Ethan was indeed a tortured soul, there was no doubt in my mind about that. I’d always saw that in him, always. I knew his struggles. It was what made me think we’d had so much in common when we were younger. It takes one to know one.
We arrived in Hanoi around eight and the traffic was saturated as usual. The city had been awake for several hours, already having lived an entire day before we’d reached the outskirts. Ethan followed Father Connolly to a nearby street vendor and we shoved our motorbikes as close to the curb as possible, tangling them in with a hundred others, before getting off and standing them. I tore off the bike as quickly as possible, earning me an odd look from Ethan.
I shrugged. “Rough ride,” was all I could offer.
He nodded in agreement but I was sure my ride was rough for an entirely different reason than his.
“Phở?” Father asked, making us both grin at one another.
If you ever want to hear something truly knee-smacking, ask an Irishman to speak Vietnamese. Feckin’ highloirious, boyo!
We ordered our soup and all three of us sat hunched on the tiny available chairs close to the building wall just outside the shop. Ethan crouched down on his haunches, foregoing the chair altogether.
He looked at me. “I’d just break it,” he explained, smiling.
I smiled back. “They’re made for American kindergartners, really. Don’t feel bad.”
“I don’t,” he said with a shrug and another grin, reminding me that his size contributed to who he was. He never made excuses for it nor gloated over it. It was what it was. And it’s breathtaking, I thought then immediately chided myself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a woman acting strangely, looking over her shoulder a hundred times, memorizing the people around her. I suspected she was An’s contact but I wasn’t sure so I continued eating without catching her attention. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do was notice her if someone really was watching us. She’d be dead before she crossed the street to us.
So I drank the broth of my soup slowly, eyeing my chopsticks as if they were the most fascinating things in the world, and before long, a shadow fell over our tiny table and all three of us looked up.
“Xin lỗi cho hỏi?” Excuse me? She said it quietly, hesitantly.
“Yes,” Father replied in Vietnamese, but this time I didn’t find the humor in his accent.
They continued to have a conversation and I could only catch bits and pieces. Words like girl, men, and lost. Ethan and I had set our bowls down to listen as if we could understand what they were saying, both of us on edge. I turned my head to look at Ethan, studying him, scrutinizing him as his eyes widened in alertness, his muscles bunched beneath his skin, flexing as if he could jump twenty feet any direction he chose, and I believed he could have. My gut churned with nerves. The soup had lost its soothing charms.
I watched Father and the woman in animated conversation, wishing I’d had any clue as to what they were discussing. I looked around me, at the people living out their morning, bustling to and fro, getting from point A to point B. It all looked so innocuous, so commonplace but something, I don’t know what, was telling me to flee. For some inexplicable reason, my chest tightened, my breath quickened, my skin crawled.
“We have to leave,” I said suddenly. “We have to leave, we have to leave,” I kept repeating, but Father was too deep into his conversation with the woman in front of him. “We have to go, Ethan,” I said, standing up. Ethan followed my lead, standing but keeping his body between mine and the street. I tugged on Father’s shirtsleeve. “Father, I have a weird feeling.”
He looked up at me. “’Tis it, my choild?” he asked, his voice rising an octave in curiosity.
“Tell her we’ll contact her later. I have a sick, paranoid feeling we need to leave.”
Calmly, Father stood. “I don’t believe there is anything to worry ’bout, lass, but I won’t make you stay here.” He turned to the woman and explained. She nodded quickly, turned, and sprinted for the street, the same direction she had come from.
“She said to meet her at her apartment. ’Tis just down the road a wee bit,” he said, bending to reach for his helmet.
Just then bullets rang out in rapid succession. Screams joined the chaos, but before I had time to do the same, I was whisked into someone’s arms, cradled like a child against a big chest. I looked up and saw Ethan’s steady expression, his warrior-like countenance. His was a look of a man who knew exactly what to do.
