by Eliot Peper
A notification pinged in her feed. A message from Lowell.
Last night was fun. Let’s do it again sometime. Sacred bulls, virgin princesses, hoards of treasure, I can supply whatever sacrifice your heart desires. Bloodlust is the best kinda lust, am I right?
Asshole. Well, at least she had successfully captured his interest. In this case, no response was the best response. Emily dismissed her feed and continued to explore the apartment.
One of the bedrooms had been converted into a home office. The other was . . . Emily smiled. Rosa had always refused to make her bed on the basis that she would simply mess it up again come bedtime. Some things didn’t change. A floppy stuffed animal lay amid the tousled sheets. Otto the otter. An unbearable brightness filled Emily’s chest, like the sun emerging from behind a storm cloud. Otto was the only thing Rosa had seized when Emily had rescued her and Javier from their deadbeat mother. Stoic and pensive, the little girl had clutched Otto and stared out the window the entire drive back from Houston to LA. It’ll be okay, Javier had reassured his sister while he glanced at Emily, desperate for confirmation, his expression enhancing both Emily’s conviction and terror at the responsibility that now rested on her shoulders. It’ll be okay. I promise.
Emily forced herself to exhale. She exited the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.
The living room was spacious. Designer rattan furniture accentuated the airy atmosphere, almost implying that this room was in fact a veranda, that fireflies might be the only light source the apartment required. Wide windows looked out onto the city, and Emily understood why Rosa had been so adamant about building a life here.
Addis Ababa was green. Eucalyptus groves lined citywide bicycle and pedestrian boulevards, cars banished to the network of tunnels that burrowed under every major thoroughfare, visible only where they emerged like breaching dolphins at designated drop-off zones. The massive Commonwealth embassy complex crowned a nearby hill, one of its globally distributed coequal headquarters. Closer at hand, a large park had been converted into a semipermanent outdoor market with hundreds of vendors hawking their wares. Above it all, high-altitude cirrus clouds were smeared across the baby-blue sky like butter on toast.
This was the jewel of East Africa, the region’s economic hub. Addis generated its own gravity, and residents and visitors alike fell into its orbit. It wasn’t just the ubiquitous injera, khat clubs, or unparalleled high-fashion culture. Ethiopia even had its own time, a twelve-hour clock with one cycle running from dawn till dusk, and the other from dusk till dawn. Even with seamless feed conversion, tourists still found themselves confused. This was a city full of intrigue, a place that easily absorbed outside influences and claimed them as its own. It had offered foreign aid and accepted refugees from war-torn Italy with understated irony after the dissolution of the European Union, established a peerless education system that powered innovation and commerce despite or perhaps accelerated by the national government’s waning influence, and reinvented itself again and again until a flight from Addis to anywhere else seemed to be a journey into the past, the rest of the world’s cities being but a shadow of this storied megalopolis.
How could Rosa have wanted to build a gallery anywhere else?
From this vantage, Lowell’s secret meeting, the kidnapping plot, Emily’s entire life on Camiguin—all of it seemed a flimsy and overwrought fantasy, perhaps the script to a blockbuster feed drama dreamed up at Disney’s Singaporean headquarters. For a vertiginous moment, Emily questioned her own sanity. Was it possible that the past decade had been nothing but an extended psychotic break? Would her eyelids flutter open to reveal the inside of a Canadian hospital ward? Could she be weaving grandiose delusions to feed an insatiable narcissism?
She swallowed, her bobbing Adam’s apple demarcating a line of white-hot pain up and down her swollen throat. No. She wasn’t insane, or at least she wasn’t imagining things. Niko had wrapped the elastic rope around her neck and beaten her to the brink of death in the ring. That wasn’t a dream or a delusion or a drama. That was real. She was real. And she was really here.
The front door of the apartment clicked open, and Emily’s heart skipped again even as her stomach twisted.
CHAPTER 12
Emily opened her mouth, but no words came out. She tried to move, but her body stayed frozen in place. The door clicked shut. Sounds of bustling from the kitchen. Bags placed on the counter. Fridge opening and closing. A gentle hum, no melody, a descending scale that Emily had forgotten was a distinctive tic of Rosa’s.
