Chapter Three
Shelter
Emily didn’t take my hand, but she did move to walk beside me. I wasn’t sure it would have worked out that way if not for the mention of her sister. She had to be starving, so when we crossed in front of a shop that was actually open, I deposited her between two brick columns beside the storefront window.
“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
She glanced up at the sign hanging above us before giving me a raised brow. It read something like “tobacco,” “spirits,” and “open all nite,” in heavy script. I didn’t attempt an explanation.
This wasn’t the busiest part of town and I knew pickings would be slim, but that didn’t stop me from grimacing at the selection of foodstuffs inside what had to be the dirtiest display case I’d ever laid eyes on. I took the last two plastic-wrapped packages that I assumed were sub sandwiches and three bottles of water to the counter, where I added a handful of jerky sticks from a wire display rack and took one deep breath before looking up.
The cashier was old in a way only a hard life can make a person. His grayed hair stood in thin tufts that were likely once curls. His skin fell slack and wrinkled over hollow cheeks, and his eyes were downcast and uninterested in me. I reached forward, as if sliding my merchandise closer, and then grasped the ashen skin of his mottled hand. His eyes shot to mine and I prayed the gift hadn’t left me.
I didn’t like to steal. I earned my living where I could. Where the Council had let me. But right at this moment, I didn’t have much choice. I stared into his eyes and focused my energy on hypnotizing him with both sight and touch. His pupils flinched an instant before his face relaxed, and I tried not to lose myself in the relief that it had worked.
Two minutes later, I was back in the street with Emily, who examined the shape of my brown paper sack. Apparently satisfied it couldn’t possibly be a bottle of liquor, she followed me the three more blocks we had to walk for what passed as a hotel.
Like the package store, the hotel didn’t list a name on the exterior of the building. Flecks of faded white paint had long since been swept away, leaving the word “rooms” checked with the red brick beneath it. I glanced sidelong at Emily, expecting at least some sign of protest, but she seemed beyond that now. She waited by the entrance while I acquired a key, and then trailed numbly behind as we climbed the seven flights of stairs to the room. When we finally made it inside, she fell into a chair without so much as a glance at the questionable stains marking the cushion.
If I had been a psychopathic killer, her mood would have taken the fun right out of it.
I secured the door and briefly glanced out the window to assure myself of an escape route before I joined her. I resisted the urge to apologize as I sat two bottles of water on her side of the small round table between smashed gray-brown globs of hardened chewing gum.
“Drink,” I said, and she straightened a bit as she came out of her trance to take a bottle.
When she’d finished about half without heaving or any of the other terrible scenarios I’d formed in my head, I unwrapped the first sandwich and surreptitiously sniffed for signs of rot. I was fairly certain it was ham, and there didn’t appear to be much for toppings, which made me feel moderately better about handing it over. Emily took the offering without question and I sat my own sandwich and water on my side of the table before dumping the remaining contents in the center. The three jerky sticks didn’t look out of place in our sad little situation.
The pain in my shoulder had dulled, but I knew it wouldn’t fully heal until I’d slept, and that was the last thing I could do here.
I became aware of Emily’s stillness and glanced over to find her watching me, half-eaten sandwich rewrapped and lying on the table. She was clearly exhausted and probably traumatized, but alive.
I’d saved her.
After a moment, I said, “Aern.”
“Huh?”
“It’s Aern,” I explained. “My name.”
She nodded, unsure how to respond. I wondered if she was in shock, or still convinced I was a crazy person.
“You’re shivering,” I said, and then stood, thinking what a stupid remark it had been as I pulled the threadbare blanket from the bed.
“I dropped my jacket,” she mumbled through trembling lips.
By the time she wrapped herself in the blanket, she’d progressed to shuddering. I forced myself to let her. To not touch her.
I sat again in the chair across from her, and the room was quiet for a long while. When she at last broke the silence, I was lost in thought and her soft voice sounded too loud.
“It wasn’t my car.”
I gave her a questioning look and she went on.
“The car, the one I used to follow you, it wasn’t mine. I… I stole it from my foster parent.”
I realized my face betrayed my surprise, but I couldn’t do much for it.
“That’s the good news, right? It didn’t have my name on it, just his and an old address. And even if they find him”—she shifted under her cover—“well, he’s a bastard.”
