This morning when I checked the feed, all I could spot was a dog—or at least, I think it was a dog. The dark blob looked about the same size as a midsized one, and it trotted around the same way a canine would. It rubbed itself along my cabin, took pee breaks on the trees and posts, and pawed at the back door.

Whatever it was, it ate all the kibble I left out for the stray animals in the area. Either way, it’s time for me to move on. I’ve already been here too long.

“Sialan,” Deedee curses in Indonesian—actually, my vocabulary also extends to swear words. “I’m pruning like a bitch.”

I peel my eyes open to glance at Deedee as she grimaces at her hands before resuming her fidgeting with the bracelet, staring out at the horizon.

I snort. She’s been out here for almost an hour and half. I’ve already doubled that, because I got out here well before she did. I crane my neck back to check if Nat is still sunbathing on the shore—sleeping off a hangover, apparently—then scan the streets to make sure no one has decided to join us at our secret spot.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I survey the streets one more time to be safe. I can’t hear anyone drive further out than this.

My focus returns to Deedee, the feeling of being watched as strong as it always is. She has an unnatural sort of beauty, the kind where you look twice because her deep golden tanned skin glows without a drop of makeup, and she seems to wash her shiny hair with the Elixir of Life.

Her long, black braid is partially undone. Chunks of hair stick out at odd ends. Dark strands frame her face and catch the light every time she moves. Her plait reaches the tattoo on her ribs—it’s the same matching one I have on my upper back.

The woman is well above her thirties—or so she claims—but she doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. The one time I asked for her skincare routine, she laughed and said, “The blood of virgin men and Neutrogena.” It wasn’t very helpful, but I figured I’d need more than an oil cleanser to wash away signs of four years’ worth of trauma.

“I don’t want to look at the state of my hands.” I chuckle, cutting myself off at the frown she casts toward the open sea. Her fingers stall on the golden bracelet. “You good?”

She makes a noncommittal noise. “Just memories. You know how it is.” She offers me a weak, placating smile.

Don’t I know it?

“Want to talk about it?” Sometimes, it’s nice to get things off my chest when the world feels too much. I’ve confided in Deedee before—brief stuff, mostly, but she has a very generalized idea of the type of demons I’ve got under my bed.

She hasn’t told me much either, beyond losing her family and changing her name to feel like she’s taking back control of her life.

My stomach sours as I watch the corners of her eyes crinkle with pain and a haunted look passes over her. Seeing her like this makes me feel hopeless. She lost her sister decades ago, and she still hasn’t gotten over her grief.

I doubt I’ll ever stop feeling like I’m being torn in two whenever I think about Dad.

Deedee nods to our right. “There’s a beach a couple kilometers that way where me and Ni Luh used to swim. My mother used to yell at us every time she found out we snuck away—beat us with the broom a few times.” She snorts. “Those straw ones that sting like a bitch? That.”

I grimace. Dad’s form of punishment was only letting me have one scoop of ice cream instead of two—but I was allowed to have some of his.

“Did she surf too?”

Deedee shakes her head. “I didn’t get into it until recent years. I was too chickenshit.” She laughs.

My lips tip up at the corners as I cast a glance at the street. “I’m pretty sure my dad would’ve insisted on a water birth if he knew what it was.”

“And mine would’ve loved an epidural if she knew about it.” She sighs, turning her bracelet around her wrist. “If she knew what I got up to now…”

The phantom sound of a car soaring past makes me flinch. I clear my throat. “We really need to figure out what we’re going to do about the pirates.” Even though I’m getting out of here, I don’t want to leave them in the lurch after she got me set up and settled.

Deedee pioneered the whole gig. She’s the one who began the factory, made the connections, built the clientele. Nat came on board later to do the tech side of things. Then, I injected myself into their operation.

“I think you should reach out to your contacts in⁠—”

She waves me off. “Shit like this happens all the time. Don’t worry about it. Give it a week or two, and it’ll sort itself out.”

Tension returns to my muscles.

It’s hard enough that only fifty percent of the chips can be used—for the life of me, I can’t figure out why—and we’re producing more books than usable chips. Although the quality of our stock is better, Nat and Deedee had to scale back on how many passports we ended up selling because of my many shortcomings.

It hasn’t impacted profit margins by much, but the wastage is bound to catch up on us—if the pirates don’t screw us over first.

The latest stunt by the pirates is going to screw us big-time unless we act.

“I don’t think crossing our fingers and hoping for the best is the best course of action. We need to be proactive.” In Tommy’s world, that meant either doing something legal, or something very illegal that even I wanted nothing to do with it. “They’ve never taken a whole shipment before. At most, they’ve stolen half. In a few weeks, we won’t be able to operate.”

She rolls her eyes, and boy, does it make me want to scream.

“Just trust me. You’ve been doing this for about a year. I’ve been running this for a lot longer.”

I feel like pulling my hair out. She saved my life by getting me a new passport back when I was searching dark web-forums, and we got to chatting. She made Bali sound like the right place for me, so she helped get me here, found me a place to stay, trusted me with her business, and let me into her fold. I owe her everything I have, but sometimes, her laid-back attitude pisses me the hell off.

How can anyone run a factory without a backup plan? She might be a phenomenal artist, and I know the printing side of things is her domain, but without the microchips, we’re just another subpar passport manufacturer.

I take a deep breath. After losing Dad and living under Tommy’s boot, I’ve learned my survival depends on knowing how to react to things going tits-up.

“At the very least, I think we should put contingency plans in place in case it doesn’t sort itself out.” Surely, that’s a reasonable compromise instead of doing nothing. “Without the parts Wayan was meant to give me last night, I can’t fix the machine. We’re operating at⁠—”

“Cindi,” she says, voice soft but firm.

I almost flinch at the sound of my new name.

“Just breathe. It’ll all work out. I’m sure it’ll show up in a couple of weeks.”

For fuck’s sake. I’m talking to a brick wall.

Deedee grins. “I know what will fix this.”

I hold my breath, waiting for her to continue. I’m not going to like whatever idea she has.

“We’ll get you blackout drunk tonight so you forget all about it.”

Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t roll your eyes.

My teacher once said if I can’t say anything nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all. But I think my silence might be taken as an act of violence right now.

“My stomach’s been uneasy. I don’t think drinking is on the cards for me.” It’s not entirely a lie. The cause of it is purely from anxiety.

Deedee was born and raised in Bali. Hitting the town with her is an experience like no other—I assume so, anyway. I’ve only been out of the house past dinnertime three times in the past year, and I didn’t dare have more than two drinks. The one time I made it to the third, I was hyperventilating in the bathroom because I thought the guy who wanted to dance with me was Tommy.