The short speech that Emily had carefully prepared vanished from her mind. She pulled it up in her feed but couldn’t focus enough to read the notes. Blood pounded in her ears. How had she thought this was a good idea? She had broken into Rosa’s home and was waiting to ambush her like some kind of maniac. Why hadn’t Emily gone straight to the gallery? Or even just rung the doorbell like a friend dropping by for a chat? She should have summoned the courage to call ahead. She should have sent the damn message she hadn’t been able to figure out how to draft. Anything but this.
Had those alternatives ever been viable, though? What if Rosa had blocked her back? What if Rosa had been out meeting with clients when Emily dropped by the gallery? What if they kidnapped Rosa before Emily could engineer a more socially acceptable approach? Lowell had ordered them to snatch her here, today. His team already had Rosa’s life mapped out, knew her routines, were infinitely more prepared than Emily could hope to be. That’s why Emily had broken in hours before Rosa would be home from work. Her only hope was to be inside before Lowell’s people showed up. This wasn’t a carefully formulated extraction. This was desperate, concussed improvisation.
The hum cut off abruptly.
Rosa stood frozen on the threshold between kitchen and living room, staring at Emily. Lips parting, a sharp inhale. She had her brother’s slender frame, dark skin, and wide eyes, but Rosa’s face was rounder than Javier’s, and her hawk nose was hers alone. She had on a loose cream-colored sweater, teal scarf, artfully torn red jeans, and flat-bottomed strappy sandals that could otherwise have paired well with a toga.
Microexpressions flitted across Rosa’s face like birds before a wildfire. Emily couldn’t tear her eyes away, as if Rosa might vanish into thin air if Emily’s attention wavered even for a moment. There were so many things to communicate, warnings and apologies and explanations, but the sheer magnitude of what needed to be said stood in the way of saying anything at all.
Seeing Rosa, a rift opened inside Emily. Thirteen years. She had spent thirteen years following Rosa remotely, scouring the feed for every image, every mention, every post, every impression that Rosa left on the digital plane like footsteps in sand. Emily had convinced herself that this one-way relationship was not only necessary to protect Rosa but somehow authentic, that playing voyeur was the next best thing to actual contact. But Rosa was not the sum of the traces her journey left on the feed. She was so much more than that, and the distance between the image Emily had built up in her head and the woman standing before her right now was as obvious as it was heartbreaking.
The rift yawned into a chasm, and Emily was falling into it. What had Rosa learned about the nature of beauty? Was she still obsessed with samurai serials? How spicy did she like her hot sauce? Why had she chosen this particular apartment, these rattan chairs? Who had helped her move in? What were her friends like? Did she and Javier still talk daily? Would she have narrated a bad date with bitterness or sardonic humor? These were impossible questions, questions that echoed and multiplied as Emily plunged ever downward until she was drowning in them, drowning in the overwhelming certainty of irreparable loss.
Then, to her immense surprise and frustration, Emily began to weep. She wept for the lost years, for the child she’d rescued, for the woman that child had grown into, for the Rosa whom Emily had abandoned and the Rosa who stood before her now, who crossed the room in three quick strides and wrapped Emily’s shaking body in a hug, who was whis
pering Emily’s own name in her ear like she wasn’t sure whether it was a question or an incantation, who held her close even when the sobs racked Emily with the strength of geological tremors, who smelled like jasmine, peat, and makrut lime.
“Shhh,” said Rosa in a throaty voice, stroking Emily’s hair. “Shhh. Em, it’s going to be okay. Shhh.”
But it wasn’t going to be okay. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. Emily wasn’t even the crying type. She should be briefing Rosa on the situation, hustling her out of this apartment, taking her someplace safe. Emily was the rock, the fierce guardian who stood between her people and a hostile world, even from afar. But no matter what she did, she could not stop the tears streaming down her face, could not slow her hyperventilation, could not calm the waves of emotion that broke against her like typhoon swell against Camiguin’s reefs.
Rosa gently lowered Emily onto a chair.
“Stay right here, Em,” she said. “I’ll get you some water.”
She pressed her scarf into Emily’s hands and retreated to the kitchen.
