We get directions from the clerk and a paper printout of downtown Auckland to take with us and step back out onto the sidewalk. I take Sam’s pack and swing it over one shoulder—ignoring her protests that she’s not too tired to carry her own bag—hook mine over the other, and we head east, following the route the clerk outlined to the hostel.
The sun has set completely by now, and the streetlights are flickering on along the busy street. People bustle by in large, laughing groups, all of them bundled up in heavy jackets, and all of them in a hurry.
Downtown is coming to life as the office buildings empty out and well-dressed people grab a bite before the fashion shows slated for later tonight. The restaurants and bars Sam and I pass are all crowded, with tables filling up fast and would-be diners overflowing onto the sidewalk. There’s a festive, end-of-the-year holiday feeling in the air, which is strange considering it’s nearly June, but nice.
It reminds me of my first Christmas on Maui, when we took turkey sandwiches down to the beach for dinner on Christmas Day and made snowmen out of sand.
“I bet a lot of people do Christmas at the beach around here,” I say as Sam and I turn the corner onto a narrower street and the upscale restaurants and boutiques give way to bulky looking apartment buildings and smaller Mom and Pop shops. “They wouldn’t think your mom’s mermaid Christmas tree was weird.”
“I don’t know about that,” Sam said. “You saw what she did to it last year, right? With all the sparkly, shirtless mermen hanging at the top.”
I snort. “It looked like a gay underwater strip club.”
“Or the kinkiest Disney film ever,” Sam said, laughing, that low, husky laugh I haven’t heard in what seems like forever.
“I’ve missed your laugh.” I nudge her shoulder with mine. “It’s one of my favorite things.”
Sam smiles but keeps her gaze on the gum-pocked ground in front of us. “Thanks.”
“Really.” I shift closer to the street as we pass a darkened apartment building with overflowing trash cans muscling in on the left side of the sidewalk. “It ranks right up there with your smile and your ass and that place right behind your jaw that smells so good when you get out of the shower.”
She laughs again. “You’re so weird about that place.”
“I’m not weird,” I say, grinning. “I’m a connoisseur.”
“You’re absolutely weird,” Sam says with a wink I almost miss as something moves behind the trash cans, pulling my focus. “That’s one of the reasons—”
She breaks off with a startled cry, but by the time I realize the thing moving behind the trash cans is a rangy teenage kid, he’s already got his arm locked around Sam’s shoulders and the knife in his right hand jabbed against her throat.
The second I see the knife pressing into her pale skin, fear unlike anything I’ve felt since I was a kid trying to hold my shit together the night my sister was kidnapped floods through me, filling my mouth with a poisonous taste.
All I can think is No. No way. No fucking way is this piece of shit going to take Sam away from me, not after everything we’ve been through, not before we’ve made things okay again, not before we’ve had the life we’ve dreamed about, and the adventures and the kids and the grandkids and all the rest of it.
I want to lunge for him and squeeze the life out of him with my bare hands, but before I can grab for his arm, he tugs Sam several steps back, increasing the distance between us.
“Give me your wallet and anything else you got that’s worth anything,” he says, his voice breaking in the middle of the last word. “Do it or I cut this bitch!”
“Relax, okay,” I say through gritted teeth, holding up my hands as I size him up.
He’s a little taller than Sam’s five seven, but the arm locked around her neck looks strong beneath his stained white thermal. Judging solely by his fuzz-free face I’d peg him as no more than thirteen, but his body looks older, solid enough to be in high school.
But it doesn’t matter if he’s thirteen or sixteen, or how easily I could take him if circumstances were different. Right now, all that matters is the knife at Sam’s throat and how quickly I can make it go away.
“Hurry the fuck up, man,” the kid says, head jerking as he casts a nervous glance up and down the street. “I’ll cut her. I swear I will. I don’t give a fuck.”
“I’m getting the money right now.” I slide Sam’s pack off my shoulder to rest on the sidewalk and then set mine down beside it. “Give me ten seconds.”
I try to catch Sam’s eye, to silently assure her that I won’t let this little monster hurt her, but her eyes are closed.