6
Anna
I hit the ground running, my pink Chucks tearing up the distance to the next block, with my lungs bursting and my legs on fire. I only have seconds before one of the most lethal men on the planet discovers my deception and turns the call of the hunt onto me.
Run, Anna! Run!
I veer left, down past the liquor store where Eve first enticed this nightmare into our world, and then I’m heading east toward the taxicab rank on the corner. Tonight’s moon is a contradiction—full and promising, but shrouded in cloud. It’s one a.m., and it’s just me, my fear, and the cool kids awake right now. There’s a noisy pack of them hanging out on the sidewalk next to a bar. The doors are wide open, bleeding Post Malone and hot gossip into the night.
I force a path through their cigarette smoke and conversations, hearing snapshots of lives that seem so foreign to me: crap bosses, persistent ex-boyfriends—realities that are enviably mundane.
Not so long ago I worked in a bar like this; had something stupid to moan about like this. Now I have darkness snapping at my heels and a roll call of memories that won't stop haunting me.
I’m a hot mess as I push to the front of the line, chanting old cocktail recipes in my head as a sweetener to the bitter pill of panic.
Two shots of lemon vodka, a blast of cranberry…
There’s a spare cab there with its back door already open.
“Miami International,” I gasp out, chucking my bag onto the backseat and throwing myself in after before the driver has a chance to refuse my fare.
“Which terminal?” Probing brown eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror.
“Departures. Any.” I swing my head around to check the back window. “Please, drive!” But the guy doesn’t budge.
“You got a flight, lady. I need a terminal.”
Fuck.
“Terminal C!” I scream as a tall dark silhouette appears on the sidewalk, barely twenty yards away. C is for courage. The cool kids are parting much quicker for him. It’s a privilege that comes with a Fuck You countenance.
Two shots of vodka and a half of peach schnapps...
The driver makes a tutting noise and pulls away from the curb. Still, I can’t seem to drag my eyes away from Joseph. There’s a part of me still reaching out for him; willing him to look up and give chase. But his head is still turned, and with each passing block the determination to escape is overriding everything.
We reach Miami International at three a.m. The terminal is an empty school cafeteria, and as I rush toward the check-in desks it feels like the bright lights are mocking me for being Miss Unpopular.
There’s one desk open. A brunette in her late twenties is chewing gum and talking on the phone. Her bored expression lights on me, and I hear her whispering out her goodbyes in a telltale rush. Slamming the receiver down, she flashes me the kind of Disney smile that would scare Maleficent away.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
“I’m not sure.” I glance down at my passport as my black overnighter drops to the floor.
She shoots me the same mildly-curious-and-irritated look as the taxicab driver.
“Are you here to check in?”
“I don't have a ticket.”
“I don’t think I understand, ma’am. Are you flying today, or not?”
I catch her fingers straying toward her phone again. Where do you go to disappear? Is it even something you can buy? I find myself glancing at the red and blue airline insignia above her head for inspiration.
“What’s the first flight out of here?” I ask her.
“Don't you mean “where?”” she says, a note of sarcasm creeping in.
“Both.”
She retracts her fingers and starts tapping something into her computer. “You need to visit the ticket desk, but it’s not open until—”
“Please!” I watch her brows disappear into her hairline. “Please,” I add, lowering my voice. “I need to get the hell out of Miami as soon as possible.” I whip my head in the direction of the exit, my damp hair showering her in droplets of water and desperation. Is he checking out the airports yet?
“Name?”
“Anna Williams… No, sorry, Anna Jackson,” I correct quickly. “I took my mom’s surname a couple of years ago, but I haven’t gotten around to changing all my documents yet.”
“Miss or Mrs.?” I catch her glancing at my empty ring finger.
“Miss.”
Hurry. My heartbeat is locked in a race with her crazy-ass tapping.
“Okay, Miss Jackson,” she declares, signing off her keyboard with a decisive click. “This is totally against the rules, but what the heck. It’s 3 a.m. and I’m betting all the airline ticket Nazis are fast asleep right now. There’s a flight departing in the next hour and I’m holding you a seat.”
My stomach lurches. “Destination?”
“Cartagena.”
“Colombia?”
“You did stipulate “anywhere”,” she says, sounding defensive.
“No, it’s not that, I just…” I trail off, my head in a spin. My last moments of happiness were with a man from that town, that country.
Is this a sign I can’t decode yet?
“Fine. I’ll take it.” I slap my passport down on the desk and dig out of my wallet. “How much?”
More tapping.
“That’ll be five-hundred and fifty-three dollars, including tax.”
I hand her my credit card.
Am I really doing this?
What the hell do I know about Colombia besides the fact it’s four hundred and thirty-nine square miles to lose, and then find myself in again? It’s also the country where the devil himself was born, raised, ruled, and then deserted a couple of years back. But the alternative is something I can’t even consider.
I’ll blend in…
Go incognito.
There’s no way my shadow will ever find me there.
7
Joseph
Past
She wore her kindness in a smile.
That’s the first thing I noticed when she walked into the diner that sold cut-price chili dogs in Hicksville, Utah, and into my life—or whatever the hell my father had left of it.
I couldn't stop staring at her. Her red lips were a soft touch I never knew I needed. The delicate Cupid’s bow promised a gateway to a place of new discovery. At seventeen, it took a whole lot of interesting to drag my mind away from tits and ass, and she’d achieved it in three seconds flat.
Rebecca was a survivor like me, but I never knew you could dress your pain up so pretty. Dogs, for sure... Maybe even horses. But since Pa went and murdered all the good, there hadn’t been much kindness shown to me by the system I’d ended up in. Beatings, nightmares, neglect... Every day was a new initiation into hell, until I bought my freedom the same way I’d promised myself all those years ago—by kicking the shit out of my foster dad and hitching a ride to a shiny new state.
And then there was a girl and a smile, and a glimpse of something better.
We talked.