by Alice Reeds
When I turned toward Fiona, she was already looking at me. When our eyes met, a silent exchange of what even is this and what does it mean passed between us.
“We were just a bit tired,” I said carefully, sounding more uncertain than I intended to. Weak. “And a little overwhelmed by the whole situation,” I added. “The number of people, the room itself, and just, well, it was a lot to take in. That’s all.”
They were watching us closely. At that a nasty feeling slithered beneath my skin. Doc Bowie confirmed it with that question, a planned move on his part, no doubt. But what were they looking for? And were they keeping an eye on everyone, checking for suspicious behavior, conversations about things they wouldn’t like…or were they just doing that to us?
Chapter Thirteen
Freighter
Leaving the opened containers behind, we walked farther along the endless number of stacks, blue, red, green, and different lighter and darker shade variations, a few black or silver ones thrown into the mix as well. I listened to every sound I could pick up, mildly worried to hear that hammering again, but only this time it would be something instead of nothing. Maybe someone had caused the noise and we’d simply missed them. Maybe they were also who the shadow belonged to, even though there was nowhere they could’ve hidden inside.
I desperately wanted there to be a connection, a logical explanation, but I couldn’t see one.
Walking just a little slower than Fiona, I peeked at her back again, at her tattoo, deciding to focus instead on that odd feeling from before, the question of what was wrong about it. This, at least, was a far less unsettling mystery. “I have a question about your tattoo.”
“I thought I already told you what it meant, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I confirmed, “but that’s not what I wanted to know. In which direction should the spirals go?”
She stopped and turned to look at me, her expression doubtful and confused. “In the direction they’re going?”
“Clockwise?”
She squinted at me. “No, counterclockwise.”
I traced the top swirl with the tip of my finger. “Definitely going right into left. Clockwise. Unless all the clocks I’ve ever seen in my life were malfunctioning.”
“Ha ha, you’re so funny,” she said in a deadpan voice.
“I’m completely serious.” I traced the ink again, slower this time. “Either your tattoo is mirrored, or something is wrong with my vision.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, and while I agreed, I couldn’t deny what I saw.
“And you’re sure it hadn’t always been this way?”
“Are you sure your eyes are brown?”
Point made.
“I sat through the pain of getting stabbed a million times until it was done, I’m pretty damn sure I remember which way it should be, and it shouldn’t be clockwise.”
Briefly I wondered if I felt any different, but then again, different from what? I didn’t have any unique markings or features of my own that could’ve disappeared or changed shape or position.
Fiona was right. She shouldn’t have said the situation couldn’t get any more bizarre, because, somehow, it’d gotten just that. All I wanted was for it to stop.
“What’s that sound?” Fiona asked, frowning, turning to the railing dozens of feet away from us.
I expected to hear that metallic hammering again, but instead everything around us was replaced by some kind of underground train station, the quiet chased away by the sound of an approaching subway. A second later I saw yellow, or orange. Fiona stood a few feet away from me, her arms crossed in front of her chest, her hair flying, and her eyes directed at the screen on the other side of the train tracks mounted onto the wall. Vorsicht Zug fährt ein, a warning in German about an approaching train. The name of an underground station in Berlin… How did I know that?
The memory was fuzzy, distorted, distant, yet I felt like I was there, felt the stuffy air brush against my skin, loud voices talking in different languages surrounding us, the train finally coming to a halt and the doors slamming open.
Blinking, the memory dissolved like smoke, the two of us back on the freighter. But how could it have been a memory if we’d never been in Berlin? Or had we? How else would I remember it? There were so many questions and no answers. The sounds of the train remained, slowly getting louder.
But it wasn’t a train, was it? Obviously not.
“Let’s check what this damn sound is,” I offered, refusing to be called a coward a second time. Maybe reality was slowly breaking in on us and we’d wake up in just a moment, the entire thing turning out to be a stupid dream. It was ridiculous how much I wished for that to be the case.
Hand in hand we walked over to the railing and looked out onto the ocean, searching. The sunlight reflected off the surface, blinding me as though I was looking out onto a sea of glitter, but then, finally, there was a shape, solid and dark, and moving toward us.
“Is that a ship?” Fiona asked, incredulous.
“I think so,” I said and leaned a bit forward as though that would do anything. Something about that moment felt like we’d been in a similar situation before.
The ship came closer and closer. It was similar in size to fishing ships I’d seen in some documentary I’d watched for five minutes before the rise and fall of the camera view on the ship made me seasick.
“There are people on it,” I added. That could be a good thing, because people meant a possibility of leaving, but…they could also be the answer to our question of who’d left those bullet holes. I was torn between excitement and fear. “At least three, maybe more, I’m not sure.” They stood at the front of the ship, one of them waving his arm around like he was giving out orders, while the other two listened and then moved away, one disappearing inside and the other going to the back and out of sight.
“Do you think they’re harmless? Maybe even a chance for us to get off this thing?” There was a shade of hopefulness in Fiona’s voice.