I watched spellbound as he hoisted me up and around the metal counter of a nearby street shop. He left briefly and the fear crept back, the noises rose tenfold. Suddenly, Father was spun in front of me as if he weighed nothing, his cane fell with a clatter upon the concrete floor, adding a sharp echoing thud to the disorder as women, men, and children went diving into tight places, begging for a safe haven from the spray of bullets.
“Ethan!” I screamed when he stood back up as if he intended to go back into the line of fire. “No, Ethan! No!” I yelled desperately at the top of my lungs when he kissed my cheek quickly and gave me a piercing look that confused me.
He went bounding into the fray, me screaming after him to come back as Father dragged me back behind the counter.
“No, lass! Stay put!”
I raised my head, my gaze barely breaking the top surface of the counter to search for Ethan as Father signaled families to give him their children to hide behind the metal counter in his stead. My instinct told me to run after Ethan but I knew I had a duty to protect the children around us. Protecting children was the reason I was there. So I pulled at as many kids as I could, tucking them into one another like a can of sardines, desperately pushing my racing heart and the reason it raced to the back of my mind.
Ethan was out there with the gun. A million thoughts raced through my mind. Why didn’t he stay there with me? What was he hoping to accomplish? How could he risk himself like that? Didn’t he know how much I needed him?
I’d reached for a toddler just as the bullets died down to a complete halt. We all stood still, quiet, waiting. When I was sure the bullets were no more, I bounded up, ignoring Father’s heed to stay. I ran out into the ghostlike street, such a dichotomy from what it had been not a minute before, and searched for Ethan. My eyes scanned then fell upon Ethan knelt beside the woman we’d been talking to, giving her mouth to mouth, pumping her chest, working furiously to revive her.
“Father!” I yelled into the shop. “They shot her!” I screamed.
He bounded up, hobbling toward her felled body in the middle of the empty road. He fell beside her, checking her vital signs. The resigned expression that came upon his face let me know she was gone and that Ethan was working for nothing.
He put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Son, she’s gone,” he said, stopping Ethan’s pumping hands. Ethan pulled back, his whole body trembling with the adrenaline no doubt leaving his body in droves.
Father closed the woman’s eyes, made a sign of the cross on her forehead, took her hand, and prayed silently for her. Ethan stood, still shaking, and sprinted the ten feet between us.
“You okay?” he asked, his eyes roaming my body along with his hands, searching me for injuries.
“Not a scratch,” I whispered, my body jerking left and right as he checked me over.
He finally stood straight, raking an unsteady hand down his face, the only tell that he was even slightly human. His sleeve had a streak of the woman’s blood on it.
“You saved us,” I said, stunned.
“What?” he asked, scrutinizing the area around us. “Come on, let’s get indoors,” he said, grabbing my arm. Over his shoulder, he said, “Father, let’s get out of sight.”
Father finished up his prayer, crossing himself, covering the woman up with a shawl she’d been carrying, and followed us into the street shop Ethan had hidden us in when the bullets had first sounded.
“You saved us, Ethan,” I told him again.
“I did nothing
of the sort,” his calming voice soothed.
“You were-you were amazing. The way you moved,” I told him, almost in disbelief that anyone could naturally move that way.
“I’m just a skilled hunter, Fin, and I’ve warrior blood,” he explained away as if it was perfectly normal that he picked up two grown people and maneuvered them with a litheness I’d only ever seen in animals.
I remembered watching Ethan play football in high school with the other boys and thinking he moved with a skill that could never be taught, a skill that could only come from blood, from the memory of ancestors and the repeated, graceful movements that came with the heritage training he’d always seemed to be gone over the weekends for. It showed then and it showed in that moment.
“You were amazing,” I kept repeating, at a complete loss for words.
He stood stock-still, staring, his eyes narrowed, examining me, searching for something but I wasn’t sure what it was he was looking for. “Thank you,” he said deeply, his voice as immovable, as solid as ever, then relaxed his face.
