The Cage(110)

His eyes were blinking like mad, the muscles in his jaw twitching, but the croquet mallet paused above his head.

“That’s not you,” she continued in a rush, fighting against her own throbbing head. “That’s not who you want to become.”

He staggered back, just as Mali slammed her foot into Leon’s face. Blood spurted everywhere. Cora grabbed the mallet from Rolf’s hand, but his grip on it was loosened, the mallet already forgotten. Rolf sank to his knees in the grass, looking dazed.

“Rolf, don’t listen to her!” Nok screamed.

The croquet mallet gleamed in the light from the street lamps. Still within reach. Rolf’s eyes shifted to it, debating.

Cora’s heart pumped harder. “Nok is trying to manipulate you, Rolf. I heard her on the porch hitting on Lucky. She’s been sleeping with Leon too.”

“She’s lying,” Nok snapped, cheeks bright red. All eyes went to Leon, who wiped the blood from his face and didn’t deny anything.

Rolf’s fingers started tapping again. He looked confused, like the past few weeks hadn’t happened and he’d just woken here.

This is how it ends, Cora thought. With our bleached bones buried beneath the sand.

“Is that true, Leon?” Rolf asked in a deadly quiet voice.

Leon put a hand to his head, wincing like Mali’s last punch had jarred him too hard, or else he was suffering the same headaches. “She threw herself at me, brother. Sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry, that’s it?”

Leon coughed, still wiping away blood. “What do you want, a greeting card?”

Rolf shot back something about Leon deserving to be alone, how Yasmine would have hated him, and Leon’s entire body went rigid.

Cora took a step back.

Mali’s hot breath came in her ear. “If we do not leave now, I do not think we will have another chance.”

Rolf and Leon started throwing insults like punches. It wouldn’t be long before they were trading real blows. Across from them, Nok was taking small steps backward, glancing over her shoulder at the house. Rolf suddenly lunged for the croquet mallet, and Cora dropped to the grass, afraid of the crossfire when he swung it at Leon’s face. Her mind flashed to that first day, the fight between the two of them in the toy store. “I’ll owe you that punch,” Rolf had said, and now he meant it. He was quick, just like his twitching fingers, and he was back on his feet before Leon could catch him.

Rolf let out a furious yell and hurled himself forward—at Nok. Not Leon. Rolf tackled her to the ground, using the mallet to pin her arms as she screamed wildly. Leon was still braced to duck the blow that was less and less likely to come.

“You said you loved me!” Rolf choked, ignoring her pleas. “I saw the way you looked at Lucky and Leon, but you told me I was just being paranoid!”

Nok screamed something in a mix of Thai and English, struggling to get away.

Cora pushed to her feet. “Rolf—”

Rolf threw Cora a look over his shoulder. “Just go! Get out of here! This is between me and Nok.”

Beneath him, Nok gave one final twist, uselessly. Suddenly all the fight rushed out of her and she started sobbing, big racking tears that didn’t seem like acting at all. Nok’s whole life had been a struggle, it seemed. Rolf’s words had been enough to put together a picture of a life in London that wasn’t the jet-setting dream, but rather dirty rooms and flashing lights and bruises hidden beneath flimsy little dresses.

Rolf blinked a few times. “I won’t hurt her,” he said. His voice had grown softer, just like his grip on Nok, anger melting away into devastation. “I would never hurt her. But leave us alone; you never belonged here. If you can get out, then go. Whatever the consequences for us . . .” He swallowed hard, looking at Nok sobbing. “We have bigger worries right now.”

Cora glanced over her shoulder toward the churning sea. “Come with us,” she said.

He shook his head. “I can’t. Chances are it’s my baby. We might not be free, but we’re safe here, and right now that’s more important for the baby than freedom. But Lucky might go. Try the boardwalk. He walks there at night when he can’t sleep.”

The light overhead shifted. Mali pinched herself anxiously, throwing glances toward the ocean. Cora knew she would never see either Nok or Rolf again, but good-byes felt wrong. Her lips wouldn’t form the words, so she turned instead, blinking hard to clear her eyes, striding toward the ocean.