Page 86 of His Black Onyx

Chapter 44

Nate

Lailah is dead. It still sounds like a lie to me, even though I've seen her die. It didn't take long after Mike called us into the house, but it felt like an eternity, still. We stayed with her until the very end, watching her chest heave in smaller and weaker motions as the life was slowly sucked out of her body.

She didn't speak again. Her last words were the ones she directed at Malia and me.

"Get it done."

She gathered all her remaining strength to breathe those words into the room, her desperation adding an urgency to the request that stabbed me right in the core.

It wasn't any easier for Malia, I could tell. She was the first to reach for my hand, and she didn't let go until we witnessed Lailah take her last breath. I don't know what the initial reason was for her to reach out to me, whether it was to console me or because she needed support of her own. But I know that she held onto me until the very end, and I know that it helped her process what she was forced to see.

She didn't really know Lailah, and from what I could tell, she didn't like her much either. It's not simple jealousy that kept her at distance, but a clear understanding of how different they were.

"You guys should get some sleep."

I didn't even hear George come into the kitchen. Malia and I have been sitting at a small table, tucked away against the wall, our heads hanging low over the coffee mugs that neither of us have touched. Lailah held onto life until just before sunrise, her last breath fleeing from her body when the first faint line of light appeared at the horizon.

I couldn't stand being there any longer, and when I left, I took Malia with me and we ended up in the kitchen, where I decided to brew some coffee, if only to have something to do.

"We will, soon," I tell George, watching as he reaches for the KARAFFE.

"Good," he says. "You heard her. The best thing we can do to honor this girl is to-"

"Get it done," I finish his sentence. "Yes, we heard her."

I notice Malia shifting on her chair, her shy dark gaze flitting back and forth between me and George while her hands curl helplessly around the coffee mug.

"What's going to happen now?" she asks shyly, looking at George first but turning away when he reciprocates her probing gaze.

"What do you mean?" he says harshly. "This doesn't change anything. The rendezvous will take place as planned just like we discussed. And we will make sure you don't fuck it up for us."

Malia's expression darkens while her shoulders move up to her ears as if she was preparing herself for a punch.

"I meant... with the funeral and all that," she murmurs, now looking at me. "Won't there be a burial and all that?"

I exchange a quick look with George. The Covey has a way of handling their dead, but I'm not sure whether this is the fate that awaits Lailah—and if it was, I sure as hell don't want to share those details with Malia. It would only trouble her unnecessarily.

"There will be," George says "After the mission is completed."

He throws her a look with his eyebrows slightly arched as he holds her in place with a stern and unyielding expression.

"After the mission...," Malia repeats, her voice so low that I can hardly hear her speak.

She catches George's look, but quickly turns her head back to me, a silent understanding written all across her face. After the mission means, she'll no longer be needed—which means she'll no longer be with us. She'll be free, hopefully.

I can tell by the blank look on her face that she has a hard time imagining a time after the mission. And I feel the same way. For months, this mission—or rather the problems surrounding it—was all I could think of, all my entire life was focused on.

Malia had a point when she said that I had no real plan for what comes after. I knew I wanted to leave the Covey, and I have laid out all the groundwork for that to happen, even more so when I thought that my exit would have to be sooner than expected, and with a lot of unfinished business left behind.

But the prospect always remained vague and unobtainable, something that was too surreal to ever really picture. Other than securing my financial future and forged papers, there was nothing I could focus on other than the present.

And that hasn't changed. While the mission itself is no longer the one we had imagined, nor the gigantic mess we thought it had turned into when Lailah got sick, it still is the one and only thing I can and must focus on. And now it's not just in my own interest.

Now, it's also about her, about Malia. Her life depends on it, and while that didn't mean anything to me when we took her, it means everything to me now. Her life is worth just as much as mine—if not more.

"Yes, after the mission," George repeats, raising an eyebrow at Malia before he turns to me. "You make sure she gets some rest, Nate. And you as well. We're counting on you two."

He pauses, taking a sip of his coffee while throwing me a look that's heavy with meaning.

"And so does she," he adds.

As if the weight on our shoulders wasn't already heavy enough.

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