We snuck back to the beachfront without alerting the group. My legs trembled with exhaustion. I exhaled hard, my breath blooming in the dark. The town was dead. Streetlamps glowed like lonely midnight flowers.

  I worried that we would be caught out in the open. Worried about walking around with a target on our backs. And not to be a Negative Nancy, but I’ve never heard anyone say they were “glad” to be out this late on the wharf. I wasn’t alone either, I also had Cindi to think about. I never had to be responsible for someone else. Was I doing the right thing encouraging her? Then again, did I really have a choice? I’m not her dad. She decided to come on her own, so who was I to stop her?

  I wondered if this is how she’s always done things. I have never really done anything like this before. Sneaking out was always such a foreign concept. Like something out of a poorly acted coming-of-age movie that they always played reruns of at the local drive-in. Besides, David slept at the lab most of the time nowadays anyway, so I didn’t think he’d notice if I was. Then again, gang-stalkers and roving trigger-happy cops were the last things I wanted to worry about. The last things I needed to worry about.

  Things were so much easier back in the city. Sometimes when things got quiet around the apartment, my mind wandered around, thinking about what I’ve been missing back home. Mostly, I thought about the people I had to leave behind. I missed my friends. Maison still called every now and again, although I hadn’t heard from him in a few months. I felt like I’ve missed something else important. How many school trips, birthday parties, normal human experiences did I miss because of what happened? How different could the past two years have been if things had gone right? If I had done something to stop him.

  When I started to think like that, I remembered that I should probably reign myself in. The last thing I needed was to spiral out of control, thinking about what-could-have-beens and alternatives I’d likely never know was only going to distract me.

  “It should be nearby,” Cindi said. “Around the corner.” She banked right as I started to turn left. “Wrong corner dumbass!” God, she has a mouth, but she was right. I turned on my heel and followed her corner and crossed a street to find ourselves once again back on the wharf. The ferris wheel sat idly, just shy of the beachfront like a sleeping skeletal giant. We stopped and I immediately felt my body catch up with itself. My feet hurt. My head swayed lightly. I noticed that Cindi was unbothered. I need to start running.

  “How are you totally not exhausted?” I asked through beats of breath.

  “Me? This is nothing. You should see the drills we’ve been running in softball practice.” Her eyes shimmered, a wordless “thank you”. I smiled to myself and started surveying the wharf a little more thoroughly.

  I saw no signs of the band of low-lifers. Maybe they left, bored and too bothered to chase us. As I tried to summon the energy to ask her what's next, I sensed it; that feeling of being drawn to something. It was like I was circling a whirlpool, wrapped around the rim slowly but surely getting closer to the center.

  “Do you feel that?” I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Feel what?”

  “I think we’re getting close.”

  We approached the beachfront. The waves were eerily still. Out across the bay, the lights of Downtown Agartha blinked in and out like swarms of fireflies. I watched for a moment. I could hear Cindi walking behind me. She was looking for the light.

  “Where is it? It was lying around here somewhere…”

  Her eyes fell on a piece of washed up trash. She knelt to pick it up out of the water.

  “Wait,” I said. She ignored me.

  She lifted a small black box out of the water. Something glowed dimly inside.

  “What is it?”

  “No idea.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Maybe. You want to open it?”

  I shrugged.

  “Kinda sounds like you do.”

  She searched for a slot to open; when she couldn’t she sighed, frustrated.

  “Want me to try?”

  “Sure.” She practically tossed me the thing. I caught it clumsily and examined it. The box was about the size of my fist, like an onyx baseball glass case. It seemed to shimmer with reflections of the moon-lit sea; but it almost looked like that glow came from within. Or, without better words to describe it, it looked like the memory of a light I saw earlier, transient and fading. I glimpsed a little bit of light from the crack in its spine, like sclera peeking beneath half asleep eyelids. I tried to open it to no avail. I handed it back to her when I couldn’t find a way to solve it. A pretty tough nut to crack.

  “There’s gotta be a way to open it,” I said. I looked around near my feet and reached down to pick up a smooth rock.

  “Don’t break it!” Cindi said while reaching for my arm. “You could ruin whatever’s inside.”

  I relented and almost dropped the rock.

  “Careful!”

  Behind us, I heard a noise, like vultures cackling. The boys stood over us on the wharf. Their backs were to the Ferris wheel, perched like actors waiting for a stage light before delivering their lines. Cindi hid the little box behind her back, fearful for what they might do with it.

  “There you are. Spying on us, weren’t you?” This teenager stood a little straighter than the others. His piercing blue eyes were almost completely drowned in shadow. He was not the tallest of them. TD next to him was. But TD, or the tall dude, was quiet and only looked at them when the boy with the piercing blue eyes spoke to us.

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  Cindi pretended not to hear them, and seemingly crouched to look at a bug in the sand. Next to her foot, a smooth stone sat idly. She swiped it without them noticing. What is she planning? Cindi bounced right back up, straining her neck like a bobble-head, and started toward the heckling group of teens.

  “We’re just out for a little stroll,” Cindi taunted. “I swear, we weren’t up to anything shady.” She hid the rock behind her back.

  The boy in the middle said something to the rest of the group. We were too separated for me to hear what he said. They burst out in laughter. A sharp, mocking laugh. All except for TD, who looked hesitant to join in, but did not stray from his place of quiet.

  “Then prove it. Show us what you got behind your back.”

  Cindi grimaced. She must have assumed that he wouldn’t notice. Something about their leader told me he was a little more perceptive than the rest of the bunch. Call it a hunch, but he watched us like a hawk eyeing its next meal: two prairie mice out in the open. I half-expected him to start salivating.

  I whispered to her, “Just show it to them.”

