9
“WHAT IF IT’S A SET-up?” Tati murmurs, knees to her chest as we sit in the kitchen area while Adrian keeps watch on deck. “We could be walking to our death.”
She’s not wrong.
Ace made me promise to get them out alive if he didn’t come back, and I don’t want anything to happen to these girls, or Adrian, but at the same time, leaving them without even trying feels like the coward’s way out. We have come this far together; I can’t stop now.
“Ace told me that if they don’t come back, we should leave without them,” I say.
They have a right to know that, at the very least.
Aggie frowns and Rachel’s brows go up.
“Yes,” Rachel nods. “But how long are we supposed to wait before assuming they’re not coming back? What if we’re wrong?”
“Then we could come back and get them,” Tati points out, her eyes wide and hopeful.
“No,” Aggie shakes her head. “No, we go after them. Everything we have done on this island, we have done together. Even through it all. We can’t leave them alone.
They wouldn’t leave us. However, we’re not going to make anyone do anything they don’t want, so if anyone wants to stay, and leave if we don’t return, you can do so and I promise, you will not be judged. ”
The room falls silent.
“I’m coming,” Rachel says.
I’m surprised, if I’m being honest. I thought if anyone opted to stay, it would be Rachel.
“Someone needs to stay with Adrian,” I point out. “If somehow they do come back to the ship, or they have some plan to take us out, we need someone here to help him. He isn’t able to move quickly enough.”
“I’ll stay,” Tati says, standing. “As long as I have guns, nobody is getting near this fucking ship.”
I raise my brows. “Damn, girl.”
Tati grins.
Aggie lays out all the guns Ace collected and left for us.
She loads two rifles, one for me and one for Rachel.
The stock is cold against my hands, but there’s a new kind of electricity buzzing inside me.
Not fear, not exactly—more like purpose.
Aggie shoves spare magazines into her belt.
I set up Tati with guns and tell her to go find Adrian and stay with him.
If they see anyone but us, shoot. No hesitation.
Once we’re ready, the three of us slip off the ship and slink into the dark.
Aggie leads, then Rachel, and I follow behind.
The jungle is incredibly dark and still, an eerie feeling lacing the air.
We move quick and quiet, using the moonlight shining down over us to guide the way.
We don’t talk. Even Rachel is silent, her usual anxious muttering replaced with a lethal focus.
Aggie stops every few metres, checks the trees, then signals us forward with sharp little flicks of her fingers.
It’s slow going.
Every branch is a possible alarm, every shadow a booby trap.
Twice we freeze when something moves in the brush, but it’s only some flightless bird, or a small rodent out hunting for leftovers.
I keep thinking about Ace—and deep inside, I pray he’s still alive.
I need him to be alive. This can’t be the way we go.
It simply can’t. We have survived so much.
Aggie stops abruptly, dropping to a crouch.
We follow quickly, squatting down. I can hear grunts and cursing, then a feral, guttural laugh—definitely not one of ours.
I creep up next to Aggie, peering out through the gap in the trees to see what she is looking at.
On the sand, just by the shore, we see figures.
Pirates. They’re animals in human bodies, hairy and half-naked, their heads shaved, tattoos curling over every visible surface.
One has a rifle, one a machete, and the third, who’s obviously in charge, holds a pistol pointed straight at the ground.
On the ground at their feet are Ace, Kellen, and Zeke, face down, wrists lashed at the back.
I have to clamp my jaw to keep from making a noise.
Zeke is moving a little, but Kellen looks completely still.
Ace’s face is turned just enough that I can see his mouth working, like he’s spitting out threats.
His eye catches the moon for a second, and his gaze sweeps the dark, searching for us, for anyone.
I stop breathing.
Seeing him there, like that, knowing that inside he is probably certain we have left.
That’s what he told me to do, and yet now I can see him, the twist of fear and hurt on his face as he considers the possibility that this might really be the end for them, because he told me not to come back.
It hurts, in a way I didn’t anticipate, seeing him look like that.
Did he really believe I wouldn’t come back for him?
Aggie leans in, her voice barely a whisper. “We need to hit them all at the same time. I’ll take left, you take the centre, Rachel gets the one on the right.”
“Wait,” Rachel whispers, then points. “There are four over there. Two pirates, and the two females. As soon as we shoot, they’re going to react.”
