by Bera, Ilia
“Those bags are hard to come by. They don’t make them like that anymore—even at Beaunelle. Can I ask you a question?”
Can I say no? I try to swallow the lump in my throat. “What’s that?” Her calmness is unnerving. I look around but can’t see any henchmen, anyone to chase me if I run. The absence of cronies is somehow more unsettling than the alternative.
“In what way is stealing better than taking a handout? Why is a handout somehow so morally reprehensible, but taking something you never earned so acceptable?” She waits silently, calmly for my reply. I can’t imagine the effort of self-control it takes to stand so still, act so indifferent, so cool. I haven’t forgotten Porsha was the one who insisted on my death. So insistent, she wanted to be present while she watched me die.
“I was desperate,” I say.
She lights a third cigarette, this time not bothering to offer one to me. She rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and nearly speaks, but is interrupted by an involuntary scoff. “My family was wealthy. I married into wealth. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe Carmine is right, and I really don’t have any idea.”
I look around again, expecting to see some long black coats lingering in the shadows.
“There’s no one here. Just us.” Porsha says. I shouldn’t believe her, but do. I’m no psychologist, but I do consider myself a tremendous liar—and no one is this cool when they lie, not even me. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a small handgun.
No sane person should act this cool when threatening someone with a gun. “What do you want?” I ask.
“I want to kill you.” She says it with a familiar hint of pity, not for me, but for herself. She wants to kill me, but unfortunately, she can’t. She finally turns to look at me. Her manicured fingernail teases the trigger. “Carmine said the gypsies found you and sold you out,” she pauses again, biting her lip, “but that doesn’t add up. How did the gypsies know we were looking for you? You don’t look like someone who would hang around with gypsies. A gypsy can’t tell the difference between a Beaunelle purse and a plastic bag.”
Calm still, she keeps the pistol aimed at my chest and patiently awaits a response. I begin to explain everything, starting with Freddie’s fight with Hugo. As soon as I tell her about the trailer they kept me locked inside of, she rolls her eyes and sighs.
“—Darling, I don’t really care,” she says, interrupting me. “I’m not interested in hearing your sob story. I just want to know where the gypsies are headed. Tell me, and I’ll let you live. Simple, right?”
I look down at the barrel of the gun. I think about lying. It would be easy to lie, but what would that get me? Temporary freedom? I’m sick of temporary freedom. I want the real thing. “I don’t know,” I say. “If I knew, I would tell you, but I don’t know. I was blindfolded the whole way there, and I was blindfolded when they took me back to Ilium.” What do I get out of telling the truth? I don’t know.
Her finger snuggles up against the trigger and she lets out a long, dramatic sigh. “The town they brought you to—what did the buildings look like? What were the residents like?” She waves the gun as she speaks, as if to tell me to stop meandering.
“It wasn’t a town. It was a field, surrounded by a forest. The trees were all straight—”
“—Wonderful.” Her voice is flat, emotionless—as sarcastic as voices can be. “Straight trees. That’s all very helpful.” She raises the gun. Every muscle in my body tenses and I cower away.
“Wait.” I remained cowered.
There’s a long silence. Surprisingly, as requested, she’s waiting. She waves her gun and raises her eyebrows.
“I don’t know where the gypsies are, but I know where you can find a guy who does.” I try to peel myself out from my standing-fetal position, but my muscles and joints stay locked, untrusting of my intuition.
“Who is he and where can I find him?”
“At the inn—at the pub under the inn. He’s a gypsy.” I explain how I know Mel, how he and Freddie captured me, and how I overheard him explaining why he’s in town. Porsha is much more interested in my story this time.
I’m both relieved and shocked when Porsha places her purse on the ledge again, and stashes the pistol inside. She takes a black card out and says, “Good.” She hands the card to me. It has no markings, no features. “Here’s my deal. Go and turn yourself in to the gypsy. Have him bring you back to their camp. Do that, and I won’t tell my husband I ever saw you.”
“What’s this?” I ask, holding up the card.
“When my husband gets home tomorrow night, I’m going to tell him I was mugged by a gypsy. Actually…” Porsha takes her pistol out from her purse again. I cower. “Calm down.” She shakes her head, pulls out her box of cigarettes, and then throws her purse into the river.
She casually slips the gun and cigarettes into her coat pocket. “I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand, sweetheart?” She lights another cigarette, this time handing me one.
“How are you going to find me?” Did she want me to call her? What if I couldn’t find a phone? What if the gypsies stuck me back into their trailer?
“I’ll track my territ card,” she says, motioning her head towards the black card in my hand. “Tomorrow evening, after I tell my husband I was mugged.”
I can’t count the number of ways I could escape. The minute I’m alone, I could toss the card in the trash. I could give the card to the old man at the inn, and have him send it to the other side of the country. I could destroy the card; destroy whatever sensor was inside of it.
