by Alice Reeds
Someone next to us coughed. A man in a dark uniform. The word “security” was stitched above his breast pocket.
“If you could follow me, please,” he said, his voice heavy and deep. He was tall, taller than Miles even, his shoulders broad and his body seemingly made of bulky muscles and nothing else. I was almost sure he could crack open my skull with his bare hands. Even with my years of fighting experience, I definitely stood no chance against him.
Afraid to argue with him, we stayed silent and did as we were told. In a way, I was surprised by Miles’s compliance. Usually he was the first to ask questions and demand explanation. Maybe he was just as taken aback by the whole thing as I was. I held my bag closer to my body as we walked away from the counters, away from the masses of faceless tourists and business people waiting for their flights. The man opened a door in front of us and motioned for us to walk in. The words Staff Only were written in bold black letters on the door.
The hallway was completely nondescript—white walls, white floor, and a couple of doors, also white, along the walls. There were no windows, though there were CCTV cameras hanging on the ceiling at regular intervals. My skin was crawling at the mere thought of people watching us, tracing our every step, analyzing. A shiver ran down my spine, and I wrapped my arms around my body. Everything about this situation seemed off. I wasn’t a stranger to being watched, to having pictures taken of me, or people analyzing my footwork and technique, but this didn’t feel right, felt off and bad in every way I could think of. Completely wrong.
He opened another door and led us into a characterless room furnished with a couple of chairs on one side, a window on the wall opposite to us, and another room behind it with a desk and a guard. It reminded me of interrogation rooms I’d seen in TV shows, though it was too big, and the window wasn’t a one-way mirror. And we hadn’t done anything.
“Sit down. Someone will come and talk to you in a moment,” Mr. Bulky Muscles said, and then he left and closed the door behind him with a click.
I looked at Miles. He shrugged and seemed as confused as I felt. The guard on the other side of the window glanced at us as if to make sure we weren’t up to no good, like setting the chairs on fire, trying to kill each other, or plotting how to kill him.
No one came, no one told us why we’d been pulled aside at all, let alone why we’d been placed in this room and treated like criminals. We had done nothing wrong. We hadn’t screamed at the guy behind the counter, we’d merely asked for tickets home, and as far as I knew, having your card declined wasn’t a crime. They couldn’t think that Miles stole it, could they? His name was on it, matched his ID and passport. Maybe this was all just some kind of misunderstanding?
The door finally opened, and a different security guy came inside.
“Hello,” he said and came to a halt in front of us. His expression was blank, his eyes dark brown, and his hair shaved short. “I am sure you have many questions. For now, I cannot answer them, but I need you to give me your passports. We just need them for a checkup, nothing bad, everything is okay. I will give them right back to you once we are done.”
What was wrong with these people? They weren’t willing to tell us what was going on but made demands? They asked us for the only thing that we definitely couldn’t give away? This was crazy.
“What kind of checkup? What did we do?” Miles’s voice might have seemed normal to someone who didn’t know him, but I knew he was trying to keep it together. I’d heard him use it once before, when he’d defended one of his rich buddies against a teacher. Apparently the teacher hadn’t been fair toward his buddy, and Miles wasn’t having any of it.
I’d just waited for him to say something that would cross a line with the teacher so he’d get detention, but it unfortunately hadn’t happened. Because people like him never got detention.
“You’ve done nothing wrong. As I’ve said, this is merely a routine checkup,” he assured us. Like this was normal. Except nothing that had happened since we’d landed in this damn city was normal.
The guy didn’t say more, just stood there and looked at us expectantly, his hand stretched out, palm up. Reluctantly, we reached for our passports. I looked at mine for a moment before giving it to him, scared that this was an awful mistake, but it wasn’t like we actually had a choice.
With our passports, he turned around and left. We were alone once more under the watchful eyes of the guy next door and the CCTV cameras. Worried, and a tiny bit panicked, I looked around for something to occupy my mind. I started to count the chairs.
One…two…three…
There were seven of them in total, which was a useless piece of information. Next, I looked at the ceiling above us, counted the tiles and then the lamps until there was nothing left to count, and I felt not even a tiny bit less anxious and confused. Even waiting for my turn at competitions, local or State, felt less nerve-racking than this.
Miles pulled out his phone but then put it away quickly. I guessed there was no signal in the room. One of the ceiling lamps started to flicker every once in a while.
For some reason, this reminded me of the first time I’d waited outside the principal’s office while he talked to my parents. The school bully had taken it upon himself to bully a new freshman, a girl who looked scared and hid her head, like she just wanted it to be over. My old kickboxing teacher had taught me that we learned how to fight so that we wouldn’t have to, but what about the people who couldn’t stand up for themselves?
So yes. I’d told the bully to back off. And yes, when he took a swing at me, I put him on the ground. I’d been bullied plenty of times. And maybe I wasn’t strong enough to save myself back then, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let someone else suffer the same fate.
With a huff I got up from my chair and walked around in circles, my mind buzzing, until I suddenly stopped again, a switch turning on a light in my mind.
