“Exactly.”Hans grinned, revealing a line of yellowing teeth.
He watched as Harper guided me to the concrete, eyeing us as we huddled beside him.The sky was gray overhead, inciting the cold wind, which appeared to be whipping around the virtually deserted parking area.I glanced around quickly, relieved not to see any other people, although there were a few other stationary heavy goods vehicles on the other side of the lot.
“Where are we precisely?”Harper asked, wrapping his arms around me.
I leaned into his warmth reflexively, marveling inwardly over how quickly he’d become the center of my entire universe.Not so long before, I’d had to fend for myself, with the support of the few women I’d befriended at the hellish camp.Those days suddenly seemed like a long time ago.
Reaching into his pocket, Hans yanked out an old-looking packet of cigarettes and a lighter.Selecting a stick from the mangled box, he lit the end and inhaled as though his life depended on it.
“We just crossed the border into Germany.”Hans blew the smoke out toward me, but the wind whipped across our path, snatching it away before it met my nostrils.Grateful for the reprieve, I caught sight of the mist before it faded away.“About halfway, I’d say.Wil je er een?”He gestured to the box in his hand.
“Not for us, thank you,” Harper replied, declining on behalf of us both.I’d never smoked and had no desire to start at that juncture.
“Thank you for helping us,” I piped up, glancing between the two men.“We’d still be in Rotterdam without you.”
Hans nodded.“I help out Andrew from time to time.”
“So, you’ve done this before?”Harper sounded perturbed, as if we were the first and only people who were determined to flee the dystopian nightmare he’d help Ian to create.
Hans scoffed.“Think you’re the only ones who want out of that shithole country?”
“No.”I threw Harper an unimpressed stare.“Of course not.”
“We have a few stowaways.”He breathed in more nicotine.“And I do what I can.I heard what they do to women over there.”His eyes gleamed with sympathy.“And I don’t support it.”
“Thank you for saying so.”I tried not to think about the terrible things still happening to the members of my gender in the country of my birth.“Women really need more men to stand with them.”
“Yes, well...”Harper coughed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.“My lady is right.We’re truly grateful.”
I shot Harper a look, unsure how I felt about being described as ‘his lady’.There was little doubt that I adored him, the way he made me feel and the fact he’d saved my life, but I’d been one of those women who needed support only days before, and while he’d offered it to me, there were millions more of us left powerless and alone.Naturally, I accepted that he couldn’t have helped them all, but even though it was an unfair accusation, I couldn’t get away from the fact he’d been there with the idiot president right from the get-go.
He could have stopped Ian.
Heshouldhave done better.
“I’ll leave you to it.”Hans smirked as though he sensed the underlying awkwardness in the air.“We leave in ten minutes.”
I watched as he wandered away before I turned to the man still holding me.“Best not annoy our driver too much with your questions, Sir.”
I swallowed down the recriminations firing in my brain.Harper had done everything he could to help me in those final hours at the camp, and there was nothing to be gained from dredging up his prior intentions.
“There you go again, telling me what to do.”He cocked an eyebrow at me, a gesture he knew provoked me in the most tantalizing ways.
“I’d like to keep us alive, that’s all.”I didn’t want to fight with him.Far from it.I needed him more than ever.
“I know.”His tone softened.“And I know we’re not the first people to abscond, sweetheart.I guess I just never saw myself being one of them.”
“I suppose that’s on me.”
An unexpected hurt seared in my chest as I acknowledged that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost out.Yes, Harper had led a life of obscene luxury and privilege, while I’d been rounded up and called a prisoner of the state, but our recent actions had taken him away from everything and everyone he’d ever known.Even though our need had been imperative, a part of me accepted that couldn’t have been easy and regretted the outcome.Hell, I’d been through something similar when the initial men had come to take me away from my home.
“Nonsense,” he chided.“You’re not responsible for any of this.”His hand rose to my chin, his thumb caressing me lightly.“To be honest, I’m more disconcerted about the time I lost in the back of there.”He signaled to the truck we’d been hiding in.“I could have sworn we’d only been traveling for just over an hour.”
“That’s good, I guess.”I shrugged.“Better that the time goes fast than slow.”
“Yeah.”He sighed.“I just hope it’s not another neurological side-effect.”His lips twitched as soon as the words left his lips, conveying his sudden awareness that he might just have slipped up.“Not that there’s anything to worry about, of course.”
“That’s right.”Instantly, I sensed he was on the back foot.“You told me Armitage called and said you had the all-clear.Right, Sir?”
