Page 102 of Ashes of Gold
But why?!My eyes sting, dwelling on pointless questions. Stupid. I’m so stupid.
“What’s on your mind?” Julius asks. He wasn’t around when I took the potion. No one was.
“Nothing.”
“So you don’t wanna talk about it yet. Got it.”
I nod. I don’t want to even think about it, but my mind is doing what it wants. Julius tries to lighten the mood by reciting his favorite action scenes from Bond movies. He also is apparentlynota part of the Connery-Is-the-Best-Bond Fan Club. He’s a Craig fan, hands down. But after a while even that convo peters out and we just walk silently, out of respect for what we’re about to do. Real talk, we could go in there to get this hair from Shaun and not come out alive.
As we round the familiar barbed wire near the access point to the Ghizoni underground lair, I turn to Julius. “We find Shaun. In and out. Just watch my back, lie low.”
“F’sho,” he says.
“I’m foreal, don’t get caught up. I don’t have you here to throw hands.”
“I’ma do what I gotta do, mane, but I hear you. I gotchu.”
I side-eye.
He rolls his eyes. “I got you in the way you need me to have you. The brains. I get it.”
“Aight.” Why doesn’t Shaun have anyone on watch? I feel for the pothole-looking door in the ground. A coppery rot smell curls in my nostrils. “Wait.”
“Yo, what’s that—?” He smells it too.
I know that smell.
Death.
“There.” He points and I can faintly make out something dark on the ground. I step closer, the stickiness brushes my kicks, staining them. Red.
No. No. No.
I follow the line of blood past the barb-covered door. It leads toa ripped robe and what could be gallons of blood. Our eyes meet.
“Stick very close to me,” I say, before opening the door to the lair below. We slip down the rungs in the silence and move down the dimly lit passageway toward a stir of voices. I slip past an empty door and crack open two others. Where are the voices coming from? The corridor is drafty, but I’m dripping with sweat. The hall curves the familiar way. Dim light paints the corridor. Beds protrude from the walls, thin slivers of metal topped with blankets and stuffing. Still no sign of someone on duty. That’s not smart. Even I know that. The air is a mix of snores and people tossing in their sleep. Every several feet we pass a door like the one to the room where Bri and I had pored over spell books before leaving here. No indication anything’s even off.
“I badee, ya lilo,” a low voice says.
I freeze, but it’s just someone mumbling in their sleep. We tiptoe past, and something brushes my thigh. I jump.Shit!But it’s a hand dangling over the bedside. I scoot aside and pick up the pace. The hall opens up and snakes in opposite directions. Julius looks at me and I can hear the question in his head.Which way?
The rooms, from what I recall, are off to the left. We hang a left and I can feel Julius’s breathing at my back. This hallway isn’t lined with beds, just glass domes around flames pressed into the gritty walls.
“He should be somewhere down here,” I whisper, and Julius nods.
Creak.
My heart stammers in my chest and I yank Julius beside me, back to the wall, in shadow. Voices swell. I look but don’t see anyone. A door creaks open and the sliver of light cuts a slice out of thehallway. I creep closer, trying to make sense of the voices. They are whispered and… familiar.
“How long must I wait?” someone says, her voice sharp but high.
“I don’t know,” Jhamal’s voice is tight, laced with panic.
“That’s ole dude, ain’t it?” Julius asks, but I shush him. I can’t see who’s talking but I’d know that voice anywhere.
“Just don’t be rash,” Jhamal says, uneasiness in his tone, like each word makes him nauseous. Just hearing him makes my heart beat faster—raises my temperature.
“You’d said you’d keep her close,” the girl says with biting irritation, “but she’s off gallivanting around the island.”
