Page 19 of Mine to Keep
“No,” I say, slipping back into my normal accent as I get closer to the train station that will take me back to my hotel. “I’m done. I don’t need debriefing, Peggy. This was my last job. No more.”
She sighs. “I hear ya, kid.” Peggy has been calling me ‘kid’ for the past ten years, as she’s close to twenty years older than me. “Let me tell The Director. Sit tight.”
I don’t plan on doing that. After the threat from The Void, I think sitting tight is a death sentence, but I don’t tell Peggy that.I don’t want anyone to know where I’m going. I plan to grab my bag from my room, hop in a taxi and figure out my next move. I could catch a flight back home, but knowing The Director, The Void would have someone waiting for me at the gate. I’m not sure they’ll plug me with a bullet, but I don’t want to take any chances.
“I’m going dark, Peggy.”
“I need you to be available for me, Knox. Only me. Let me know when you get settled. You are my responsibility, not The Director’s. Understand?”
“Gotchu. I’ll be in touch in a day or two.”
“Make sure you are. I left you a burner in the bag just in case. I don’t have the number. You’ll have to activate it. But you call me soon.”
“I will.”
I hang up the phone and hop on the train, heading to some seats in the back. When I’m in a seat facing the door, but with no neighbors, I drop my phone to the ground and stomp on it, cracking the screen and snapping the device in half. I pick it up gingerly and pocket it until I can get to a garbage can.
When I get off the train, I locate a trash can. I toss the first half, then walk several paces and get rid of the second half in another. I walk quickly to my hotel room, needing to be gone as quickly as possible.
After I close myself up in my room, I trade one disguise for another, popping in blue contacts, adding a wig that looks like a curly afro, peel off the tattoos, and line my ears and both corners of my mouth with piercings. It’s not my most clever disguise, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Grabbing a cloth from the bathroom, I wipe everything down, making sure there is no trace of me left behind. Then I leave the hotel, hailing a taxi to take a train somewhere out oftown. I need somewhere to hunker down so I can come up with a game plan.
I could take off now, catch a flight to anywhere in the world or rent a car and drive across the border, but I’m too fucking tired to do anything else. If I don’t get a few hours of sleep, I’ll make a stupid fucking mistake and end up dead or in jail.
I check my phone for a place far away from Delham, but close enough to the border where I can make a getaway if I can. I find a large town called Siloq that has a booming tourist population, so I’ll fit right in.
The train ride takes an hour and forty-five minutes, and I spend every second on edge. I know no one saw me leave and no one is following me, but I hate sitting in the same place for too long. I’m too exposed. Until I know what The Void has planned for me, I need to stay on the low.
After the train stops at the station in Siloq, I grab my backpack and drag the suitcase full of Peggy’s delivery behind me so I can become someone else.
Well, more like, become myself.
I’m in a city where no one knows me and no one knows where I am. If The Void looks for me because of this fuck-up, it will take a little longer to find me than it would if I were in Toronto, and I’ll be long gone by then.
When I step inside a restroom, I beeline for a stall and remove my disguise. I trade my beanie for a fitted cap, pulling it low over my face so my features will be hidden.
Before I leave the restroom, I take a look at myself to make sure I look like me, not a disguise. I’ll hide out in this city for a few days until I can get a new flight, then go back home. The Void will get my resignation when I’m somewhere they can’t find me.
I step out into the cloudy day, glancing at the sky. It doesn’t look like rain, but I make a mental note to find a raincoat and anumbrella. I don’t want to be unprepared in case the sky decides to open up and drench me. Besides, an umbrella would help my disguise.
I’m so lost in thinking about the weather that I bump into two men as I descend the stairs of the train station. One—a small Black man with intricate cornrows—yelps, his face streaked with tears, showing surprise. The other—a Puerto Rican man with smooth light brown skin and wavy black hair—glares at me, wrapping his arm tighter around the crying man.
It takes a second for my brain to tell me that I know both of these men. I knew they were coming to Canada, but what are the chances that I see them in Soliq, of all places? Did someone send them after me?
No, that doesn’t make sense. They would have had no way of knowing I was coming here. Hell, I didn’t know I was coming to Soliq until I got to the station.
So why am I running into Talon and Javier when they’re supposed to be in Waterkilty?
seven
chance encounters
“Knox?”Talon asks, squinting his wet and swollen eyes at me. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s a rude question,” Javier says, though he looks skeptical about my being here.
I shrug. “All good. I just got in from Paris. A friend wanted me to…” I let the words trail off as my eyes bounce around Talon’s face. Along with his swollen eyes, his nose is red and his cheeks are flushed. “You okay?”