Her eyes met mine in a challenge, but relaxed when she didn’t find the answering one in my expression. In fact, I’d schooled my features to blank attentiveness, though I was severely concerned about both her comment and where this discussion was headed. Don’t ask, I thought. Leave it be. We’ve got bigger problems right now.
And whatever he’d done to earn the label, Emily was right, they would find him.
“The bad news?” I asked evenly.
“Yeah,” she said. “That would be my bag.”
A memory of the lumpy duffle bag flashed in my mind, along with a dozen or so ideas of what it could have held. School books? Gym clothes? Chinese throwing stars?
She sighed. “Things have been kind of rough for me and Bri.” She winced at her own use of the name and my gut twisted. “I try to keep us together, to make things work.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. The thing is, the bad news”—her eyes came back to mine—“everything important was in that bag. Everything I’d need. To run.”
It took immeasurable strength not to respond to her words, not to allow myself to envision what they’d been going through, what had happened to her and to Brianna.
I forced myself to remain composed, voice steady. “Can you tell me what, exactly?”
“There were a few things”—she hesitated, looked away—“from my mother.”
“What about your sister, Emily? Was there anything in that bag that linked you to her?”
A sick horror crossed her face. “Why? What… do you mean they’ll go after her?”
“No. No, I told you she was safe.”
Emily was bolt upright now, her blanket gathered in her lap as if she meant to run for Brianna that very instant. To save her.
I reached across the table to stop her, but dropped my hand before it got halfway. “They can’t get to her now,” I explained. “They don’t know where she’s at.”
She relaxed a fraction. “Then why? What are you asking me?”
I sighed. “They’ll come after you. To use you against her.”
Her face went pale. “There’s a photo of us. And some paperwork. It won’t be a question.”
Her words hung between us for a long while as she waited for me to reply, to tell her everything would be okay, but I couldn’t.
“What will they do?” she finally asked.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Emily was suddenly standing. “How will they use me against her? What will they do?”
Once more, I resisted the impulse to reach out to her. Instead, I gave her what truth I could. “They would… use you. To draw her out.”
Emily seemed to deflate as the vehemence left her. She’d seen me strung up, no doubt seen the blade threatening me. She was smart enough to imagine what their “use” of her would entail. She’d be wrong, though. The Council—Morgan—they would do much, much worse.
But
she could imagine.
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated. “They won’t get to you. And Brianna is safe.” I gestured toward the bed. “You should get some sleep, we shouldn’t stay here too long.”
She stared at me for two full minutes before finally glancing at the bed. I had no idea what was going through her mind, but it wasn’t the need for rest. She sat again in the chair and pulled the thin, faded-blue blanket tight against her cheeks. The bottom half of her face was buried as she simply stared across the otherwise empty room toward the only door.
In hopes that she would eventually give in, I clicked the lamp off, leaving the room with only the dim light filtering through the curtains, and then spun the very uncomfortable chair in which I sat around, kicked my feet up on the bedside table, and tilted my head back against my laced fingers. I closed my eyes to the stained plaster ceiling, but I had no intention of sleeping. Emily needed to rest. We would be running again in the morning, and whether Morgan’s men found us or not, it wasn’t going to be easy.
It was more than an hour later when she spoke again, this time her words barely above a whisper.
“I know you didn’t kidnap her.”
When I didn’t reply, she went on.
“I saw her leave with you. I just… I just couldn’t believe she would go like that, that she would leave without saying anything…”
Emily was struggling, and I didn’t need her admission, but I let her go on. Because she needed it.
“I knew something was wrong,” she said, “I couldn’t get her to tell me. She was always like that, though. Always keeping things from me, so I wouldn’t get upset. Always pretending everything was fine. But she just left…”
She was questioning now, and I could give her that answer at least. “She wanted to keep you safe.”
Her low voice came tremulous now from the darkness. “From who?”
“Morgan,” I said.
She repeated the name, as if committing it to memory.
“He wants your sister.”
There was a long silence as she built up the courage to ask, “For what?”
I sighed. “You won’t believe me. It’s more of that crazy person stuff.”
She didn’t question me again, didn’t demand that I tell her, didn’t try to convince me she would believe, and I felt oddly that she’d accepted that answer. Accepted it much too easily.
And then I wondered instead if she was just imagining what crazy people did with their hostages.
“He won’t hurt her,” I said. “I promise you that. He needs her alive.”
Emily swallowed hard, but she didn’t sob.
The room fell silent again and eventually, after a very long while, her breathing became even and subdued.
I finally relaxed. It was the first time in days.