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This doesn’t bother Aslin, because she doesn’t realize how badly she’s fucked herself over yet. Right now, she thinks she has won. She stands on the bank, sopping wet, gripping her flask and shouting at me. When she realizes I might not be able to hear every word, she supplements her shrill triumphant cries with unmistakable middle-fingered gestures.
And that’s when Soren decides to show up again. I’m standing with my arms folded over my chest, watching this chaos unfold. He comes up, open mouthed.
“What the…” Soren stares. “I was gone for five minutes!”
“A lot can happen in five minutes.”
“What is she, Jackie Sparrow over there with the rum?”
She’s waving to him now. Then she turns around, bends over forwards, and sort of waves her ass at us. The material of her pants is clinging to her cheeks in a lewd sort of way, but I don’t know if she’s just not a very good dancer, or if the drink has stunted her coordination, but she starts shaking her ass.
“What is she doing?” I turn to Soren. He seems to understand her spoiled rich girl motivations better than I do.
“I think that’s twerking.”
“That’s terrible twerking.”
We laugh. She’s making an absolute fool of herself, and she has no idea. She thinks she’s won something, but night is falling, she has no real provisions, and she’s wet to the skin. That’s a good way to die in any remote location. She might be alright if she got out of the wet clothes, made a fire, and warmed up, but I’m going to go way out on a limb and say she couldn’t make a fire with a box of matches.
Soren starts making a plan. “We’ve got to get her back, sober her up, and…”
“And what? Tie her up? She doesn’t want to listen. We’ve smacked her ass how many times, and all she’s done is act out more.”
“When the enemy escalates, you escalate.”
“She’s not the enemy. I think we need a little de-escalation.”
“She’s going to read that as weakness,” I tell him. We’ve tried every civilized means of getting through to her, and a whole lot of old school discipline. It’s not working. The more she gets, the more she wants. I’d bet my paycheck, plus the bonus bribe, that this girl likes pain more than most.”
Soren sighs. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right. What do you want to do?”
“Half-measures aren’t working. Follow my lead. And trust me.”
5
Aslin
They’ve got a boat. It was covered by some sacks at the side of the river, I guess to hide it from the person who insisted on leaving the second she got here. What assholes.
The pair of them are paddling across the river, both shirtless. They ripple and gleam in the sunlight reflected off the water’s surface. They’re so hot. So very, very sexy. It probably says something about my psyche that my level of attraction to them increases with how much I’ve annoyed them.
Right now, they both look either very unimpressed or outright pissed off. They keep paddling all the way up to the bank, and instead of stopping the boat next to the bank, they run it up on it, making the boat skid in a particularly cool way.
“Whoa!” I exclaim, holding the remnants of my flask aloft. There’re just a few dregs left, but I feel particularly attached to them. And particularly in a good mood. I’m not drunk, per se, but I am happy. And not overly concerned with consequences.
Jason leaps out of the boat and grabs me by the upper arm. His grip is like a vise. There’s no escaping it, even if I wanted to. I don’t think I want to. He drags me closer to him and glares down at me with furious eyes. I laugh, mostly because I’m drunk, but also somewhat because I’m nervous. I have that feeling in the very pit of my stomach, like I have truly fucked up now. There has to be a limit past which they’ll give up on me and just send me home. That would be kind of a point of pride, but it would sting too.
“You’re such a little shit,” he curses.
“Yeah,” I agree, though probably with more cheer and pride than he’d like. Then I remember I actually have something to yell at them about.
“You said I had to wait for a boat to leave!”
“You can’t row your way back down river. You need a motorboat. And a local guide. If you want to really die out here, take the boat, get lost on the river. Now. Shut up.”
“Rude.”
He drags me back to the boat by my arm, but not before wresting the empty flask from me. He hands that off to Soren, who is standing there looking disappointed in me. That hurts a bit. Why would he be disappointed? It’s not as though I’ve set any standards for sane behavior so far.
