Page 8 of Dance Practice, Marooned: Part 2

Time slows to a crawl.

We just sit and listen to the squelch and cuss of pirates as they argue over nothing, watch as the young girl sits farther from the group, until a woman with the blue hair walks over and smacks her, barking something in a language I don’t know. The girl gets up and walks a little farther, like she can outpace the world. Two of the men disappear into the woods, and Tatiana freaks out, saying we should leave, run, hide, but Ace calms her down. A minute later, they come back laughing and shoving each other.

Eventually, they start a fire, barely twenty feet from the creek mouth. Not a single one of them looks up or around, or even seems to notice the caves and rocks. Aggie shivers beside me, and I realise we’re both huddled so close together, my arm is asleep. Ace is standing at the edge of a rock, arms crossed, shoulder leaning against it. He hasn’t taken his eyes off the group, and I know that right now, he’s coming up with a plan just in case they come this way.

“Do we have a plan?” I ask, curious. “If they come up here?”

Zeke shakes his head, just a shared look with Ace, and I can read it: we don’t. We just watch and wait, and hope they’re too drunk or dumb to care.

We wait, and the waiting starts to make me feel insane. Every time someone stands up, I flinch. Every time a voice gets too loud, I wonder if they’ve found evidence of us. For a while, one of the women walks up and down the edge of the trees, looking for something. Maybe she’s just bored, or maybe she’s looking for a reason. Once, the younger girl starts walking in our direction, so slow and careful that my spine locks up. She gets within maybe thirty yards, kneels, and...cries? She’s hunched over, her shoulders shaking.

Then she stands and walks back towards the pirates, her chin tucked into her chest.

Aggie’s whisper is almost imperceptible. “Do you think we could help her?”

No, I almost tell her. We can’t help anyone. We can’t even help ourselves.

But instead I say, “If we make a sound, we’re dead. So, we have to stay here. I know it’s hard. I want to go and take her so badly, too.”

I think we all do.

“Do you think she has been taken?” Tatiana whispers, shuffling closer until her thigh touches mine.

Adrian and Rachel have both fallen asleep, or at least, they’re pretending to be so they don’t have to keep thinking about the situation before us.

“She doesn’t look like she is there willingly,” Aggie mutters. “She looks so scared. There has to be something we can do.”

“As much as I wish there was, we can’t. If we show our presence, all of our lives are in danger,” I say, and even though I know that is the truth, the words make my heart ache.

“That could have been us, you know,” Aggie whispers, and Tatiana flinches beside me.

She’s right, though.

It could have been.

We all fall silent again, but Tatiana reaches over, taking my hand and squeezing.

Night eventually comes, and we lose direct sight of them. We can only see the low glow of their fire.

“Try and sleep,” Ace murmurs, his voice low as he looks in my direction. “We’ll keep watch.”

“Yeah,” Zeke agrees. “No point in you girls staying up all night. Lie down, we will wake you if we need.”

They’re right, what else do we do?

I use my old jacket as a pillow and lie down. It’s strange how quickly I have become used to sleeping on firm surfaces. If you had asked me years ago if I could spend a night on a rock, I would have laughed. But here I am, stretched out on the cool rock, a jumper under my head, just staring out at the stars.

I don’t sleep. I can’t.

Every time I hear one of the guys shift, or move, I expect them to suddenly announce it’s time to run, but they don’t.

No, the night just falls silent, and if I close my eyes and breathe, I can almost imagine I am anywhere else.

Right now, I have never wanted anything more in my life.

I DON’T KNOW HOW, BUT I manage to drift off to sleep.

When I wake, my back aches and it takes me a moment to remember where I am.