by Harley Fox
He riffles through the pages, takes a glance, riffles through some more. Shakes his head again.
“A bunch of dates and names. Some kid’s notes.” He’s got a frown on his face as he stares down the darkened corridors and into the shadowy hiding spaces beside and between exhibits.
“What do you think we should do?” Rebekka asks Edward. “Are we in danger?”
“It’s hard to tell.”
I take the notebook from his hand. His eyes dart to me as he does, but then he returns to scanning. There’s a pen stuck in the spiral wire binding it together. I open it up to a random page and see it filled, as Edward said, with names and dates and tiny notes for each. Some of the names I recognize. They’re historical figures or places or artifacts. I flip to another page. It, too, is filled with much the same. Just this, over and over again. Flip to another page, and then another. Who left their notebook here? This looks like school work. Is there just some student kid locked inside the museum with us? What would we do in that situation? What would we do if they saw us?
“I’m certain there’s somebody here,” Edward says in his low voice. “Whether they know we know or not is the question. But we may have to find ‘em and take ‘em out.”
I flip to another page and then stop. This one is different. It’s only filled about halfway from the top. The bottom half is blank. And up, at the top, is a scratchy note, written in a different hand than the rest:
How many things can you fit in a Perse? Depends on how much she’s had to drink!
My stomach drops. No. I flip through the pages, to the front of the book, to the front cover. There, written on the inside of the cover: Property of Persephone Doukas. Her phone number is underneath it, in case it gets lost and somebody finds it. Somehow I don’t think the situation applies right now.
“Guns?” Julian asks.
“Mm,” Edward replies, and then I hear a sound that makes my stomach lurch: everybody’s guns being taken out of their holsters. We’ve never had to use them before, thank God. But then again, we’ve never had a situation like this.
I close the cover of the notebook to hide the name. “Hey,” I say in my low voice, trying to keep it sounding calm and cool. “Let’s not get rash. This may not be anything at all. Just some kid’s left his school work.”
“That condensation would be gone,” Edward tells me. His eyes dart to me again. “Get your gun out, Marc. We’re gonna do a sweep.”
The three of them break and move off in different directions. I’m still holding the notebook, my gun still in its holster. Edward disappears down one corridor. Rebekka and Julian check around this section, their bodies moving with fluidity, keeping silent, just like Edward taught us.
“Guys,” I say to them, my voice a bit louder now. “I think this is a mistake. Let’s just finish the job and get out of here.”
Rebekka looks over at me. “Marc, what are you doing? Get your gun out. Help us sweep the area.”
I’m about to protest some more, but something catches my eye. I look over at a corner leading to the Aboriginal section and see a head poking out, eyes wide, watching us. Persephone. She sees me. Her eyes widen somehow even more and then she disappears in a flash. Her shoes squeak against the tile floor, making both Julian and Rebekka turn in that direction.
“What was that?” she asks.
“Somebody’s here,” Julian says.
“Might’ve been Edward,” I say without really thinking. Rebekka flashes me a look.
“Are you kidding me? Come on, Marc, stop fucking around.” She and Julian start moving in that direction and I watch them, trying to will them to stop. They don’t. So finally I put the notebook back down on the ground and take out my gun. If I can’t get them to stop, maybe I can steer them clear of Persephone’s location.
I quickly catch up to them. She’s managed to disappear from behind the corner, but now I don’t know where she is. She can’t have gone far. Rebekka and Julian split up. Another shoe squeak, and I try to cough to cover it up. No use. Both Julian and Rebekka swing in that direction.
“There,” Julian says. He’s closer. He moves fast.
“I think it’s an echo,” I try as a last-ditch effort. “From over there.”
Julian turns the corner, lunges. I hear a scream, and then he’s struggling. He pulls Persephone out from around the corner, the hand without the gun holding her by her wavy, dark brown hair. She’s trying to pull away, both hands wrapped around his wrist. She screaming.
