“Shhh. It’s me,” I whisper, creeping toward Michael. My eyes adjust to the dim and I see he’s blindfolded, tied up, and bruised, but alive. His hands are chained to a small generator. It must have been the heaviest thing they could find.
“Tina,” he breathes. “You’re okay. Where’s Boyboy? Is he all right? They wouldn’t tell me what happened to you guys.”
“I’m fine. We’re fine.”
I push the blindfold up off his eyes, and he blinks. It feels like eons since I ran away from him at the guesthouse, and I have a sudden urge to grab him and make sure he’s real. I crouch down to check out his bindings. He’s got the same wires around his wrists that I did, but they’re also around his ankles. When I take his hands, he hisses with pain.
“What?” I ask. One of his wrists is swollen and dark with bruising.
“I think it’s broken,” he says.
I sit back, looking at the hand, my stomach sinking. “Mavi,” I curse.
“My legs are fine. Can you get me out?”
“Um, no chance you can drive a motorcycle like that, huh?” I ask with a forced smile.
Michael looks from me to his wrists, understanding passing over his face. “Is that our escape plan?”
I swallow. “What if I steer?”
“You have to shift on the handles. I mean, if we had time for me to show you, I’m sure you could do it, but . . .” He looks toward the front of the tent, where, from the sound of it, pandemonium still reigns. “Get me out, and we’ll make a run for it. Where’s Boyboy?”
“Going for help. Hopefully in the form of your father.” I curse again. “He’s supposed to be meeting us down the road. But we can’t outrun these guys. They’ve got trucks and bikes.”
“Can we go through the forest?”
I think about it but shake my head. “The going will be too slow, and they’ll just come around and surround us before we can get back to the road.” I go back to his bindings. I can at least get his legs loose while I’m thinking of a new plan.
“Tina, what’s going on? Who are these guys?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain everything once we’re safe.”
“I heard them talking about—”
I cut him off with a quick gesture. “Someone’s coming! I have to put your blindfold back on.”
“No! Tina!”
But I’m already yanking the greasy fabric over his eyes. I grab the blanket off the cot and scurry to the rear of the tent, where there’s a big wooden crate. I squat behind it and throw the blanket over me. It’s a terrible hiding job, but at the moment it’s the best option I’ve got. I squeeze down into a tight ball and try my hardest to look like a pile of dirty laundry. Hopefully in the dark no one will notice me. I want to kick myself for not keeping Ketchup’s panga. I still have his gun, but I’d rather defend myself quietly. Nothing to bring a horde of militia down on our heads like gunshots from the prisoner’s tent.
A silhouetted figure throws open the tent flap and begins yelling at Michael. The guy seems to have just been sent in to check on him, though, because he tells Michael he’s worth “less than a monkey turd,” if he moves, and then he’s gone again.
We wait a few moments in silence. I lift my head. “Charming.”
Michael lets out his breath, and then winces. I wonder if he’s got broken ribs too that he’s just not telling me about. “They’re all insane. There’s this one who keeps telling me he’s going to enjoy watching my fireworks. No idea what he’s talking about, but it cracks him up every time.”
I stiffen. Michael doesn’t know about Omoko’s plan for blood.
“Hey, can you come take this thing off? I hate not being able to see.”
I creep back over. Should I tell him what Omoko is planning, or will that just take more time we don’t have?
“Thanks,” Michael whispers when I pull the blindfold off.
For a moment I’m caught in his gaze, unable to move. I want so badly to apologize for screaming at him and running off and for letting him get caught and for generally getting him into a situation where he may end up dead, but there’s no time for that right now. I force myself back to trying to get him free.
Pulling the bobby pin out of my pocket, I go to work.
“Why did these guys capture us?”
“Mr. Omoko wants to ransom you to your dad.” The pin has twisted somehow in all of this and won’t go in. I bite it, trying to mash it back into a useful shape.
“Who’s Mr. Omoko?”
“He’s . . .” So much has happened. I’ve never even mentioned Omoko until now, other than during my drug-induced rant outside the guesthouse. I pull the pin out of my mouth to examine it. Still not right. “I’ll tell you everything later,” I say, “but for right now, he’s the bad guy. He killed my mom.” I stick the pin back in my mouth, trying again.
Michael stares at me, as if what I’m saying will make better sense if he looks at me hard enough. “What? Why? Who is—”
“And he kidnapped my sister,” I say as I try again to wedge the pin into the bindings on his ankles. It isn’t going in right, but that might be because my hand has started trembling. “I think she’s safe now, but still . . .” I shake my head, unable to go on.
“Our sister.”