Collateral (Collateral Damage 1)

But I have to remember the guards on the roof the other night.

I stay close to the wall of the house as I creep toward the steep stairs that lead down. The night is dark but for the sliver of moon. It’s good for cover but not so good for my trip down. I move as quickly as I can, taking care not to make any noise.

It gets darker the lower I go and I trip twice, but catch myself and when I get to the sandy bottom, I hear the waves on the shore and think how will he get a boat to me? They’d shoot at it, for sure, if he even got close enough to the island.

But then I see it coming. It’s a small boat and two men are on board rowing.

I don’t recognize either of them but having them this close, having escape this close, it makes me stop. Makes me look back up at the house.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I’m already burning in the flames.

And so, I run toward the water, run into the cool waves and one of the men helps me into the boat.

I think about what Rafa said about Stefan’s enemies. About me being valuable to them.

My father is his enemy.

Isn’t he my enemy too?

A brick settles heavy in my belly and I don’t know if it’s being on the water in this small boat that’s making me feel sick.

Lights go on in the house and I look up at it as a wave hits the side of our boat, making me cry out and grip the edges.

One of the men chuckles.

These men, I look at their hard faces as they row me away from Stefan’s house as more and more lights go on. As I hear the sounds of Stefan’s soldiers.

Water crashes along the sides of the boat and I think about my mother. I think about her hands tied behind her back. I think about his hands on her. His fist in her long black hair.

I hear her as she screams. Gulps water. Screams again, coughing and choking as she’s dunked. Taught a lesson.

Did he mean for her to die?

Did he mean to kill her?

I think about Gabe. What he did to him. To his own son.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

There is no safe place for me.

I have no friends.

And I’m not sure which is the frying pan, and which is the fire anymore.

Before the men steer the boat out of sight of the house, I see him up on the roof. I see the man who owns me. The one who blackmailed my father into giving me up.

The man who plays with me. This predator who plays at being my protector.

But the sound of a speedboat breaks into the night and I turn to see the large boat approach, the men on deck with machine guns slung over their shoulders. The one whose gun is aimed just a few feet from us, bullets raining down into the water.

I scream and our small boat sways dangerously from side to side as the men curse and oars are dropped and weapons drawn, and I get one last glimpse of him. Of Stefan up there on the roof and I think I hear him scream my name as gunshots explode around me. One last glimpse before the waves are too high, the boat too unsteady. Before a wave crashes against it and I’m dumped head-first into the cold, dark sea.