The little smile she makes when I look up at her suggests she considered all those possibilities and she knows that I’m considering them, too. She wouldn’t set me loose unless she was certain of her plan—and here she is, setting me loose, turning around and walking away, across the bridge, without even a final warning. Her coolness is the warning. She isn’t even a bit concerned that I’ll outsmart her. She’s ten steps ahead and she knows it.
Besides, assuming she keeps her promise, it would be idiotic to default on her deal. She’s giving me an out. Maybe Carmine would never find me if I were to throw the card off the bridge and skip town. Maybe. But it’s the maybe that I’m sick of living with. My neck is already sore from keeping one eye over my shoulder.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
Mel is still at the bar, and for once, I’m actually happy to see him. He’s my ticket out, my sacrificial lamb—and what better lamb to sacrifice than the one that stole my money, kidnapped me, imprisoned me, and then sold me to a gang of ruthless criminals?
I take a seat in a dark corner of the bar, shawl still over my head, and gaze locked on Mel. He hasn’t noticed my re-entry; seemingly much more interested in a group of drinkers nestled in one of the bar’s many nooks. I have to fake a bathroom run in order to see the drinkers myself.
Three men, a few beers in, share laughs and innocent, casual conversation. It isn’t until closer inspection that I notice the coat rack next to their booth, draped with black hats and long black coats. They’re Pesconi’s men, off duty. Judging by their nonchalant merriment, they don’t know that their employer murdered four of their friends. Or maybe they’re numb to Carmine’s callousness. Who knows?
By the time the men settle their tab and stand to leave, my eyes are heavy and I’ve lost count of the passing hours. The bar is quiet and empty save for Mel and the off-duty thugs. Mel ducks his chin as the men head for the door. He slips a few territs onto the bar and then stands up to follow.
I make my move, slipping behind Mel as he heads to the door with his chin down and his hands buried in his pockets.
“Stop following them,” I say quietly.
Mel spins around swiftly and his eyes widen as they land on me. He opens his mouth, stutters, but I cut him off.
“Sit down.” I nod my head towards an empty nook.
He hesitates, stuttering again. Judging by his state of confusi
on, I am the last person he thought he would see in Vianna. He looks around and through his teeth he says, “Get the hell out of here.”
“Sit down,” I repeat.
“No.” He turns to leave.
I say, “It’s a trap,” and he stops, this time not looking back at me. He keeps his gaze fixed on the group of men as they shrink into the distance. I can hear him sighing. “They’re setting you up. Sit down.”
He turns to me, his mouth crooked as he bites down on his tongue. His nostrils flare out with each shallow inhalation. “How do you know?” he says with his teeth still clenched.
I tell him again to sit down, and he does.
“They know you’ve been following them. They have a guy following you, too. He’s outside right now, waiting for you to leave the bar.”
“How do you know?” he asks.
I hold my eye-contact. “Because I heard them taking about it, over at Pesconi’s house—right before they killed your friend, Nicky.” My heart jumps. I faintly heard Mel say the name back at the Holiday Inn before he left—something about filling in until they found Nicky. As far as I know, they could have found Nicky. As far as I know, I’m digging myself into a hole.
Mel stares into my eyes, the same way the police do when they’re trying to get you to talk—when they want you to think they’ve got evidence, when they really have none. “Where’s Nicky?”
“I told you. He’s dead. They killed him.” I keep my gaze locked on his eyes. Everything is riding on whether or not Mel buys my story.
“How do you know?” He leans back in his chair and peeks out the pub’s front window.
“Don’t look out there. If they know you’re talking to me, they’ll kill both of us. You need to go back to the caravan, and you need to leave tonight.”
Mel slams his fist down on the table. His face is almost as red as his hair. “What the hell are you on about? Look—I don’t know how you got here from Ilium, but listen to me carefully. You aren’t getting those territs. They weren’t at that pawn shop. They’re gone—already melted down, god knows where. So you can give it up already.” How I got here from Ilium? I want to scream at the ginger bastard. Why am I here? Because you sold me out, you piece of shit.
“I don’t care about the territs,” I say.
“Then what do you want?” Mid-sentence, Mel drops the volume of his loudening voice. He leans in close. “Why are you here?” he asks, through clenched teeth.
“Your friend Nicky died so I could escape—so I could tell you to go back to your caravan, and warn them not to move forward.”
Mel is silent, brooding, his eyes glazed over.
“The only reason I’m here, risking my life to tell you this, is because your friend died for me. I thought, the least I can do is pass on his message.”
Mel maintains his silence. His foot begins rapidly tapping against the floor, almost matching the rhythm of my heart. He says, “And where are we supposed to go instead?”
“Cidessa. Nicky said they won’t find you in Cidessa.”
“Cidessa?” His tone has relaxed; his volume has lowered. If he doesn’t believe me, he’s damn close.
