No, this isn’t my damned fight.Nor is my curiosity worth dying over. I’m already tired of being chased by fascist soldiers.
I’ll just have to find a way to live with the guilt.
First, though, I need to find a way off this goddamn continent. I pat my pants’ pocket to ensure my father’s switchblade is secure and within easy reach, for when something goes wrong.
Notif, butwhen.
What I mark to be over three hours since we made our narrow escape, Bes pulls over to the side of the road.
He immediately turns into a near-empty dirt lot and brings the car to a stop. Dirt plumes around us like smoke in the night, obscuring our surroundings.
Before I can take a beat to wonder where we are and why we’ve stopped with no dock in sight, Bes cuts the engine.
And I thought it was quiet before.
When the dust finally settles in the golden blaze of the headlights, I take stock of our surroundings, unable to make out any type of landmark to tell me where I am. The fear of being betrayed again, like I was by Claude, steals into my thoughts and taints them.
“Why are we stopping here?”
In response, Bes flips a switch beside the steering wheel and the headlights tick off. Throwing the door open, he wordlessly steps out into the night.
My eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim light of the street lamps. Once they do, a large plot of land adjacent to us appears, scattered with an assortment of small white structures. I swear there’s something growing out of some of them; squinting, I think they must be desert plants.Though creatures from hell wouldn’t surprise me either, at this point.
Cec finally answers my question. “Well, we can’t simply drive up to the dock and ask for a bloody boat ticket, can we? Unless youwantthe God Men to find us.”
Shooting him a withering look I abruptly remember he won’t be able to appreciate, I ask, “If we’re not at the docks, then where are we?”
Bes pops back in. “A cemetery near the docks.”
He tosses a black rucksack Cec must’ve grabbed for him back at the museum over his shoulder. I catch a glimpse of his injuredarm under the frayed sleeve of what is apparently his best shirt, and don’t notice any fresh blood.
My attention naturally flicks up to Bes’s face, imagining the betrayal there once he realizes I’m gone. That I left without saying goodbye. Not that I owe the man anything, but the guilt of disappearing into the night after he promised to protect me doesn’t sit right in my stomach.
I push past the slight nausea. “A cemetery? You can’t be serious.”
Cec cocks his head, brows furrowed. “No, he’s Bes.”
I glare at him. “I swear you were put on this earth to annoy me.”
His silent, face-splitting grin confirms its truth.
Bes peers back inside the car, tapping his fingers on the metal frame. “It’s as close to the Western dock as I dare get in this ostentatious contraption.”
“Don’t you think someone is going to question an abandoned automobile in a cemetery lot?”
“Most people go out of their way to avoid death,” Bes argues.
Cec pipes up. “Not us, though—the more morbid, the better.”
“Besides,” Pierre cuts in, “I’ll be taking the car back to the museum.”
Bes turns on the ex-curator, surprise drawing his brow up. “That’s not necessary. And I’d feel a lot better if you came with us. We could drop you off in France on our way.”
Pierre shakes his head. “Iwould feel a lot better if no one knew you’ve been here. If the God Men find your car in this place, then they’ll assume you took a boat. Hopefully, my driving it to the airfield will give you more time to escape undetected.”
Bes crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t like it.”
Pierre leans forward. “We both know what Arturo would think is best.”
