Bitterness laces Ian’s tone. “I guess I shouldn’t have trusted you after all.”
My mouth goes dry as everything I need to tell him gets stuck in my throat.
I look between the rifle and Ian. That’s why he rowed us so that I’m facing the jetty. He wants me to see what’s coming. He summoned Ruben, knowing Ruben is skilled enough not to miss. I guess I shouldn’t have trusted him either. He didn’t row me out to the middle of the Zambezi to talk securely in a place that isn’t bugged. He rowed me to my grave. What better way to get rid of a body? He didn’t even have to dig a hole. Chances are no one will find me. The crocodiles will make sure of that.
Hurt blooms inside me, not because I’m about to die, but because he’s the one about to give the order. The knowledge slays me. It minces my insides and shreds my heart. I bleed long before he’s given Ruben the signal to fire the shot. In hindsight, our violent start couldn’t end in a different way. I hoped for a fairy tale, but villains don’t make heroes. I forgot about the most important rule my dad taught me. You reap what you sow.
I stare into his beautiful eyes, beautiful but cruel. He looks at me like he did the night he kidnapped me after the heist at Sun City—with no remorse.
Between taking a bullet or swimming for the shore, I stand no chance of survival. Either way, I’m dead, but I’ll rather take my chances with the crocodiles than being the weak, sitting duck he made me.
Ruben lifts the rifle. He takes aim.
I jump to my feet.
Dive!
The boat rocks. I lose my balance. It’s not my life that speeds past in front of my eyes, but a spectrum of emotions. So many emotions. Lust, love, life. All of them are wrapped up in regret, regret for us, for the full life my parents didn’t have and wanted me to live, regret for our baby.
Regret alone rushes through my mind in the split-second that separates life from death. My heart shrivels. It’s not giving up on my body. It gives up on my love.
Yes, I kept a secret, but Ian decided my fate without giving me a chance to explain. Everything between us was nothing but an illusion, a fragment of my imagination. It never went deeper than lust. My mind twisted the in-between into what it wanted to see.
It wasn’t real. We aren’t real.
That’s what kills me, not the shot that rings out or the pain that blooms in my side before I get a chance to dive. I don’t see Ian’s face as my body collapses sideways and my weight pulls me overboard. It’s better like this. This way, I can remember the way he looked at me when my mind played tricks, making-believe he loved me.
The coldness hits me first. After that, it’s the darkness. The roar of the water. Disorientation. Mauling. So much noise. Cold. Fear. Icy fear. Loneliness.
The lack of oxygen registers last.
I gulp, swallow water.
I fight.
I fight as air and blood flow from my body. I fight until the rivers takes me, and Nyaminyami claims another sacrifice.
~ TO BE CONTINUED ~