. He nods at my hand, dripping with blood.
&nbs
p; I respond by looking pointedly at them and all their obvious wounds.
The one in the red hat nods, still irritated. “Don’t you worry about us, we’re fine.”
“Just a minor accident,” the shortest one says.
Archaletta mutters, “Yeah, right,” as he adjusts his makeshift bandage.
“I got lost,” I say, keeping my voice tentative. “And I fell.” I hold my wound close to my body. “I was trying to rinse the dirt out.” They all look to the creek I’m standing by.
The shortest of the group shakes his head. “Damn, sweetheart, you gotta be careful.”
“Listen, through those trees, straight ahead this way.” The one in the red hat motions to the right, the direction I came from when I left the New Browns. “That’s the fastest way to the shore. Someone can help you there.”
I nod, clutching my wrist. “Okay, thanks.” But I am slow as I move across the creek, eyeing them warily. Really, I’m waiting. If they are really serious about finding Finn, I’m sure they are dying to ask me what I’ve seen, who I’ve seen, being the only other person out here.
“Hey.” It’s Archaletta that breaks. “You didn’t happen to see another guy—brown hair, messy like us, younger, tall … you didn’t see him come through here, did you?”
“We’re looking for our buddy,” adds the shortest.
The one in the red hat shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips, looking away. I think he must know it was a bad idea to ask me. I bite my lower lip and wait a second so it seems like I’m taking great care in my decision to answer. I tell them, “I hid from him.” I look to the ground, as though I’m ashamed. “He was … limping or something.”
“Yeah,” the short one says. “We veered off trail, it’s pretty rough and—”
I’m still playing scared with my eyes locked on the ground, so I can’t see who’s cut him off, though my guess would be the one in the red hat. I glance up when I hear footsteps, indicating one of them is moving toward me.
“Did you see which way he went?” Archaletta says, eyes sincere, and he takes another step closer. He’s close enough to touch me, and he does it. I tense, but he still puts his hand on my shoulder, lifting my hair back, exposing the dirt smeared there from helping Finn.
I wince a little, not too overdramatic, though I can see the one in the red hat cursing at the sky under his breath for the way Archaletta is interacting with me. An injury is the best guise—something I learned was a good antidote for getting out of trouble. The time I was caught trying to steal the test key off my teacher’s computer? A few tears and a bruise across the collarbone made them forget they might’ve seen me pull a flash drive from the laptop. This is the rule: make them think you are fragile; even better if they feel sorry for you. It’s an exposed weakness to hide an inner strength. It’s why I knew I had to cut myself before I could talk to them. It’s what’s making Archaletta so brazen now, in the way he’s speaking to me, touching me.
Again, I take my time before nodding. I point in the direction they already seemed to be going anyway. Past the rock and away from Finn hiding behind it. Their eyes are scanning the trees; they’re telling one another, “He probably thought he’d be secure by the waterfall,” and “Maybe there’s an outlet we don’t know about.”
“Thank you,” Archaletta says, nodding at me.
They are quick to be on their way, but the one in the red hat stops.
“Why didn’t you try to hide from us?” he asks.
“There were too many of you,” I say. I shift my arm to remind him of the reason I was out in the open in the first place. It’s a good excuse.
Archaletta and the shorter one appear to be satisfied immediately with this answer, not really giving me another glance. But the one in the red hat furrows his brow and opens his mouth slightly, like maybe he has more questions. I shudder and clutch my arm. It works. He does not like that I am easily spooked. He can sense that I am unpredictable even if he doesn’t trust that my fear is real.
I start moving as soon as they do. They head straight; I go to the right. They move quickly, and so do I. When I can no longer hear them or see them, I slow down. I turn around to go back for Finn. Because if it were me, I’d want someone to come back for me. I’m still in escape mode, adrenaline pumping. I don’t know if we have much time before they come back this way to look for him.
“Over here.” This voice is too hoarse and rough to be from one of the men, but it still startles me. Finn is a few feet away, leaning against a tree, no longer by the rock. He is motioning with filthy hands for me to come over.
I rush over to him, my blood still surging, my hands completely steady, and help his arm around my neck. “That way,” he says, and I stop. He’s pointing in the same direction that I told Archaletta and the others to go to look for him.
“It’s okay,” he says in my ear. “There is an outlet they don’t know about.”