“Let go! Let me go!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Julian shouts at her. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“Thief! Thief!” Persephone pushes against Julian’s hand and flips her head up so she’s staring at Rebekka and me. Her eyes meet mine and I would never have imagined I’d see anger in them so strong.
“Thief!” she spits at me. “You’re all fucking thieves!”
“Wait a minute,” Julian says. “I know you.” He looks at me, looks back at her. “You’re that chick Marc was with. The one he was trying to bang.”
Persephone doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. Her eyes are still on me. She’s burning a hole into me, they’re full of so much anger.
“You piece of shit,” she says to me. She isn’t yelling anymore. “If I’d have known … what, is this your job? This is how you make money? Scamming museums and stealing everything they have?”
“It … it’s not like that,” I try explaining, but I don’t know how to justify to her what I do, right here, right now, when she’s being held captive by three people with guns and duffel bags full of pirated historical artifacts. “It’s not what you think.”
“You’re stealing from the museum,” she says, her voice rising again. “You’re thieves, all of you!”
“You shut the fuck up,” Julian says, but before I know it Persephone spins toward him, pulls her foot back, and swings it up, hard, into the space between his legs.
My eyes go wide. Both Rebekka and I gasp as Julian chokes out a cry. Persephone pulls her head from his slackened grip, but she isn’t done there. Before anyone can react, she reaches forward and grabs the gun from Julian’s hand just as he folds forward.
“Whoa!” says Rebekka.
She and I both raise our guns to her just as Persephone turns it around and steps away from Julian. He finishes collapsing to the floor just as she raises the gun to point it at me.
This is where we freeze, the three of us. Persephone’s eyes are on me, full of fear, full of anger. Her hands are shaking. The barrel of the gun keeps moving, and her finger is on the trigger. That’s the part I’m worried about the most.
“Persephone,” I say to her, keeping my voice calm and level. “Wait.”
She’s shaking more. Oh God, keep that trigger finger still. She shakes her head.
“No. You’re a thief. You lied to me! You said you were just taking notes to look it up. But you were … were casing the joint!”
“Casing the joint?” Rebekka asks, and Persephone swings the gun in her direction. Rebekka’s body tenses, her gun aimed directly at Persephone’s head.
“Whoa, hey!” I shout. Persephone points it at me again. “Okay. Calm down. Everybody just … remain calm.”
But she shakes her head, and her eyes start to shine in the dim light. I realize after a second that they’re filling with tears.
“You … you just come in here … you have no idea what you’re taking. You have no idea the history you’re destroying.”
“We’re not destroying anything,” I tell her. “It’s not like that. We’re keeping everything in very good condition. And we’re leaving replicas, so nobody knows. It’s like nothing has changed.”
“You’re stealing them!” she shouts. Two tears run down her cheeks now. Julian is immobile on the ground. “You’re stealing things that aren’t yours!”
“These things get moved around all the time,” Rebekka says, and Persephone swings the gun onto her, but Rebekka remains calm now. “From mu
seum to museum, to get fixed up. This is no different. You think half the things in here are the originals? They’re replicas, just like what we’re doing.”
But Persephone shakes her head again. “I’m calling the cops. I’m going to turn you in.”
“Okay, okay,” Rebekka says, and she slowly but steadily pulls her gun back, putting her hands up in a sign of submission. “Let’s talk through this. You don’t want to call the cops.”
I look at her, wondering why she’s doing that, but then I see movement from behind Persephone. It’s Edward. He’s approaching her from behind, his eyes trained on her. Persephone can’t hear him. Edward once told us he had snuck up on a wolf mother during a three-month stint out in the woods. No one can hear him if he doesn’t want them to. And Persephone is no exception.
“I’m calling them,” she sniffs.
She turns the gun onto me and I keep mine where it is, pointed at her. Edward’s eyes catch mine. He nods to me to acquiesce and I’m torn, waiting for a long second.
“Put your hands up,” Persephone sniffs. Edward’s getting closer. Just a few more steps now.
“Persephone …” I say.