“I’m afraid the answer might be no.” It looked like they were traveling with a purpose, an exact goal in mind, and if that was the case, they knew about the freighter. “What if they’re the ones responsible for the bullet holes? And the missing crew?”
“Would be just our luck, ugh.”
More figures appeared on deck as they steered the ship toward something farther off to the left of us, closer to the end of the freighter. Their ship turned and slowly approached the freighter, closing the distance until the people on deck tied it to something I couldn’t see from so far up.
“I think we should hide,” Fiona said, her hand suddenly wrapping around my arm.
“Why?” I asked. I was wary of them, sure, but hiding? Like a coward? No.
“They have guns, big guns, not pistols. Those are semiautomatic, I think, but I can’t quite tell from this far away.”
My stomach dropped at her words, my heart seizing. Hiding suddenly sounded great.
“I think they might be pirates, and I don’t mean the fun Disney ones, so we seriously shouldn’t be standing here once they come on board.”
As absurd as the idea of modern pirates was, I knew it wasn’t something she made up, and that they were just as much of a threat now as they were hundreds of years ago. I didn’t want to know what they would do to two random teenagers like us, especially Fiona. She arguably wasn’t an easy target, but against a bunch of ruthless men, even she wouldn’t stand a chance.
We ran as quickly as we could. Passing the door to the bridge, we took the next one inside, closed the door behind us as quietly as we could, and then tried to orient ourselves at least somewhat in the semidarkness. The hallways weren’t in as bad of a state as the ones we’d encountered the first time around, but they weren’t clean, either, a fact I hoped meant that the pirates didn’t use it much, or at all, and therefore
wouldn’t immediately find us. Though I hoped they wouldn’t even see a reason to look for us.
The farther inside we went, the more a spot on my right upper arm started to ache, the pain slowly radiating farther, though I had no idea what caused it. Focusing on the space before us, I tried my best to ignore it, gritted my teeth, and pushed it aside. There was no time for something like this, no matter how painful it got the more time passed.
Two flights of stairs up, we moved into a room with windows letting us look down toward where the pirates would enter the ship. The portholes were small and mostly smashed, shards sticking out of the frames. Carefully I put my shirt over them, hoping it would keep us from cutting our hands into ribbons. Without any way to treat them, the last thing we needed now were injuries.
That pesky ache was already awful enough, strong enough that I clutched the spot with my left hand, tried to massage my muscles, hoping it would help somehow. It didn’t. What was happening?
Quietly, we watched as the pirates brought their treasures onto the freighter, bags and crates, and finally a big metal cage. They had to use some kind of crane to lift it from their ship onto deck and then wheeled it inside like it was nothing more than a piece of packaged furniture at a store or their weekly groceries.
But inside the cage—
“Was that a tiger or am I just seeing things now?”
“Pretty sure it was a tiger, yes,” I confirmed, no matter how absurd it was, my voice unsteady. Okay, perhaps that ache was more of a searing source of pain now, and it was the only thing I could really focus on.
“Miles?” Fiona asked, worry in her voice, her hand touching mine right over the ache. “Are you okay? What happened?”
Before I could attempt to form any kind of answer, someone shouted in a language I didn’t understand. Turning to the window, we looked outside. A guy ran up to the person that seemed to be in charge, a captain lacking the fun Jack Sparrow-like hat and mannerisms. They exchanged a few words while the smaller dude pointed toward the containers.
Oh no.
The captain looked around and then clicked his fingers at two other guys—tall with wide shoulders and long dark hair—and then he pointed them toward the containers along with the first guy.
We were so screwed.
Chapter Fourteen
The Villa
“How are you feeling today?”
I was sick of Doc Bowie asking that again and again, making me miss the time when no one cared enough to do it.
“Good,” I lied. Fiona said the same, her tone about as bored as mine. If he noticed, he didn’t show it.
“Have you ever been at a harbor?”
What?
“Yes,” Fiona and I said in unison, an odd coincidence, but it made me smile. We had something in common.
“Could you elaborate on that?” he requested.
“My father owns a yacht, or maybe two,” I said, “and a friend of mine’s family owns a cruise ship fleet and company, so I’ve been on one or two of those as well.”
Fiona cast me a sideways glance. “I’ve been at a harbor before,” she said, “but never on a ship…well besides the one that took us from the island.”
Doc Bowie nodded and quickly wrote something down. “Have you ever been on a freighter, then?”
“Obviously not,” I said, and Fiona shook her head.
Doc Bowie nodded again, accompanied by a sigh. He picked up his pen and wrote something down once more, in one file and then the other. A wave of annoyance and anger overtook me, pulled me under, my mind yearning to know what exactly he wrote. What did they know about us, and why did he ask us all these pointless questions that didn’t lead anywhere?
“What do you know about guns?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Fiona and I said in unison again.
“How about Polish, any knowledge of that?”
What the hell was he on? “No,” we both answered.