“Come ye’ two,” Father said, motioning us toward the opening of the shop.
When we emerged, people started gathering around the dead woman, others fled, and others went about their business as if shootings were an everyday occurrence, which they most certainly weren’t.
Sirens sounded through the streets as an ambulance and police car drove through the crowd to reach the woman.
“I want ye two gone,” Father said to us both.
“What?” I asked, my heart starting to pound in my chest again. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want either of ye questioned, that’s why, just in case these officers are bought an’ paid fer.”
“Then let’s go,” Ethan said, grabbing my hand and encouraging Father to walk ahead of him.
“No, lad, I’ll be stayin’ here.”
“I won’t leave you behind,” Ethan told him.
“Do as I ask, Ethan, please,” Father asked kindly. “I’ve done this many a time an’ t’was a sacrifice I’s willing ta take when I came ta Vietnam, but I canna get out, lad, if you’re sittin’ in the cell wit’ me.” Ethan’s jaw clenched but he didn’t argue. Father gave him his cell phone and the keys to his scooter. “I’ll ring ya here, lad, regardless what happens.” Father laid his hands in reassurance on both our shoulders before turning us around and scooting us forward. “Now get!”
Ethan squeezed my hand once then dragged me into his side and walked briskly away from the chaos. People were yelling, stalled cars and scooters were honking their horns, unaware of the scene ahead of them, as I glanced behind me once and noticed that Father was talking with his hands as two policemen interviewed him. Ethan tucked us in between a building and tree about a block south so we could watch without being noticed.
My hands fell to my sides and I looked down, pondering them as they shook. My adrenaline was still pumping, and I felt sick to my stomach. I had an eerie feeling in the pit of my belly as I watched the exchange between the officers and Father. He was usually an animated guy, but he rarely got irritated. He kept raising his hands then pointing to where we sat. He tried to signal for the shop owner to come over to him but his hands fell in disappointment when the man shook his head.
“The shop owner’s not going to vouch for him. We have to help him,” I said, walking forward.
Ethan stopped me by grabbing my arms and pulling me against his chest. He spoke low in my ear. “They will only take you with him, Fin. They have no intention of finding out what really happened.”
“How-how do you know?” I stuttered, scared.
“Because they don’t work for the city. They may wear the uniform but they’re bought, just like Father said.”
“What do we do?” I asked, panicked. “Should we follow—” I began.
“Wait,” he whispered in my ear, stopping me.
We watched as they cuffed Father, his cane clanged to the street below, and roughly shoved him into the back of a police car. Ethan’s arms wrapped around my chest, bringing me closer, clasping me tightly to him, as if his holding me could prevent me from being torn away by invisible strings. He held me with such intensity, such fury, I knew nothing could’ve severed his tether. I also knew he was unaware of his protective stance because his eyes were intent on the scene before us, seemingly intent on the world around him. It was instinct. I silently thanked him because I’d never felt as secure as I did in that moment, whether or not he was aware of it.
Once the police had driven off, Ethan looked down at me, finally aware of the way he was holding me. He released me and I suddenly felt cold, which then made me extremely uncomfortable. Stop it, Finley, I chided myself.
“Sorry,” his deep voice soothed. He averted his eyes, grabbed my hand, and we sprinted for the scooters, skirting the traffic jam surrounding the taped-off section where the woman once laid.
I could not help but stare when we approached the dark red spot in the road and my gut clenched.
“Don’t look,” Ethan’s steady voice prodded, wrapping his arm around me and bringing me into his side. I tucked my face into his shoulder but couldn’t shake the image of the dark, wet pavement or the lump of human beneath tarp. It would forever be seared into memory.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ethan
I guided Fin to the scooters and gave her the keys to one. I read her expressions, her body language. She looked shell-shocked.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Of course,” she answered, meeting my gaze, lifting her chin up like a badass, making me burn with pride at her strength. “We should probably call Sister Marguerite and let her know what’s going on. I have no idea where the local jail is here, and we’ll have to rely on her to tell us what to do.”