“We can put everything back,” Rebekka says to her. “Would that make you feel better?”
She turns to her, swallows. Thinks about it. Edward moves forward another step. He lifts the butt of his gun up.
“Well, I guess so—”
“Persephone!”
She looks at me, her eyes wide for just an instant before Edward’s gun comes down on the back of her head, knocking her out. She drops like a sack of potatoes, Julian’s gun falling from her hand and skidding across the tile floor. Edward relaxes, Julian picks himself up to standing, wincing and hunched forward at the waist. Rebekka bends to pick up his gun and she hands it back to him. The four of us come to stand around the body of Persephone, lying motionless on the ground, breathing steadily.
None of us say anything. I can feel the adrenaline coursing through me now that the situation is over. Well, almost over. I look up at Edward and he’s staring down at Persephone. He’s got a strange look on his face.
“What should we do with her?” Julian asks. Edward still doesn’t say anything. I’m looking at him, watching him stare down at Persephone.
“Edward,” I snap. He finally looks up at me. His brow furrows.
“Why did you yell?” he asks. “I had her.”
“You didn’t have to knock her out,” I tell him. “She was about to agree, didn’t you hear her?”
“Oh, and you think in a few days’ time she still would have kept her mouth shut, once this was all said and done? She’d have turned us in!”
“We should have been wearing masks,” Julian says. Rebekka shakes her head.
“That would make us look like criminals. She might have shot then.”
“Without masks we look like cleaning staff,” Edward joins in.
“All right, fine,” Julian says. “No masks, I get it.”
“You didn’t have to knock her out,” I tell Edward again. “We could have dealt with her some other way.”
“Like what? Kill her? You got it.”
He cocks his gun, making Rebekka and Julian and I all react at once. He’s in the middle of pointing it down at Persephone’s prone body when I grab it and aim the barrel to the side, away from her.
“Are you a fucking lunatic?” I snarl, my eyes shooting daggers at him. His gaze matches mine, but he smiles.
“You don’t want to kill her?” he asks, and I can’t tell if he’s serious or not.
“No.” I shove the gun away and Edward lets his arm be moved, then relaxes it. My heart is pounding in my chest.
“We’d have to clean the mess up,” Rebekka says, trying to keep her voice calm.
“I think Marc just wants to fuck her first,” Julian tries to joke. But Edward doesn’t look convinced.
“You can’t just kill someone,” I tell him. He’s still looking at me, ignoring the rest. “Like Rebekka said, there’d be the mess. And the guard! How would we pay him off for something like that? What do we do with the body? Plus all the unnecessary attention it draws to the museum.”
Edward shakes his head. “You little pansies. Death comes up and you all freak out like you’ve found a spider in the tub. All right then, big shot. So what do you want to do? If we leave her here, she’ll talk. If we drop her off somewhere, then what? She saw our faces. She could make us.”
My mind runs through the possibilities, and so far as I can see there’s only one. Rebekka and Julian are both looking at me. I have a hunch they’re thinking what I’m thinking, and they look none too happy about it.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” I tell him. “We have to take her with us.”
Persephone
Oh fuck, my head is killing me.
I blink my eyes open. The back of my head feels like it’s been split in half. I’m on my back, on some sort of bed. I don’t remember how I got here. There are glaring overhead lights shining down on me. Beside me are wooden walls that don’t reach the ceiling. I turn my head and see more of the same. A dresser and a small desk accompany me in this cleared-out space. I swallow but it hurts my throat. It’s too dry. I can hear voices echoing around from somewhere, but they’re too soft for me to make out.
I cough, a sharp sound that also echoes. The voices falter and I stop, clamp my lips shut. Then footsteps, scuffing the concrete that I see makes up the floors. Fuck. Fuck. I try to get up but my head is hurting too much. The footsteps get closer and my heart starts beating like mad until they finally reach the opening of this space. I see Marc appear, looking down at me, a half-smile on his face.
“Hey,” he says in a soft voice. “How’re you feeling?”