Chapter 6
We move through the trees, hobbling over the wet dirt. I try to listen for the sound of the ocean getting closer, but I can’t hear anything above our ragged breathing and the sound of my heart beating in my ears. All I can smell is salt and steel and soil. We are fleeing through the enshrouded part of an island, but I could be careening out the back door of a party about to be broken up by the police, or climbing out of my bedroom window in the middle of the night—the feeling is the same. Like I’m escaping so much more than the people who might stop me, like I am setting myself free.
“Not much farther,” Finn promises.
Soon, he directs us through a curtain of vines and bushy plants, and we practically fall into a small pool of water. We are up to our hips in ocean water, surrounded on one side by a rocky wall with water sliding down it, but not with enough force to make a real waterfall. On the other side is thick vegetation. Short and stalky trees and overgrown brush. There is a black, pointy speedboat anchored in the water, half-covered by the overgrown shrubbery and vines.
I think I hear Finn say, “We made it.”
He lets go of me to fling himself farther into the water, bobbing under and emerging through a cloud of dirt and blood. I wash myself off, too, cleaning away the remaining blood on my wrist and letting the water rinse away the traces of mud Finn left stamped across my arm and around my neck.
“Holy shit,” I say, bending forward to catch my breath, letting the relief flood over me, those tingles of excitement hitting me like needle pricks all over my skin.
Finn smiles at me. For the first time, a real smile, and I get it—danger, escape, it’s best when it’s shared with someone else. Partner in crime is a saying for a reason. And sometimes, even if you are still scared, when your mind knows you’ve won, your mouth automatically responds.
“What was that all about?” I ask. “Who were those guys?”
Finn glances at me over his shoulder as he grabs the rope bobbing in the water and attempts to tug the boat loose from the branches. On his first try, he topples over, like he can’t quite stay balanced on one foot to use enough strength to move the boat. He’s a little more successful the next time he pulls on the rope, and even more successful the third time, when I help him. The boat glides toward us, coming out from under all the debris.
He pulls himself up on the edge. Without proper use of his left foot, he ungracefully falls in. He pops up quickly.
I wade out to the boat, where the water comes up almost to my shoulders, get a grip on the edge, and throw myself in, too.
“Come on,” I say. I nod toward the steering wheel, keys missing from the ignition.
“Oh,” he says after a moment, when he realizes I’m waiting for an answer. “I can’t go anywhere yet. They might circle the island before they take off. I’m going to wait them out. When I’m sure they’re gone, then I’ll leave.”
This is, as it seems, the worst plan I have ever heard.
“But what if they find you while you’re ‘waiting it out’?”
“They won’t.” He peels off
his wet shirt and grabs a water bottle from a cooler on the boat. He tosses a bottle to me, then takes one for himself. I can’t help but stare as he leans against the edge, tilting his head, drinking as fast as he can, as the sun makes the water droplets clinging to his skin shimmer. There are cuts on his side, a few bruises on his shoulders and by his neck, and his foot is swollen and bleeding below the ankle. There is a dark bruise under his eye, covering most of his left cheek, shading the side of his nose. The image I get is one of Finn being held down by his neck and shoulders, getting punched in the face. I still notice that he is beautiful.
Finn finishes off his water and lets the empty bottle fall to the floor as he grabs another. He looks up, asking if I want more, but I’ve been too busy staring and have barely taken a sip, so I shake my head.
“But how can you be sure?” I say. He slowly looks me over. I wonder if he’s questioning why tricking people came so easily to me and if he can sense that what happened gave me a kind of rush; if he looks at me and sees a junkie, grateful for this hit of adrenaline, drawn to this kind of danger, and high off the escape.
“Because they don’t know the island,” he finally says. “They won’t know where to search—they definitely won’t know to look here. This is the kind of place you have to know to look for.”
The characteristics of a perfect hiding spot, I think—I’ll give him that. My perfect hiding spot back home was the front seat of my dad’s car when it was parked in the garage. The only place in the house where I couldn’t hear them yelling at each other. And when I went missing, when I was in trouble, my parents always called my phone, sent a million texts; never truly tried looking for me. They gave up after not finding me in my room. They would never suspect I was so close.
“How will you know when they’re gone?”
He shrugs. I can see a little bit of hope slip from his expression. Good. He’s starting to understand.
“This is a terrible idea, even with the perfect hiding spot,” I say to make sure he knows. There was something determined about those men, and they were angry.