“I am done with this nonsense,” I announced with clenched fists. My voice was drenched in anger. I usually wasn’t the type to stand up like this against authority, especially male authority, but even I had limits, and this had crossed all lines. We were already screwed, it couldn’t get any worse, so whatever. I pushed my fears aside, pulled myself together like my father always said I was supposed to do, and decided that I didn’t feel like being meek anymore. We weren’t just some pawns for these people to play with. “I have no idea what game they think they’re playing, but I’m done with it.” My voice echoed off of the walls. I walked closer to the window, looked at the guy in the other room, who very pointedly ignored me, and yelled: “Hey, asshole, we demand answers, immediately. You can’t do this. We have a right to know why we are here!”
“Fiona, calm down,” Miles said behind me, then got up from his chair and took a step toward me. The conflict on his face and in his voice was clear, like he was torn between agreeing and disagreeing. Normally he was the one who’d have acted the way I did, so why didn’t he now? “You’ll only make things worse.”
“Worse? How could any of it be worse?”
“Screaming won’t help us, either. It’ll just get us into more trouble.”
“Maybe it will, but maybe then they’ll actually explain this to us and not just treat us like we’re a couple of kids needing a time out!”
Looking at him, I wanted to ask him what his problem was, why he was acting this way, why he wasn’t as upset by all of this as I was, why he didn’t show it. All I could see was confusion—whether at the way I behaved or our general situation, I didn’t know—but it wasn’t the expression I hoped to see.
Did that mean he was pretending, that maybe somehow this was part of a grander plan, him pretending to be complacent so they could take away my passport, take away the thing I needed to board any plane or train or boat or whatever? Or was his reaction genuine? Did he really not know how to handle this situation, was the confusion real, was he really afraid of getting into even more trouble than this? I didn’t know, desperately wanted the
answer to be the latter option, wanted him to just, for once, be feeling the way I usually did when standing at the crossroad between opposing authority and hoping it would all pass and go away if I cooperated, did as I was told.
“What do you suggest?” he asked, surprising me. I turned and looked at him, my brain experiencing some form of whiplash from his sudden change of heart.
“We should trick them.”
“And why and how, exactly, would we do that without getting into trouble?”
“Doesn’t really look like they’ll just let us go easily, even if I don’t understand what their problem is, so our only option is tricking our way out of this situation so we can escape.” He didn’t seem quite convinced by my suggestion, and raised a questioning brow. “You made me follow your crazy plan at the first hotel. Now you’ll have to trust me. It’ll be easy. All you have to do is pretend to faint and voila.”
It was a stupid idea, I was aware of it, the likeliness of it actually working abysmal. I was sure these people dealt with actual criminals and people causing trouble on a daily basis, so probably no trick we’d come up with would be something they hadn’t dealt with before. But we had to try, right?
“Let’s do it.”
Just as instructed, Miles pretended to faint somewhere behind me, while I banged my fist against the glass. Once, twice. “Help,” I yelled, again and again, feeling more and more stupid with each time. The plan was stupid as hell, but this was what we had, our only chance to get out relying on them buying the act and only one guy coming to check on us. “We need help,” I repeated. For a while, the guy behind the glass didn’t do anything, didn’t even look in our direction, as if he couldn’t hear the banging and my yelling. But then, suddenly, he got up and walked out of his room.
“What are you doing?” he asked, standing in the door, his expression stoic, authoritative, channeling just how much he was above us, how much power he had, and how much he didn’t care about what was happening.
“He just fainted. You have to help him,” I said, walking up to him and trying to sound panicked, worried, convincing enough. For a moment the man didn’t move, just stood there looking at me and then across the room at Miles. “Please,” I begged.
Gears turned in his eyes as he tried to decide if helping us was worth it, if he even believed that Miles actually needed help. I held my breath, tried to stay calm no matter what, and repeated let this work over and over in my mind.
I was the distraction last time, Miles this time. But this would get us into exponentially more trouble if it didn’t work out.
Finally, he moved, let go of the door and started walking toward Miles. Slowly the door fell closed behind him, so I advanced and caught it before it could click shut again, held it open, watched the man walk around the chairs from the right. Good. Miles had strategically chosen a place behind the chairs with only two ways leading around it and none straight through.
“Run!” I shouted just as the guy was a handful of feet away from Miles, the distance hopefully giving Miles enough time.
On command, Miles got to his feet and circled the chairs the other way, toward me. The security guy started yelling, telling us to stop right there, cursing in German, running after Miles, but he wasn’t quick enough.
I ripped open the door far enough for us to slip through and waited for Miles to make it out into the hallway before pulling the door shut, hoping to buy us a few seconds, however long it would take the guy to unlock the door. I hoped he hadn’t alerted his friends yet, that we would make it, that we hadn’t pulled that stunt for nothing.
To my surprise, taking me completely aback, Miles took my hand and pulled. I tried my best to ignore how my heart skipped a beat, my mind zeroed in on that point of contact for just a moment, and a strange electric current raced through me, warm and nice. Now wasn’t the time for this.