Emily buried her face in the scarf, the cashmere soft against her cheeks. She hated herself for being so ill prepared, despised the weakness that had precipitated this breakdown. She had helped raise Rosa, and a child should never have to console a parent like this, not even an adoptive one. Emily’s parents had always been unshakable sources of strength and support, until their premature deaths took them from her. Could she not offer Rosa the same? What was Rosa thinking right now, seeing this shadow from her past reincarnated? Had she noticed the scars, the mottled bruises? If Emily had seen in Rosa the enormity of her own ignorance, what had Rosa seen in her?
Sounds of water tinkling into a glass.
“Hang in there,” Rosa called from the kitchen.
Emily hiccupped. She had to pull herself together. Lowell’s team would wait until cover of darkness. They would slip into the apartment while Rosa slept, night vision shading the apartment in flickery green, steps inaudible, nightmare creatures transported out of dreamtime complete with sedative hypodermics and professionally neutral demeanors. Nothing to see here, folks. Just a simple abduction. Get in. Get Rosa. Get out. Get paid. This would be a milk run for them. A civilian art dealer living alone. It doesn’t get easier than that.
Emily let out a shaky breath. Another hiccup. She could do this. She would do this. She pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled deeply. She would pick up the pieces. She would regain control. She would get Rosa out of here before the strike team made their move and spirit her away to safety. Emily would handle this, come what may.
Just as Emily’s lungs reached their full capacity, the doorbell rang.
CHAPTER 13
Emily was about to shout a warning but stopped herself. It was probably just a neighbor, and yelling would confirm Rosa’s worst suspicions about Emily’s mental state and reliability, which would make it that much harder to convince her that Emily’s story was actually true. Moreover, if there was in fact something sinister behind the friendly chime, shouting would just give away Emily’s presence.
“Coming,” called Rosa.
Just like that, Emily’s eyes were dry. She crossed the distance from the living room to the kitchen in a few quick strides and then dropped to her knees behind the counter. The hard tile sent a jolt up her left leg, but she experienced the pain from an adrenalized remove. From this angle, she couldn’t see Rosa at the door, but neither could anyone entering see her. If the visitor was just a friend, she would scurry back to the couch. For the thousandth time, Emily wished that there had been more time to plan, to call in backup, to arm herself.
The door opened with a click.
“Delivery, ma’am.” Male voice, Amharic-accented English. “It’s heavy, so we’re going to have to carry it in.”
“Ahh,” said Rosa. “The kintsugi!”
“Um, can’t say. They just pay us to lug boxes around.”
“Of course,” said Rosa, with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Please come in. Ameseginalehu.”
Emily checked her feed for the translation: Thank you. Just a courier, then. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Rosa was an art dealer. She’d be receiving deliveries by special courier all the time, at the gallery and at home. Emily needed to be on guard, but she couldn’t afford to let paranoia blind her. As she edged back along the tile floor toward the living room, the ache in her knee sharpened and she had to fight off a sudden surge of exhaustion.
Grunts and sounds of shuffling feet, two men carrying something bulky, the door closing behind them as they bore their load into the apartment, set it down. After the couriers left, Emily would pull herself together, explain the basic situation to Rosa, summon a car to take them to the airport, and pass out once they were safely aloft. Lowell’s team would break in later tonight and discover nothing more than an empty bedroom. Once she had delivered Rosa safely into Javier’s care and briefed them on Lowell’s scheme, Emily could withdraw into exile on Camiguin.
“If you could just confirm receipt via feed, we’ll leave you to it.”
“Sure,” said Rosa.
A half-second pause.
“All right, Ms. Flores,” said the courier. “No sudden movements, no feed alerts, no screams.” Fuck. Emily reversed direction. “See this? It’s a mean little fucker. It’ll fire two electrodes straight through that cute little sweater of yours and pulse fifty thousand volts through your nervous system. Nasty, right?”
Looking up, Emily saw a blurry reflection in the microwave window. Three figures, one with an arm extended.
“But you’re a good person,” he continued. “I’ve got an intuition for these things, and I really don’t want to use this on you. It’s not just that it’d be painful, and it would be. It’s that there’s a small chance that it could cause you to go into cardiac arrest. Damn shame if a beautiful, talented woman like yourself succumbed to a heart attack.”