  “What?” she whispered back. I could see the workings of a plan coming together in her head.

  “No, I won’t.” She was looking at me when she glanced back behind her. She was palming the smooth stone. She looked like she was weighing it behind her back.

  “What are the two of you whispering about?”

  Their leader dropped from the wharf and landed in the sand, making a soft thump.

  “Cough it up.”

  “Why don’t you mind your own damn business?” Cindi’s defiance only amused him more. The rest of his lackeys followed his lead and slid from the pier like paratroopers jumping from a transport craft.

  Cindi whispered to me, “Follow my lead.” She winked and gave me a smile only meant for me to see. I blushed slightly.

  “Or what?” he asked. Cindi reeled back, swinging her hip to drive her left foot towards the loudest kid. Her right foot assumes a pivoting position, like a pitcher.

  “Or?,” she said, searching for something witty, “?or I’ll pop your buddies sacks too.”

  He laughed. “Our what? The hell are you on about?”

  As he laughed, Cindi wound up the dirtiest throw I have ever seen. Like a pitcher aiming for a strike-out, she hurled a slugger straight for the poor dude’s balls. I felt the wind change and worried that it would throw her pitch off course. But no, it struck true, landing dead center and on target. A beautiful throw. I thought I heard a pop! though it could have been my imagination.

  His friends stood in shock and watched him squirm to the ground. He cradled his own crotch like a newborn baby.

  “Cindi, I think that’s our cue?”

  She sprinted off in the other direction, almost leaving me behind.

  “Come on dip-shit! That’s our cue!”

  Their leader raised his head. The fury of a scorned teenager melted the very air between them. His cheeks were bright red.

  “What are you doing?” he said to the other boys around him. He settled on who I’ve been calling TD. “Lynn, get them!”

  I followed after Cindi. I left a dust-cloud of sand in my wake, I chased her around the beach and up a winding path. Yet again, we were on the run. Although, I didn’t know if we could make it out of this one unscathed. I should be worried. I should have been afraid. Cindi glanced back at me to see if I followed her. Her smile showed that she knew what I risked.

  I should be many things.

  I was not going to stand by and watch them choose what to do with me.

  I was free, so obviously I ran. I realized the hypocrisy of it, but I didn’t care.

  We ran from the beach through outreaching tall-grass to the wharfside shops and alleyways on the cusp of the boardwalk. Trash and litter lined the street. Plastic bags flew past as my foot stomped on the pavement. Once we were a few blocks away I turned around. It looked like we got away…

  A figure stepped out in front of us. Lynn locked eyes with Cindi and a weight dropped in my stomach. “Oh no,” I thought, “he’s going to kill us.” His eyes are angry, red. He tilted his head forward, like a bull readying to charge a matador. And he launched towards Cindi, in an act of sheer brilliance, she side-stepped him with ease, like a baseball player dodging a short stop on their way to third base. He missed her, but incidentally, I happened to stand in his way. I was not so lucky as Cindi because Lynn collided with me in a marvelous display of idiocy that left the both of us reeling from the blow.

  He was on top of me. Lynn couldn’t have been more than two years older than me but he had a significant advantage in size and weight on his side. He could have been a professional wrestler too with that kind of muscle.

  “Is there no way we could have a chat about this?” I asked.

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see it coming. He punched me in the mouth. It was brutal. My head slammed back into the pavement where I was lying on top of. My shoulders dug into the street as a shock of pain traveled down the back of my teeth and my neck. When I opened my eyes, I heard Cindi’s shouts like a cornered animal.

  “Get off of him, Jerk!”

  Lynn was winding up for another punch when Cindi jumped onto him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hung on for dear life. Their combined weight only made things worse. At the moment, I only thought about where Lynn’s next punch was going. I instinctively threw my hands up to cover my face?It was a mistake that I didn't before the first blow. Cindi swiped at his head, almost as if she was trying to swat at a fly. He tried to block the shots, but Cindi simply threw too many, too quickly to keep up.

  “Get off of him? Get off of me!” He shouted back.

  He finally got a handful of Cindi’s hair and pulled her off. She looked almost like a rabid wolverine as her fury manifested. TD pulled her down and she flopped onto the pavement beside me.

  “Animals, both of you. Animals!” He cursed. “What's wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with you!” Cindi shouted back.

  He stood up. I saw an opportunity and had to take it. I wrapped around his leg as he stood up and tried to make him trip.

  “What the?”

  I pulled him out from underneath, twisting the weight of my body to send him tumbling to the ground below, like a falling lump of timber. He landed right next to Cindi.

  “Oh piss off! I thought I was done with you," he shouted. He and I were both now prone. I scrambled up to try and give him a taste of his own medicine, but he caught my punch before it could land. We squirmed for control, like grade schoolers wrestling on a playground.

  “Watch out Monty! You nearly dropped him on me.” Cindi scrambled back onto her feet, watching the two of us fight on the ground. Her eyes lit up. She started to pump her fist in the air. “Get his ass Monty!” I tried with all my might, using the little weight or strength I could muster, to keep him down. It wasn’t enough. Lynn pushed me off and jumped up. “Oh shit,” Cindi remarked. Her pumping stopped.

  “Oh shit,” I said, watching him. His arms were outstretched, like he’s trying to catch a rabbit. Then slowly his eyes drew upward, past me.

  “What?” he said, tripping over his own thoughts. I chanced a glance back behind me, towards the beach. Cindi was watching the same direction as him.

  “Oh my god,” Cindi said. “What is that?”

  My eyes followed theirs back to the wharf, and the beach too. What were they even looking at? All I could see was…A dark figure stood by the shore. It was bathed in shadow. It looked right back at us with cold, iridescent eyes. I shuddered.