Before he can walk to the deeper waters, I get a hold of his face and kiss him deeply. He leans into my touch.
Griffin is still holding back, fearful of what’s between us. I am too. But I’m willing to risk the fall just to enjoy the view a little while longer. Life is too short.
“Be careful,” I whisper close to his lips.
“I’ll be fine. You should get back to theBeetle.”
“In a moment,” I say.
And he’s off. I watch him dive between the black rocks and disappear underwater. The floating box follows him from the surface, attached by a rope to his waist. That’s where he’ll put the fish he catches.
He wasn’t lying; he’s a good swimmer. And soon, the box is but a dot on the horizon.
I can’t remember the last time I had fish from the sea. I often eat some from rivers, but they don’t taste the same.
I find my way to the giant rock on the beach. It’ll offer me the perfect view of the sunset. Steps have been carved into the stone all around it. I face the sun and watch it slowly disappear into the ocean. The sky is dressed in its best colors. Red, orange, and pink. For this briefest moment in my life, I’m truly happy. Life isn’t reduced to a race for survival. Griffin will come back from his fishing excursion, and we’ll clean the fish, then cook them. My belly will be full, and my heart will be content. And maybe tonight I’ll finally convince him to sleep by my side. All I want is to fall asleep in his arms, warm and safe. I don’t want to think about Washington and our eventual parting.
As the last rays of sun are swallowed by the sea, I make my way down the stone steps. Griffin still hasn’t come back, but I can wait for him on the sand. I’d rather not break my neck in the dark.
As I walk around the rock, I stop abruptly when I notice a motorboat on the beach. It wasn’t there earlier. Three men surround my shoes. They’re standing between me and theBeetle. I make a quick decision and run to the water. They give chase. I have to swim to Griffin. I’m not scared of the depths anymore, as long as they get me closer to Griffin.
I’m a fast runner, but I’m not very tall, and the water slows me down. The bigger man of the three gets a hold of my hoodie. The butterfly knife I put in my pocket before leaving theBeetleis already in my hand. I cut the man deep in one of his arms. He swears and pushes me underwater. My face scrapes the sand, and I swallow salt water. He holds me down, trying to drown me.
Not like this, I think.Not now.
Griffin will come back to the beach and find my corpse floating in the shallows like a dead fish. I don’t know what it’ll do to him to lose me. We didn’t get enough time together to figure it out.
Instead of fighting my attacker, I look for the knife with my hands while he buries my face in the sand. I find it miraculously and stab the man five times in the belly and between the ribs until he finally lets me go. I jump away and vomit salt water.
The man is on his knees. He doesn’t look much older than me, with a buzzed head and crooked nose. He curses one last time before falling head-first into the water.
But my respite is short-lived. The two other strangers rush at me together and kick my knife away. The strongest one, a black man with a beard, pulls out his own army knife. The kind that can slice someone’s throat in one swift motion. And for a heartbeat, this is what he’s about to do, but his friend, an older white guy, stops him.
“Don’t! He’s a blondie!” he says.
“That fucker killed James!”
“I know. But let’s be honest, who the fuck cared about James?”
The black man lowers his knife, but keeps it pointed at me. “Are you sure he’s blonde?”
“Are you?” the other one asks me directly.
It’s dark and my hair is wet.
“Yeah…” I breathe out. My throat burns from all the salt water I swallowed.
If the color of my hair keeps me alive, so be it.
“He’ll fetch a good price. Let’s take him.”
So they are part of the slave trade. They are the plague invading the land, snatching poor souls. They must have come to the beach when they noticed my shoes and Griffin’s bag. With the waves crashing on the rocks, I didn’t hear them.
They walk me to the motorboat and throw me inside just as theBeetleappears over the broken houses beyond the beach.
“What the fuck is that?” screams the younger guy.
“Let’s not find out!”
