Song of the Fireflies

“What does it matter?” I asked. “What the hell is this?”

“What the f**k do you think it is?” Anthony said, laughing.

Cristina was still passed out against her door.

“Look, man, I know how this goes,” I said, but I could hardly look at him. I was far too preoccupied with the gun against Bray’s head. “I’ve got cash on me. Whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt her.”

Bray’s lips were trembling, the only part of her stiff body that was moving. I wanted to pummel this motherfucker to death.

“Pull over up there,” Anthony demanded with the nod of his head, indicating the side of the road.

“All right. All right.” I tried to keep calm. It took everything in me, but I had to keep my head clear. Hopefully he planned to rob us and run off into the woods. But if I even for a moment got the feeling that he was going to shoot us down, I would make a last, desperate attempt. I wasn’t about to let this f**king lowlife shoot Bray without at least trying to stop him.

The car came to a stop and I put it into Park. And I waited.

I was hopeful when I saw headlights blazing toward us from behind, but the lone semi drove right past us, pushing wind against the car.

“Empty your pockets. Wallet. Anything you have on you. Put it on the dashboard.”

“I take it you don’t have a beach house?” I said sarcastically as I did what he told me to do.

“Fuck no,” he said and laughed. “And that car in the parking lot wasn’t mine, either.” He barely looked away from me long enough to say to Bray, “You too. Whatever you have put it on the dashboard.”

I thought about using that split second he looked away from me to grab for the gun, but I couldn’t risk it. It likely would’ve gone off and killed her right there next to me.

There was no saliva left in my mouth. My whole body was stiff and sweating. Aside from getting that gun away from Bray’s head, all I could think about was beating the f**k out of this guy. All I could see was red. I wanted so badly for him to slip up and give me the opportunity to take him down and cave his face in with my fists.

“Now get out,” he demanded, looking right at me.

My heart dropped into my feet then. Was he going to take off in the car with her in it?

“Take the f**king car,” I said, raising my hands up in front of me. “Just let her out.”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out.” He moved the gun to the back of my head now.

I only felt slightly better about that. At least it wasn’t on Bray anymore.

I placed my hand on the door handle carefully, popped it open and stepped out, keeping my hands raised up, my fingers level with the top of my head.

From my peripheral vision, I noticed another set of bright headlights coming toward us off in the distance. My eyes darted to and from it, then to Bray, still sitting in the front seat. Cars sped by on the other side of the freeway, but it was too dark for anyone in them to see what was going on.

“Let her out,” I said as I stepped around to the grass on the side of the road. “Please just f**king let her out.”

Cristina’s red-blonde head raised up from being pressed against the window. She rubbed her eyes and dragged the palms of her hands over her face and head like she was trying to wake herself up.

Then she noticed Anthony getting out of the backseat with the gun in his hand, pointed right at me.

“What—Anthony? What the hell are you doing?” Her voice began to rise with alarm as realization set in. “What the f**k! Anthony, no!”

“Shut up!” he yelled at her from outside the car, his eyes still on me as well as the gun. “Now get your girlfriend out. I don’t need more than one bitch flapping her f**king jaws at me the whole ride.”

Without a thought, I swung Bray’s car door open and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out faster than she could get out herself. The car coming toward us was so close. I pulled Bray against me and then pushed her around behind me. I looked up as the car neared.

“Don’t even think about it,” Anthony said, pointing the gun at me through the side window.

And just like with the last exit ramp, I watched as our last hope for help sped by at seventy miles per hour. Bray was shaking behind me, her fingers digging into my ribs.

“Thanks for the ride, man!” Anthony said just before he jumped behind the wheel and sped away with Cristina screaming curses at him from the backseat.

I watched until what were once my brake lights became tiny red dots in the distance and then blinked out.

“Son of a f**king bitch!” I punched at the air in front of me, wishing it was more than air. Then I turned to Bray. “Oh shit!”

She stood there trembling with her face buried in her hands.

I dropped the anger and became the comfort she needed. “Baby, come here.” I tried to pull her toward me.

“Leave me the f**k alone!” she roared, her hands falling straight down at her sides. She took several steps back farther into the grass. I followed. Tears shot from her eyes. “Just… just leave me alone.”

I knew she wasn’t mad at me. She just needed a moment. She’d just had a goddamn gun pointed at the back of her head.

She sat down on the grass, her hands shaking as if she were freezing. I crouched in front of her and rested my hands on the tops of her knees.

“What the f**k are we doing, Elias?” She looked up into my eyes, tears glistened on her cheeks in the bluish dark. “What the f**k are we doing here?”

I sat down fully and held her hands. “We can go home if that’s what you want, Bray, all you have to do is say the word.”

She shook her head no. She wasn’t sure of anything, just as I wasn’t. She asked me what we were doing here, but it was only a moment of realization. She knew that things were so much worse than getting robbed and left on the side of a freeway hundreds of miles away from home. I knew Anthony had little to do with what was going through her mind at that moment. He was just the messenger, a small and insignificant piece of a much larger picture that we were lucky enough to have forgotten all about for just a little while. This situation only brought back to reality the gravity of the bigger situation surrounding it.

“I don’t want to go back,” she said, raising her eyes. “I want to keep going. I just want to keep going.”

“Then that’s what we’re going to do,” I said.

I pulled her over into the throne of my lap and covered her with my arms.