She shakes her head like this is no big deal. “He’s never met you, so he didn’t say anything. Just told me about it.” Her phone lights up with a notification, and she jumps to her feet. Ordus and I do the same. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I need to go.”
Wait. No. I want to insist she stay so I can interrogate her for information. When did they ask? Are they still here? Who’s your contact? How many men were with him? Did he leave a number? Did they say anything else?
Deedee taps her phone screen again, and she gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Where are you staying? I’ll meet you at yours so we can talk for longer.”
My pulse jumps, and I cast a nervous glance at the men going up to pay at the counter. “I’m not giving out my location. Just in case, you know. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I?—”
She stops me with a shake of her head. “I get it.”
I lower my voice, trying to inject every ounce of my fear and desperation. “We need passports. As soon as possible.”
The men she was eating with wait for her on the sidewalk, splitting their attention between me and Ordus. I subconsciously inch toward him, using the kraken as a barrier.
Deedee walks backward, giving me a noncommittal nod with the same blasé attitude she gives to everything that frustrates me to no end. “Call me, okay? We’ll sort it. Everything’s going to be fine.”
I don’t answer. Even if I wanted to, she already turned away, typing furiously at her phone.
Ordus and I watch her walk down the street with her entourage until she’s out of view. Cold sweat trickles down my spine. To hell with my four hours, I want to go right the fuck now. But I can’t hide out on the island and wait for the heat to die down when there’s heat on the goddamn island as well.
“I do not like her,” Ordus says, stirring me out of my thoughts. I drop onto the bench, realizing we’re still awkwardly standing in the middle of the restaurant. I tug him down. “She touched you and made you unhappy.”
He’ll need to be specific about which instance he’s referring to: the hug, the not-jealousy, that my demons are here, or all of the above.
“I don’t trust her or her men,” he continues.
I shake my head, staring at the barely touched plate in front of me. I’ve lost my appetite. Without a word, the waitress boxes up my meal after I point to Ordus’ Styrofoam container, then my plate.
“Deedee’s my friend,” I tell Ordus, tapping the table as I wait for the clerk to return. Is she my friend, though? Would friends wave off every concern the other person has?
“She smells wrong.” We sit in silence for a moment. “The American is your dead husband’s people?” He frames it like a question when he already knows the answer.
My throat is closed tight. I can’t speak. The walls are closing in, and I’m on a sinking ship with a life raft being held together by duct tape.
We stay on the mainland, we die.
We stay on the island, we die.
We leave the mainland and abandon Vasz, and we all die.
We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the glass floor we’re standing on is cracking.
“Let’s go home,” I whisper, swallowing down the panic.
Ordus watches me intently with both joy and…shock? I replay what I said.
Home.
I blink, chewing over the word, but it never ends up tasting wrong. Saelim Island is my home. That realization hits me square in the chest. I…I don’t want the past month and a bit of my life to be temporary.
Ordus takes the plastic bag with our food from the waitress, then grabs our waterproof pack and pulls me right up against him, leading us toward the beach. It’s not making my nerves any better, but knowing we’re getting out of here isn’t making it any worse either.
I’m surrounded by ticking time bombs from all sides, and the only thing I’m certain of is that I don’t want to deal with it alone. If I could choose anyone, I’d choose Ordus.
Still, it doesn’t stop my racing pulse or my short breaths. I’m not any closer to being anywhere as delusionally carefree as I was all the times I was surfing on the island, blissfully ignorant to the fact krakens are dying and they want to eat me.
We spill back onto the beach, where people lounge on blow-up seats beneath glowing umbrellas, laughing, eating, drinking.
I follow him left, away from the congregation of people and overstimulating smells. Cigarette smoke, the nutty notes ofsate, the gag-inducing whiff of nearby trash, spilled gasoline and exhaust fume, cologne, perfume, body odor, alcohol, the hint of the ocean breeze…