Together we ran down the hallways and crashed through a door, back into the public part of the airport. We continued out of the building as fast as we could, as if a pack of rabid, bloodthirsty dogs were chasing after us. A few times I looked behind us, checking if they were following, but didn’t see anyone. That, of course, didn’t mean they wouldn’t catch up in seconds, other security guards possibly appearing just around the next corner, alerted by the one we’d shut in.
We reached the bus stop just as a bus pulled into it. We didn’t check if it was the one that would get us back to the motel, we just jumped in and sat down all the way in the back. Miles didn’t let go of my hand, as if he was looking for security in it, as if it was the only thing keeping him sane. Maybe he was the only thing keeping me sane, too.
Without exchanging a single word, we made it back to the motel, skipped the elevator, and raced up the stairs, taking two at a time. It was only when we reached our room that Miles let go of my hand. I closed the door behind us, leaned against it, and slowly sank down onto the floor.
I rested my head against the door, my mind a stormy mess that couldn’t be tamed by anything I did, or anything I tried to think of. Everything got sucked into this hurricane that left nothing but horror behind, devastated landscapes and broken homes.
Miles walked in circles, as much as that was even possible in this small room, while I just tried to not fall apart. As I looked up at him, realization slowly hit me, crept up on me. No matter how much I tried to fight it, hold on to what Joe said, the warning he’d given me, a subconscious part of me knew that all the hate I felt for Miles, all the distrust I accumulated across the years, that it was all slowly falling apart and away, like paint being chipped away over time. I didn’t want it to happen, didn’t know if I could trust my gut feeling, could trust him. But I also knew I didn’t think of him the way I used to anymore.
Miles had so many chances to throw me under the bus, leave me behind, reveal himself as the bad guy, but he hadn’t. Instead he helped me, us, every time. And sure, he could’ve feigned surprise at the Briola HQ being nothing but shambles, or only said that his father didn’t pick up, but everything else? I simply couldn’t imagine how the airport thing could’ve just been some elaborately planned stunt. I could see how torn he’d been when I suggested my plan, and even if he could act well, everything he’d done, his reactions and words, it all seemed too genuine. Besides, he didn’t have to, but ultimately, he trusted me, went along with my plan.
No matter how I looked at everything that happened, no matter how much I tried to find explanations, even the dumbest ones I could think of, none of it made sense. I had to admit the one single truth I couldn’t pretend wasn’t there: I was at wits’ end, easy as that. I was out of tricks, arguments, ideas, energy, everything and anything.
I had to tell him.
Chapter Thirteen
The Island
“Let’s avoid the beast’s territory.”
That seemed like a good idea, a great one, but I quickly realized that it was hard to avoid something when you had no idea where that something actually was. We knew the beast guarded an area around the crashed front of the plane but didn’t know how far it reached.
Exploring the jungle, seeing what else there was, if anything at all, was our objective for the day. It was a good plan, something that needed to be done, but it didn’t make it any less scary. Not necessarily because of the beast, but rather because of what it would mean if this really was an island, if we ended up not finding anything at all. What would we do then? Or what if we stumbled upon whoever put us on the island?
I pushed that thought aside. I’d worry about that once the moment came, though I wished it simply wouldn’t. Hopefully coming across food wouldn’t be an issue. If we’d found bananas yesterday, chances were we’d be able to do it again, and who knew what other fruit we might find.
Anxious energy circulated through my entire body the farther we went. We were relatively lucky so far, but who knew how much longer things would stay that way? My hands trembled, my heart beating faster than it should, my breathing shakier than I wanted it to be. I tr
ied to push all of that aside, focus on the path ahead of us instead.
“How about we play a game to pass the time?” Miles asked.
I raised a questioning eyebrow. “A game?”
“Yes, a game. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s all too healthy to think about the million ways we might die.”
For a moment I stared at him, baffled by his words, which carried way too much truth for my liking. “Are you afraid?”
“As if you’re not.”
“I’m fine.” And I totally was fine, even if his serious side-eye told me he didn’t believe me. He didn’t have to. He’d admitted he was afraid. Miles Echo. I always thought it’d be reassuring to know that despite his wealth and high-end clothing, he was just as human as everybody else. My father would’ve said he was weak. Yet I thought it was kind of nice, seeing this raw side of him without any of his usual theatrics and swagger.
“What kind of game?” I said.
“Ever heard of favorite five things?”
“Favorite car, color, animal, body part, and time.” I smirked. I didn’t have many friends at school. I’d always been an outsider. First the poor girl. Then the kickboxer. Always the weird girl. But the few friends I did have, like Melany, were friends for life. We’d played our own version of this game.
“Audi, green, dog, boobs, and two p.m.,” Miles answered, and looked at me from the corner of his eye while he said the body part. I was so not surprised, and I rolled my eyes and shook my head. What an idiot.
“I don’t care about cars, prefer motorbikes, blue, cat, eyes, and three thirty-three a.m.” Carefully I sidestepped some kind of rock sticking out of the ground, which I almost missed because of the tall grass growing around it.
“How can you not care about cars?”
