“How is that possible? It’s the one thing Callista was sure of. The smell of rain.”
I took a deep breath, frustration getting to me, but I stopped. Because when I took that inhale?
I smelled.
There was no rain, and it didn’t rain, but itsmelledlike rain.
“Unless it wasn’t rain she’s smelling,” I mumbled.
And as if on cue, I heard a horn.
My eyes went out to the ocean, seeing a big cargo ship in the distance.
What else did Callista say?Dark. Big. Alarm. Brawny man.
What if?—
Without hesitation, I grabbed Dex’s laptop, and I looked for an English-Filipino translator.
“I think I screwed up. Callista didn’t say she saw a brawny man in the Nest,” I mumbled, typing in the two words into the translator.
‘Barako’meant a muscular guy. When I translated it for the guys when Callista said the word, I didn’t think it was out of place for a man like that to be handling illegal business.
And Callista couldn’t correct me that I said the wrong thing because I doubt she knew what ‘brawny’ meant.
I turned the laptop to make Dex look at the other word, sounding so similar.
“She said ‘barko’,not‘barako’.”
Andbarkoin Filipino? It meant ship.
Callista sometimes heard alarmsor ships.
It was as if everything clicked into place.
The rain-like smell that could very much well be the sea. The monthly shipments that can only be possible if they have access to some kind of easy-access port.
I looked at Dex as we came to the same conclusion.
We may be closer to the Nest than we thought.
42
COSETTE
Iwas getting déjà vu with how we’re dressed in all black.
If anyone of our classmates saw us now, we’d surely be met with confused looks because we weren’t wearing beach attire at all.
The sound system was already booming downstairs, with the programmed batch activities starting any second now. But the four of us had our own impromptu plans.
Thankfully, this time, Siege was with us, and we’re not going on a mission to save him or someone from our ranks.
“Can I really not convince you to stay behind? We’re winging this. No plans this time, sweetie. I don’t want to put you at risk,” Dex said from behind as he was putting my hair up in a bun.
“We’re doing this together. Everything from here on out,together.”
I met Nero’s eyes while he was seated on the bed, fixing up his shoes.