I nodded and handed her the phone. Her fingers were trembling as they reached for it so I took them in my own and held them there. “Fin,” I said steadily.
“Yes,” she breathed, making my heart beat erratically.
I swallowed, opened my mouth to speak to her, to say anything, really, just to continue connecting with her but found nothing. I promptly shut my mouth, wishing I could spill my feelings to her as readily as she seemed to be able to spill them to me. I knew I wasn’t the most vocal person in the world. It seemed I’d inherited that particular trait, but it didn’t mean I didn’t have anything to say. I just didn’t know how to say it.
“You don’t have to,” she told me.
“What?”
“You don’t need to say anything to me, Ethan. Your touch is comfort enough,” she answered, reading my mind.
“I’m not good with words,” I told her. “I-I’ve always been this way. So many times I’ve wanted to tell you something and just as many times, it seems, fear locks me down.”
“You have no need to fear anything with me,” she whispered.
I circled the rear of the scooter to stand in front of her.
“That’s just it, Fin. I’m not afraid of anything, not even death, but you? You I’m afraid of.”
She sucked in a breath, took the phone from my hand, breaking our soothing contact, placed it in her shorts pocket, then threaded and wrapped her thin arms around my waist and rested her face against my chest. She made me wish I could touch her every minute of the day for the rest of my life. It was such a mollifying, soothing, relieving thing, our touch.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t mention how it did insane things to my stomach, burning me slowly down to my toes then back up again. Her proximity made me want to touch her places I wasn’t allowed to touch. To run my hands along the small of her back, my thumbs across her lips, kiss the line of her jaw, and taste her mouth with mine, but that kind of contact would only be a fantasy of mine. That contact was too intimate for friendship, too forbidden. So forbidden. So remarkably forbidden.
Yet, despite its risky side effects, I knew I’d hover just above that invisible line drawn in the sand, knowing I wasn’t allowed to cross but toeing
the water nonetheless, testing my boundaries because I was falling in love with Finley Dyer and that’s what men falling in love do. They’re gluttons for punishment.
I dragged my fingers across her shoulders, applying the slightest bit of pressure, and rested my hands on the sides of her neck before leaning forward and kissing her forehead. I heard a quick intake of breath and for the briefest of moments believed it’d been for me before hearing two scooters near us colliding in a minor fender bender. I turned to realize she’d seen it coming and felt disappointed in myself for hoping.
The drivers began arguing in Vietnamese, shattering our moment. Fin pulled from me, grabbed the phone, and dialed a number. I sat in silence amongst the clattering street noise, absorbing the constant movement around me, bewildered by the fact that a woman had been murdered in the street not half an hour earlier and life, with its harsh, severe insistence to continue on, propelled and shoved its way over her death site, over her memory, her life’s blood, never ceasing, never stopping. I was sickened by it all yet, at the same time, it peculiarly consoled me.
Had you not just diverted your own attention from her death as well, Ethan? Had you not just fantasized about touching Fin? You’re no different. No less human. No less flawed.
And yet… we may have difficulty controlling our instinctive thoughts, but we do have a level of self-control that shapes us into the compassionate, empathetic people we should always strive to be. I wasn’t necessarily condoning their quick abandon of the woman in the street, because it made them human. As Fin had once said to me in class back home, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” She was quoting Mother Teresa. So who was I to know those people’s inner thoughts?
I watched a woman, extremely pregnant and on a scooter, her gaze was somewhere else, her mind as well, I thought. I soaked her in. Who knew what her life was like? I imagined her desperate to get home as quickly as possible to relieve the neighbor watching her other children. She would pick them up next door only to bring them home, set them down in front of a television, so she could get whatever work she could get done before her body gave out from sheer exhaustion.