We weren’t far enough away for my liking, and I still didn’t have a phone. I self-consciously fished the cash out of my bra and handed some of it to Rueben so he could check us in. However, once we were in the room, he told me to sit down and relax. I did the first part; the second was impossible. I opened my mouth to remind him I needed to call my cousin to warn him, ready to throw the Petrov name around if I had to, to remind him who he was working for now.
But I didn’t have a chance. He gave me a dark glare and slammed out of the dank little room. I turned in a slow circle, taking in the damp, dreary surroundings. A scratchyred bedspread that might have been older than the scratched chipboard bed was the cheeriest thing in the room. The walls were a faded, nondescript color, a cross between porridge and wet sand. The light overhead flickered, and the only other furniture in the room was the bedside tables, in a different shade of faux wood from the headboard, a round Formica table that was once green, but the color was mostly scuffed away, and two plastic chairs.
A desk phone perched on one of the bedside tables, and I flung myself at it. Clicked the receiver button a few times, hung it up, and tried again. There was a droning dial tone, but when I tried to press the number buttons, only a shrill beeping sound came. Nothing went through, and there were no directions on how to get it to call out.
Scurrying to the door, I cracked it open, not sure where I thought I was going to go, miles from the last big highway. Reuben barreled past me into the room.
“What the hell are you doing?” He tossed a flip phone at me. “I have to return that to the guy in the office, so be quick.”
I let out the breath I had been holding, and the guard laughed at me, a bitter sound. “Where do you think I was going?” He seemed to remember he also had a bag of chips, and he opened it, took a handful, and tossed the rest to me.
I was too busy trying to remember a single phone number. As much as I wanted to assure Masha I was all right, I had to get word to Aleks as quickly as I could. The only number I could get to emerge from the depths of my frazzled memory was the kitchen line at Aleks’s house, because I had called it so often when I wanted to request lunch in my room on busy work days.
A little bit embarrassing, but hey, it was a number. The cook answered at once in her slight Russian accent.
“It’s me, Lilia, please get—”
She shrieked on the other line, yammering in rapid Russian to someone else in the room. A moment later, I heard Aleks’s voice, then Masha came on the line.
“Where are you? Are you okay?” And then my ultra badass sister burst into tears.
“Lilia?” It was Aleks now. “Tell us where you’re at, we’ll send help immediately.”
“Miami,” I said breathlessly. “Somewhere in the Everglades, I think. I’m not in danger, but you are.” I could barely speak, so happy to hear his voice, and Masha was getting herself under control in the background. “The Collective is coming after you, all of you. It’s going to be big, Aleks.”
All he wanted to know was where I was. Reuben told me the address, and I repeated it, but reiterated that it was more important that they shore up for the coming attacks. He told me to stay where I was.
“No, don’t send anyone to come get me,” I begged. “You need every last man.”
“Lilia, we have things under control here.”
But I didn’t think he did. He was much too calm. All I had to do was tell him who I had been with for the last several weeks, and how I knew what was about to happen, but something kept me from uttering Gavril’s name. I covered the mouthpiece of the clunky old cellphone.
“Give me something specific,” I hissed at Reuben. “Or tell him yourself what you know.”
He held up his hands as if to ward off the phone. “No specifics, just that it’s going to be big. Everything at once. Ishouldn’t know what little I do. But if they can come and get you, that’ll solve our problem about being able to get on a plane.”
“Just send one person,” I said to Aleks as a compromise. “Masha, don’t let him send an army,” I called out, hearing her nagging our cousin to give her the phone.
She must have managed to wrestle it from his grip because she spoke in my ear. “Hang tight. I’m on my way. Do you swear you’re safe?”
“Kittens in a basket,” I told her, an old code from when we were children, and we were coached on what to say to prove we weren’t under duress. “As safe as kittens in a basket.”
I smiled at Rueben, feeling so much better to hear my sister’s voice, and knowing this was about to be over. But he didn’t return the smile. His eyes were ice cold. Of course, nothing was over. My family was about to be under siege. And there was still the chance that Gavril found us before Masha did. But I had a lot more hope than I did that morning when I was wrestling the waves.
As soon as I ended the call, I felt an odd pang of guilt, but I was not sure why. Should I have told Aleks I had been with Gavril all this time? Surely I didn’t feel guilty for being on the verge of getting free of him for good?
There was no way I was going to miss him.
Something way deep down wondered if there was a way to… I shook myself out of that line of thinking, as fantastical as anything in a fairy tale. There was no happy ending for us, because in order for my family to come out on top, that meant Gavril didn’t get a happy ending at all. Just an ending.
By warning my family about the Collective’s plans, I had signed his death warrant.
The realization almost doubled me over. Before I could examine the whirlwind of those tortured feelings, Reuben grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out the door. “Time to go to the final destination,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stumbling along behind him as he tossed the borrowed phone back into the office and then shoved me toward the car. What was going on? Why was he being so rough? “My sister’s coming here. This is the address you gave her.”
He only laughed as we peeled out, heading further into the vast stretch of swampy nothing. “Is it?” he asked. “Or did I tell her where I really wanted her to go?”