I crawl a little closer, staring. By the looks of it, the two pirates are unarmed.
The only one holding a gun is the rough-looking woman who is standing over the younger girl, like she is ensuring she doesn’t go anywhere.
Fuck. The second we pull the trigger, chaos will erupt.
We have to be quick, precise, and if we miss...
“Fuck,” I whisper, turning back to them. “We have to be really careful here.”
“I think we take the three main men out, and then we cover each other and all of us aim at the other two. If the woman shoots, we take her out, too. If the three armed men are removed, we have the advantage,” Aggie says. “But we have to be really perfect with our shots.”
Rachel shifts, like she’s uncomfortable. “I’ve never shot anything. What if I miss?”
Aggie ponders it for a second, then pulls us further back into the brush, out of sight, and does a two-minute gun tutorial for Rachel in utter silence.
How to take the safety up, line up the scope, squeeze not yank, just like she’s teaching a kid how to tie shoes, except the shoes are guns and the goal is to murder people before they murder you.
“Once you take aim, don’t even tremble,” Aggie whispers.
“You simply shoot, pull the trigger and take them out. Then, we all swing our guns to the other three. I’ll focus on the girl, I have shot quite a few guns.
You two focus on the other two pirates, they are unarmed so we have a good chance.
Rachel, to begin, you shoot the one with the machete, we will take the armed ones. ”
Rachel’s hands are trembling, her whole face white, but she nods. “Okay.”
Aggie straightens her shoulders, and looks Rachel dead in the eye. “If you freeze, we die. You clear?”
Rachel nods again.
I prepare my gun.
Aggie looks to us. “Are you ready?”
I nod. “Let’s fuck them up.”
Aggie grins. “Yeah, let’s.”
How the hell did we go from dancers to pirate-fighting bad-arses? I don’t know, but I’m here for it.
The world goes very still, then impossibly loud.
We fan out a little, so we don’t bump into each other, and line up our shots. Aggie lifts her hand, giving us the signal that it is time.
My eyes focus back on the pirate in front of me, my scope right on his chest. He is spitting curses at Zeke, in a language I don’t quite understand.
I don’t care to, either.
I pull the trigger.
Three shots split the air, each distinct and bright as a star.
My rifle bucks into my shoulder and the man with the pistol jerks, his chest flowering red before he drops.
Rachel’s bullet cracks the skull of machete guy; he topples, the blade clattering to the sand.
Aggie’s shot hits the last pirate in the knee.
There’s a half second where nobody moves, and then the night dissolves into screaming.
The two unarmed pirates bolt for the trees, one reaching for the young girl and hauling her to her feet.
I swing my gun in their direction, careful not to hit the girl, and fire, quick and ugly, and the man collapses, screaming and twisting on the sand, blood gushing from his leg.
His hand lets go of the younger girl’s braid, and she freezes, reeling back, her eyes wide as her hands go up.
I keep my aim steady, even though my hands are vibrating so hard I almost drop the gun.
The other pirate barely gets two steps when he is shot by either Aggie or Rachel.
He slams into a tree trunk, slumping but still trying to crawl away.
The woman with the gun is firing blindly into the trees, but Aggie is too fast. She fires, a clean shot, right between her shoulder blades.
She pitches forward, gone before she lands.
And then it’s silent. Utterly, violently silent except for the wet gasps of the pirates and the frantic sobs of the girl.
My ears are ringing so loud I can barely hear my own breath.
I stagger out of the trees and make a beeline for Ace.
His face is scraped up, but he’s grinning in this wild, reckless way.
“You goddamned fuckin’ crazy woman,” he rasps.
One pirate still groans on the ground, but he isn’t getting up anytime soon.
I drop my gun and fumble with the ropes on his wrists.
Blood slicks his arms and he’s shivering, but his hands are steady as he pulls me in the very second his arms are free, crushing me so hard to his chest I can feel his heart pounding against my cheek.
I let him hold me, mostly for him, a little for me.
I close my eyes and just take it in, allowing the moment to truly sink in.
After that, I pull back and help him to his feet as Aggie and Rachel untie Kellen and Zeke.
Now, well, now is our chance to get the hell out of here.
Now, we’ll finally be free.