He’s so uncomfortable that what I said hasn’t registered with him. He’s trying hard to keep eye contact but hands over the pack.
“Hold on, now.” Harvey points the rifle right at me as I drop to a knee and unzip the pack.
I put my left hand into the air but my right one is still in the pack digging around.
Harvey doesn’t move toward me but he also doesn’t point the weapon away.
“Get your hand out of there,” he says. “Now.”
I take out a T-shirt and slowly pull it over my head. “Just trying to get decent, man,” I say. I hope they don’t think it’s strange I’m putting on new clothes instead of the ones scattered along our path from the road. My hand goes back into the pack, trying to find the gun, but it’s probably all the way down at the bottom.
“Walt!” Harvey looks over to Walt as he points his gun at Andrew, and I freeze. There’s cool gunmetal at my fingertips but I don’t move. Andrew locks eyes with me, the water still up to his chest.
“Get your hand out of the pack,” Harvey says. Then he lowers his voice. “Or my friend shoots your...friend.”He saysfriendlike it’s a dirty word, and I know exactly what’s going to happen.
I don’t need to imagine much longer because Harvey leans down to me and whispers something in my ear that proves my theory. He wears a disgusting yellow smile as he says it.
“I’ll have him shoot your littlefriendin the leg. I won’t kill himfast, but I’ll kill him first. And you get to watch. How’s that sound?Friend?”
Something in my stomach knots and all I can do is will my body not to shake with fear. I remember Andrew’s screams of pain when he tried to stand on his broken leg. I never want to hear him make that sound again. I’ll gladly die before that happens. I pull the gun and close my hand around it. I feel for the safety and flick it off.
“All right,” I say. “I’m going to move slowly. There’s no reason to do anything rash. You have the weapons.”
Andrew stands up from the water and raises his hands. I watch as Walt looks at the sky, away from Andrew’s nakedness.
Now.
A lot happens at once. I stand and point the gun at Walt’s belly and pull the trigger. The bang is loud on the silent riverbank. Not watching to see if it hit Walt, I turn on Harvey.
He raises the rifle to my chest and the trigger clicks on an empty chamber. Harvey has barely a second to realize his mistake before I put our gun to his yellow grin—which drops slowly in surprise—and pull the trigger.
Blood spatters my face and the world speeds up again. Harvey is dead on the ground. Next to him Walt is screaming and clutching his side with both his hands. There’s a weapon next to him and I kick it away.
Andrew.
I run to the water and he’s still standing there, naked, his eyes wide with fear. “Are you hit?” I ask, frantic. I can’t be sure if Walt managed to pull the trigger before I shot him.
Andrew doesn’t answer and I’m forced to scan his body for a bullet wound. It’s the first time I actually look at his body—focusing my eyes on every inch of him—and I hate Harvey and Walt for this moment. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
I reach for his shoulder. “Andrew, are you okay?”
“Yes,” he says. He finally looks at me. “Are you?”
“I’m fine.”
He motions to his face with a shaking hand. “There’s... blood.” I see it on my hands and they’re shaking, too. I hand him the gun and dip my hands into the river, splashing my face.
I want Harvey’s blood off me.
“Jamie, he’s running.” Andrew points.
I turn and Walt is limping back the way he came, screaming and crying and leaving a trail of blood against the tall grass.
I take the gun from Andrew and aim. It feels so much heavier and my hands are still shaking.
I don’t shoot. Walt disappears into the trees and he’s gone. Then I look down at Harvey’s mutilated face and see exactly what just happened.
I’ve killed someone. Walt had the gun on Andrew and I knew what they were planning to do.