I tell him that he has to move now, that Pesconi will be en-route in the morning. He takes a minute to process everything. Once he does, he asks about Nicky, asks how he died, and what he told them. I tell him that Nicky said nothing.
Mel takes out his phone, but I stop him. “You’re phone is bugged,” I say. “They’ve been listening to you for two days now.” His pupils are dilated and his shoulders are tense. If it wasn’t for my overhanging shawl, Mel would be able to see that my pupils were dilated and my shoulders were tense, too. “That’s why you need to go to them and tell them in person.”
Mel stands up. He is still for a moment as he digs his hands into his pockets. “Thanks,” he says in a meek tone of voice, as if thanking me is somehow an acknowledgement of defeat. He doesn’t realize that that’s exactly what it is. He turns to the front door.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
He looks back at me with an eyebrow raised questioningly.
“We’ll leave through the back,” I say.
“We?” His mouth hangs open after he says it.
“I helped you. Now you can help me.”
He grimace, but he doesn’t take the time to question me. “C’mon,” he says, motioning me to follow him.
We stick to the alleyways, only crossing the cobblestone bridges when we’re sure no one is watching—when Mel is sure no one is watching. I’m always sure. At the edge of the floating town is a ladder that descends into the lake where a small inflatable boat awaits our arrival.
The boat isn’t meant for two, sinking precariously low into the water once we’re both inside. I’m careful not to make any sudden movements, so the cold lake water doesn’t seep over the boat’s edges. It would be easier if Mel wasn’t rowing so hard, if he wasn’t in such a rush to get back to his caravan. I can see it in his eyes—that urgency, that crippling responsibility. My plan worked; he’s convinced that the lives of his family are now on his shoulders. He’s right, but for all the wrong reasons. He is Death’s unknowing escort, and I’m Death.
We reach the wooded shore and walk for ten minutes through the thick forest before finding Mel’s campsite: a tent, a fire pit, and a horse tied to a nearby tree. Mel is quick to pack up his things. He hasn’t uttered a word since we left the bar.
I appreciate his urgency. I wish someone would have tipped me off before our gang was busted. I wish someone who we were being set up would have had the same urgency Mel has now. Maybe then no one would have died. Maybe the bust wouldn’t have happened at all. I wish Mel wasn’t taking this so seriously. Why couldn’t he just take off, and save himself. I could slip Porsha’s card into the horse’s saddlebag. Then I wouldn’t have to lose any sleep; I wouldn’t have an entire extended family on my conscious.
Mel mounts the horse and looks down at me. “Get on,” he says, reaching his hand out.
I hesitate. I want to tell him the truth, tell him that bringing me with him means his family facing the wrath of Carmine Pesconi: Freddie and Mel’s whole family in exchange for my peace of mind.
I take Mel’s hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
OBLIVIOUS
After six hours of uninterrupted riding, we arrive at the field where the gypsy caravan was. From there, we spend four hours following tire treads in the mud, left behind by the dozens of trucks and trailers—dozens of families that will soon be dead.
It’s early morning when we catch up with the mobile caravan—the sun not yet over the horizon. The trailers are dark, asleep, but the truck drivers are awake, driving no faster than a brisk walk. When I ask Mel why there are no roads in Theria, he explains to me that there are no cars in Theria—that cars violate therian law. But constantly moving the whole caravan, all their homes, their old and their young, would be impossible with horses alone.
“Old and young?” I ask.
“Forty-five children. I’m not sure how many seniors—maybe twice that? Probably more, even.” Mel says.
Forty-five children and one hundred seniors; that’s the price of my freedom.
We ride along the caravan’s side and catch up with the leader. The train comes to a quick halt when Mel explains the situation. The announcement travels down the line of trailers quickly, and soon enough, every light in every mobile home is lit. Everyone, still half-asleep, gathers for an emergency meeting. I’d spent the whole ride from Vianna honing my story, perfecting my lie, but no one asks me anything. No one questions my tale. Everyone believes what Mel tells them—what I told Mel.
When Mel announces Nicky’s death, the gypsies become silent, save for one older woman who collapses to her knees and begins bawling into her hands. She screams, “Why?” over and over. A teary-eyed man, probably her husband, sinks down to comfort her. He keeps his composure and reminds her that there will be time to cry later, but not now. There’s no time t
o cry over their dead son because now, the caravan is changing direction, and it’s a group effort to get the trucks and trailers onto a new course.
Before the crowd disperses, I recognize Freddie’s face in the crowd. His face quickly elicits memories of Pesconi’s cement dungeon, crawling through rat shit, teetering over the giant turbine, and swimming through glacial waters. I did all of that for a chance to see his face again, to punch it as hard as I could. I couldn’t wait for the chance to get my satisfaction. Now, I couldn’t muster up that same vengeful hatred. No matter how hard I tried, guilt was all I felt. I’d hoped that I would see his face and feel better about my decision, about my freedom.
Nope—just guilt. He turns away from me to help a small girl find her way back to her trailer.