I could make sense out of the Berlin line of questioning, but the harbor and freighter questions? Guns and Polish? Did all that have something to do with our second trial, meaning it had a nautical theme with questionable extras? Or had we just given Doc Bowie more proof that we still didn’t remember Kellie and Oscar at all, if they were real, because they’d been on a freighter before? Did they live in Poland? All these questions were exactly why we needed to see those files.
We walked up the stairs back to the Villa, our footsteps echoing through the empty staircase. “The urge to tell him to go fuck himself is growing exponentially,” Fiona said.
“I doubt he could even if he tried.”
She chuckled. “There’s a scheme behind all this, a plan, with each of our reactions like puzzle pieces. Except we’re the only ones who don’t get to see the picture they create.”
“Would make it too easy,” I said, and shook my head. “Besides, Pamela wouldn’t approve of that word choice.”
“She can go and fuck herself right alongside Doc Bowie,” she countered and pushed open the door. The warm lights of the Villa were a stark contrast to the cold ones in the med bunker. “I know she’s supposed to be the nice, friendly one, but it’s so annoying. And so incredibly fake.”
“I’m sure someone buys her act, or maybe she doesn’t care. Or, perhaps, that’s just who she is.”
“She should reconsider.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
Silently we walked through the Villa aimlessly, to whoever was watching us, but in reality, we knew exactly where we were going. The concealed door. They’d done a good job with it, since we accidentally walked past it once before realizing it. The hallway was empty except for two people all the way at the other end, with their backs to us.
“No cameras,” Fiona said and pointed at the ceiling. Looking around, I couldn’t spot any, either. Strange. If whatever was behind that door was important, why hadn’t they installed CCTV to make sure no one without the authorization would get in? Were they so sure of themselves, of how much they messed up all of us, that they didn’t think we’d notice the door and try to open it? Or was it simply locked, so there was no need for surveillance?
Only one way to find out.
Stepping closer to it, I reached for the doorknob. The silver was so close to the color of the paint that it took me a moment to even see it. It was cold against my skin. Taking a deep breath, I turned the knob and pushed. Silently the door opened, the light on the other side flickering on. Fiona and I exchanged a look, a nod, and slipped inside.
Before us were exposed gray concrete walls and a metal staircase leading down, down, down. Leaning over the banister, I couldn’t even see the bottom floor. It looked exactly like the staircase down to the medical bunker, a fact I hoped was a good sign. If they looked so similar, perhaps that meant they were connected, part of a system.
Our footsteps echoed off the walls as we went down the stairs. We tried to be quiet, in case someone farther down entered, but it was impossible to be completely silent. Besides, the fact that the light was on would probably give us away, anyway.
“Should we try this one?” I asked once we got onto the landing in front of the first door, floor minus one. It was gray without any further markings or signs that would hint toward what was hidden on that floor.
Somewhere below, a door was opened and two voices echoed through the staircase. With no other choice now, we opened the door and went through, closing it behind us as quietly as possible to avoid them hearing.
While there were no signs that marked this bunker as off-limits, the fact that Pamela didn’t tell us about it made it pretty clear that it was. I didn’t want to know what would happen if they caught us, and I wanted to avoid giving them another reason to point their guns at us and feel that bone-deep terror again.
We crept our way down another hallway, this one completely bare a
nd gray like the staircase. The air was colder than in the Villa or even the medical bunker, though it didn’t smell like a hospital. It didn’t smell like anything at all, not even old air.
“This place creeps me out,” Fiona said. “Like, what even is this? What’s the point of some empty hallway network underground?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Perhaps it’s just a placeholder, kept empty on purpose?”
“I just hope we can find our way.”
“With a little luck, maybe we’ll find a connection to the medical bunker.”
We took a right down yet another hallway. It led to a dead end. No doors or windows. We retraced our steps and took a left this time, but all of it looked just the same, confusing and pointless. The hallway gradually descended the farther we went, then turned to the right, and finally, it opened up to a room.
But it wasn’t just any ordinary room. It momentarily sent me back to the island, to the cave we’d survived in. The ceiling was so similar, exposed stone with uneven edges, the walls perfectly straight, though, like the floor. And directly opposite us was a big glass wall.
As if in a trance we walked closer to it, more of the outside world coming into view, the horizon meeting water, and water meeting a beach far below us. The ocean surface glittered in yellows and reds, the sun setting off to our left. As far as we could see there were no people, no ships on the water, either, no signs of life. The Villa had to be close to a cliff, and the hallways led right to it. As close as freedom was, just some broken glass away, the fall would probably kill us.
More memories. Back on the island, standing so close to the edge of a cliff, making me think she might jump or fall, my hand wrapping around her wrist to stop or steady her, Fiona had asked me if I knew what l’appel du vide meant. She couldn’t have known yet that my mother was French, and I’d perfected my French since her death because it allowed me to feel closer to her after she was gone. Call of the void I’d said, a concept I was familiar with, yet she still went on to explain it.