Emily had been sure they would wait until Rosa was asleep. Kidnappers were always looking for the moment of maximum vulnerability. If you could just confirm receipt . . . They had obviously been able to piggyback on whatever delivery Rosa was expecting, and once they were in the apartment, what better moment to strike than when Rosa was helplessly immersed in her feed?
“I’m aware these kinds of situations can be stressful, and stress can make us do stupid things.” Emily shut her eyes for a second and braced herself against the tile floor. She visualized the precise layout of the apartment, every object, surface, and angle. “But you’re not stupid, you’re smart. A great deal smarter than us two meatheads.” She assessed her options, calculated lines of approach, and excised extraneous contingencies. “So I’m going to tell you exactly how this is going to go. That way you can relax, and we can get through this nice and easy.” Emily eased open the drawer next to her hip, revealing nested saucepans. She gently hefted the topmost one. “You’re going to stay right where you are. My associate is going to administer a mild sedative.” Emily’s mind shed all thought until it was blank but supple. The coolness of the tile. The faint smell of vinegar. The rush of her blood. The smoothness of the plastic saucepan handle. The sound of Rosa’s terrified hyperventilation under the steel calm of the man’s voice. There was no judgment, no inner monologue, no sense of time. This was the clarity of the ring. “Don’t worry, we’ve consulted your medical records to ensure there won’t be any allergic reactions or interactions with your prescript—”
Emily pushed off the ground, flinging the saucepan overhand back into the living room even as she pivoted the opposite way. She reached out with both hands and snatched the cleaver and the chef’s knife from the magnetic strip along the counter’s backsplash, finishing her spin by coming around the corner of the kitchen island and shoving back against it with her forearm to accelerate her charge.
One man was facing toward Rosa and away from Emily, Taser extended. The other was behind and to the side of Rosa, raising a stubby syringe
like a malevolent nurse, his other hand holding Rosa’s wrist. Her sweater had been pulled up to the elbow, exposing her slender forearm. Both men wore navy-blue courier uniforms, and the massive crate they’d delivered sat near the wall, covered in stern warnings that the contents were extremely fragile. Rosa was standing ramrod straight between the two men, lips pressed together into a thin line, her free hand clenched into a fist at her side, knuckles white.
When Emily was halfway across the room, the saucepan hit the front window in the living room with the sharp report of steel on glass. The men turned toward the sound. Rosa was the only one looking directly toward the kitchen, and her eyes widened as she saw Emily.
Emily reached the first guy just as he finished tracking the Taser across to cover the unexpected sound. She could see his face in profile, was surprised in a detached way at the uncommon beauty of his fine features, imagined how she might have flirted with him in other circumstances. Then she brought down the cleaver in a vicious backhand into the nape of his neck. The blade was duller than a combat weapon and cut through skin and spine and muscle only to lodge itself in his trachea. The Taser went off, its twin electrodes firing in a burst of carbon dioxide, puncturing an intricate abstract weaving on the far wall, pumping fifty thousand volts into fabric.
The cleaver stuck even when she tried to yank it free, so Emily released the handle and elbowed the convulsing body as she came around it. Shock froze the other man’s face as he saw her emerge from behind his expiring partner. Emily took advantage of his moment of indecision and shoved Rosa out of the way, a shocked “Oh” escaping her as her butt hit the floor and she skidded toward the living room.
Opting for fight, not flight, the man yelled something unintelligible and came at Emily with the syringe, light glinting off the needle as it hurtled toward her face. She ducked, using her empty hand to knock his attacking forearm up and over. The needle parted her hair as it passed, missing her scalp by a few centimeters. Emily stabbed the chef’s knife into his gut with the other hand, powering the thrust with her legs so that it sank handle deep. Being inside his defenses meant being inside his reach, and given his superior size and strength, she couldn’t risk wresting the knife back out and getting caught in a grapple, so she left it where it was and leapt away and to the side, changing direction when she landed and bringing her leg around in a side kick that blew out his knee, cartilage and bone crunching under the sole of her foot.