Burning Paradise

She was tempted to ask him. But before she could speak Thomas turned up his face, frowning and attentive. “Car coming,” he said.

Cassie heard it a second later. She turned apprehensively, spooked by everything Leo had said. To her dismay, the car pulled into the scenic overlook and parked in a spot next to the restrooms. It was the car Leo said had been following them, or a close match. The driver’s-side door opened. A middle-aged man got out, stretching and massaging the small of his back. He wore big glasses and an old-fashioned hat.

The man who may or may not have been following them walked into the men’s restroom. Cassie and Thomas scrambled back to the car. Leo and Beth got out, and Leo opened the trunk and began rummaging for something in one of his bags. He was tense and his arms moved jerkily. When he stood away from the bumper Cassie saw that he had found what he was looking for, a handgun.

That Leo carried a pistol was no surprise. His father would have encouraged him to keep one, might even have helped him acquire it, legally or illegally. But she was dismayed to see him holding it. It suggested possibilities she didn’t care to think about. Even Leo seemed intimidated by it. The weapon trembled in his hand.

He meant to confront the man, Cassie realized, and she could tell by his expression that there would be no arguing about it. Wisely or not, Leo would do this. She could only watch. Or help.

If he had a plan he didn’t stop to discuss it. Cassie, Thomas and Beth crouched behind the car while Leo posted himself outside the restroom door and made a shushing gesture, finger to lips. Cassie looked at Thomas, who had gone so bug-eyed she was afraid he might panic, but he held his body motionless and kept his mouth firmly closed. Was there some way to protect him? The man with the big glasses might be armed, too, if he was a sim. But there was nowhere better to hide than here, unless she wanted to tumble down the slope of the hill or run across the road to a stand of trees. Minutes passed, and Cassie became acutely aware of the cold air, the sun on her shoulders, the oily smell of the car and the beating of her heart. At last the crude wooden door of the restroom swung open and the man with the hat stepped out, blinking in the afternoon light. Belatedly, he registered the presence of Leo and offered a squinty, quizzical smile.

Leo came at him and shoved him against the cinderblock wall, showing him the pistol. “You’ve been following us,” he said, and Cassie heard a thrum in his voice that might have been anger but more likely was fear. Now that the confrontation had started Beth stood up boldly and went to stand behind Leo; Cassie took a few steps in that direction as if drawn by some poorly-understood duty, though she told Thomas to keep out of sight.

“You’re a fucking sim,” Beth said, “aren’t you?”

The man’s eyes, watery behind the lenses of his glasses, blinked frantically. “I’m—what?” He looked at Leo, at the pistol. “What do you want? You want money?” He reached for his wallet.

“Keep your hands down,” Leo said. “We know you’ve been following us.”

“Following you?” The man seemed about to deny it; then he said, “But it’s not—I mean, yeah, I heard you asking directions to the Interstate in the lobby at the motel. That’s where I’m going. I mean, I’m shitty at following directions. So I thought if I kept your car in sight… ? That’s all it was, really. So I wouldn’t get lost! Is that a problem? I apologize. Like I said, if you want money—”

“Fuck your money!” Beth said. She stood next to Leo. “He’s lying. He’s a sim.”

“Maybe,” Leo said, “but—”

“But what? You need to take care of it!”

“Shoot him?”

“Yes! Fuck! Shoot him! Now, while there’s nobody around!”

The wind blew and the trees on the hillside rattled their leafless limbs. Cassie felt a hand on her arm. Thomas. She bent down and whispered, “Go to the car. Get in the backseat. Get down. Close your eyes. Do it!”

The man with the hat and eyeglasses was begi

Leo aimed the pistol at the center of the man’s body. Leo’s face became a mask of concentration. His eyes narrowed. He was going to shoot, Cassie realized. He had seen the man following them, he had passed a verdict, and he was going to shoot.

“If you have to shoot him,” Cassie said, “shoot him in the leg.”

Leo’s hand wavered. Cassie couldn’t look away from the gun, Leo’s knuckles pale and pink against the anodized metal.

“If he’s a sim,” she said, “we’ll know. If not… maybe it won’t kill him.”

Leo nodded and lowered the pistol, but the sound of the gunshot when it came was so loud it made her gasp. It seemed to surprise Leo, too. He stumbled back a step, looking at the weapon as if it had burned his hand. A flock of starlings erupted from a distant tree like sudden smoke.

The man with the big glasses and the old-fashioned hat dropped to the ground. His mouth was open but no sound came out, and one hand groped at the cinderblock wall of the restroom before it reached for his leg. His right leg was shattered below the knee and Cassie was shocked to see the glint of an exposed bone. Blood pulsed from the wound in frantic gouts.

There was nothing green inside him.

Cassie’s stomach clenched. She forced herself to stand and watch, furiously scrubbing her watering eyes. Leo was immobilized, staring. Beth had backed away and stood with her spine against the wall of the restroom.

Cassie spared a glance for the road—still empty.

The man on the ground clutched his leg at the thigh with both hands. His eyes had rolled up, showing the whites. “Guh,” he said—some senseless grunt.

“Oh, he’s not,” Leo whispered, “he’s not…”

Not a sim. Cassie felt a weightless sense of clarity, as if the world had grown simple and brightly lit. “Okay, we have to stop the bleeding.”

“How?”

She had taken a first-aid course at school but it hadn’t covered gunshot wounds. “Tourniquet,” she guessed. “Make a tourniquet.”

Leo nodded and took off his belt and bent down to wrap it around the wounded man’s leg. The man didn’t resist. He was barely moving now. His big glasses were askew on his face and his hat had rolled to the verge of the slope.

Cassie remembered what she had said to Leo (shoot him in the leg) and felt sick all over again. She had never seen a person shot at close range. She had imagined a neat hole, not this wholesale butchery. But if she hadn’t said anything it would have been worse, wouldn’t it?

Leo lifted the wounded leg and doubled his belt around the man’s blood-soaked pants, but his hands shook and he couldn’t find a notch for the buckle. “Here, let me,” Cassie said. Where had this absurd calmness come from? She bent down, cinched the belt tight. The rhythmic pulse of blood from the wound began to slow. But the damage was awful. An artery must have been cut. The man needed medical help, urgently.

There was a payphone just inside the restroom entrance: Cassie could see it from where she knelt. “Beth,” she said. “Call the police.”

“What?”

“He needs an ambulance! Call the police!”

Beth looked at the payphone but didn’t move. “I don’t think we should do that. Won’t we get arrested? We’ll get arrested!”

“Beth, he’s dying.” The man’s head was tilted back, his mouth was open, he was breathing in gasps, like snores, and although his eyes were open they weren’t looking at anything. Cassie put a finger against his throat to feel his pulse. His skin was cool but slick with sweat. The beat she felt was erratic.

“Okay, wait,” Leo said. “Cassie… I didn’t mean to hurt him so bad.”

“I know.”