I need to come up with something. If only the men I shot had surrendered their bullets. One of them had a whole belt tied around his waist. That’s it! The dead all have their bullets at their little garden party. I will take their ammo. I will take their guns. They’ll never see me coming. They never do.
I make my way to the edge of the party. I spot Lyla and her friend sitting at a table, guns tilted beside them. I wait until Lyla is looking the other way, caught up in conversation with the other woman. Then I slip in behind her, slide the gun from the table. It feels heavy. It’s probably still fully loaded. I want to get more but there are too many dead. Someone might see me, so I take Lyla’s gun and hurry back toward the garden.
I stop to check how many bullets it has, but I hear footsteps behind me. I see Lyla chasing after me, her dress a gold explosion. She’s out. What is she doing? Can’t she just let me have this?
“Wait!” she calls. “I need my gun!”
Can’t she just let me win?
I grip the gun and run away from her, bound down the stairs and race deeper into the garden. She keeps chasing me, flinging herself down the stairs.
I spin around, turn the gun on her. “I’m not in the game!” she says. She puts her hands up. “Look at me! I just need you to give me my gun back.”
Is she kidding? “No.”
“But it’s—” A figure rises from the bushes beside her. I tilt the gun. She puts her hands over her face. “Wha—”
Bang!
Dark blood slaps Lyla’s white face. Not gold. Not paint. Blood.
LYLA
The body is surrounded by jewelry: thick diamonds, fat ropes of pearls, a sapphire, two emerald earrings. Blood runs beneath them, setting off their sparkle. And I see the silver star around Elvira’s dead neck.
Demi is frozen, still gripping the gun.
All the stars are out, burning holes in the sky. What a crock of shit.
“Who is it?” I ask. She stays frozen. I step forward gingerly, tilt the face with my spectator shoe. I recognize him. He’s the man from the courtyard, the one with the eternal struggle on his face. Michael. The man she’s been living with, keeping secret all this time.
Bang!
A shot blast from far up above makes me jump. Demi meets my eye. Her hair is tangled. A light dusting of gold has settled on her skin, giving it a St. Barts glow. Her eyes are wide. Her chest is pumping. She’s so alive. I didn’t kill her.
“You knew there was a bullet,” she says.
“I tried to stop you.”
“Why is there a bullet in your gun?” She pops open the chamber to check if there is another one. There isn’t. The rest are Simunition. I only had one bullet.
I look at the body. In movies, dead bodies always look peaceful. Or at least they look dead. But all the bodies I’ve seen—Elvira and now this one—still look like they’re in pain, like they’ve been wrenched from life. “We need to get him out of here.”
“I asked you a question,” she says, closing the cartridge. I tee up to his shoulders. He’s tall but thin. We could drag him, but where? “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to help you.” I grip the shoulders of his coat, pull. My fingers slip and burn. The body doesn’t move.
“This is your fault,” she says.
Bang! From above.
“I know,” I admit. I feel this lightening sensation, like I’m the one bleeding to death. Every time a privileged person takes ownership, an angel gets its wings. I laugh. I think I’m slightly hysterical, but still . . . “I know it’s my fault.” She won’t meet my eye. It might be too late for us to form any kind of friendship, but it’s not too late for me to save her, to do what I should have done a million times. But especially one. “How do we get him out of here?”
She hesitates, analyzing her exits like always. She could run, she could hide, or she could trust me. “There’s a gate.” Her voice is deep; it grips the surface. She doesn’t want to do it. She doesn’t have a choice. “That leads down to the street. He broke the lock.”
“Do you know him?” I know she does.
“Of course not.” She goes to his feet, waits for my signal. We’re really going to do this.
“Where can we take him?”
“Anywhere. We just have to get him off the property.”
“You act like you’ve done this before.” I smile, once, then bend down to lift him up.
“Hasn’t everybody?” she says. I grunt and prop his shoulders up. “Don’t get gold dust on him!” Her fingers close around his ankles.