He’s got a glass of water in one hand and a bottle of aspirin in the other. I try lifting myself up to sitting but it hurts too much and I suck in breath as my eyes close.
“Ooh, yeah,” he says, and I hear a few more steps and then feel his weight, causing the bed I’m on to sink down a bit. “Edward got you pretty hard. Here.”
I open my eyes a crack and see him offer me to glass of water. I reach out a hand and take it, lift it to my lips, drink the cool liquid. Marc opens up the aspirin bottle and shakes a couple out, offers them in an open hand. I reach forward and take them, pop them in my mouth. They stick to the tacky coating of spit I haven’t yet washed away, but I fill my mouth with more water and manage to get them past my throat and into my stomach. Then I drink some more water and hand the glass back to Marc. He takes it and I collapse back down onto the pillow, closing my eyes against the harsh overhead light.
“Wh—” I croak, but have to swallow to clear my throat. “Where am I?”
“You’re in our warehouse,” Marc answers with surprising calm. “We call it the House.”
I swallow again, my eyes still closed. “No. I mean, where am I?”
“Ah,” I hear him say. “Um, I can’t tell you that.”
I would close my eyes again if they weren’t already closed.
“Why am I here?”
“I insisted we bring you here. The alternative, ah, wasn’t as pleasant.”
“Can I leave?”
“No. Not right now.”
“I want to leave.”
“Look, Persephone … this is a weird situation for both of us. You know what? You must be hungry. Hold on, I’ll get you some breakfast.”
The mattress lifts back up as he stands. I hear a few footsteps and then they stop.
“You don’t have any food allergies, do you?”
I give my head a little shake, the pain already lessened from the aspirin. They must be extra strength. Marc doesn’t respond, but leaves, the scuffing of his shoes dampened quickly as he goes.
I turn my head and open my eyes. It’s a bit easier than before. He left the glass of water and aspirin on the little desk. I hear the voices conversing, only tones and soft mumbles making their way to my ears. Slipping my hands
underneath me, I push up to a sitting position, closing my eyes against the pain radiating from the back of my skull. I reach back there and feel a large lump. Whoever Edward is, he really didn’t phone in the attack.
Eventually I open my eyes again. The pain is abating, but I know I’m going to need some more aspirin soon. Now that I can look around I see that the wooden walls seem to be the sides of large wooden crates. They have thin metal bands holding them shut, the metal tight and digging into the soft grain of wood. Out through the opening to this little enclave I see more wooden crates. I lift myself up to standing, my muscles weak and shaky, and see that the crates surrounding me are stacked up higher than my head. But beyond them I see some crates stacked up even higher, one on top of another. I’m near one corner of the building, and I can only just make out the opposite corner. I get the sense that these crates fill the space almost entirely.
And speaking of this space, Marc wasn’t kidding when he said we were in a warehouse. It’s large, vast, and completely empty except for the wooden crates. The ceiling reaches up two stories. Up top are metal air vents, a catwalk reaching them. Those harsh florescent lights seem insistent on piercing all the way to the back of my skull.
Footsteps slowly get louder and I sit back down on what I realize now is a cot. Marc appears in the “doorway” carrying a steaming mug in one hand and a plate with a toasted bagel and cream cheese in another.
“I hope instant is okay,” he says, handing me the plate and putting the mug on the small desk. “We don’t have the luxury of being picky with the food we can keep here.”
My stomach rumbles but I try not to show too much interest in the food. Still, the smell of the toasted bagel and delicious cream cheese reaches my nostrils and I have to swallow the saliva that’s built in my mouth by the time I take the first bite. Marc sits down on the cot next to me. Now that I’ve started eating, I feel ravenous. For a while the only sound is the crunching of my bagel as I polish off both halves.
When they’re done I put the plate down on the desk and reach for the mug of instant coffee. Marc put powdered creamer in it, and as I take the first hot sip I taste that familiar oily, burnt-cigarette flavor that makes me think of camping with friends.