Page 40 of Last Violent Call
When he thought about it too much, though, everything existing inside him felt so big that he was sure his veins had outgrown their circulatory system and were seconds away from pushing out of his skin. At present, he couldn’t deal with any of the onslaught except by giving Marshall a great, big shove, exhibiting his emotions with a physicalwhack!
“Ow,” Marshall complained, even though it didn’t hurt. He shuffled a few steps before regaining his balance. “Please treat your lover with more tender care.”
Benedikt unlatched his luggage case—this time, at least, it was to unpack rather than to check the contents for the umpteenth time.
“I thought you were my roommate.”
“We can’t be roommates who kiss?”
Benedikt threw a rolled-up pair of socks at his husband. “Unpack, Mars.”
With a laugh, Marshall hauled his luggage case onto one of the side tables and started to shake his clothes free. The two of them usually lived quite simply, given that their only source of income came from teaching art classes to little kids in the neighborhood. Benedikt did the actual teaching; Marshall did the bookkeeping and the advertising, plastering posters on every streetlamp. Surprisingly, they did get enough parents flowing in and out to subsist off the earnings.
These train tickets hadn’t come from those earnings, though. Theyhad come from Benedikt’s cousin, Roma, who was running an illegal weapons ring with his wife in a small township a few hours outside of Shanghai—a business in which he and Juliette most certainly made ten times more than what Benedikt and Marshall did. Typical of two former gang heirs to walk away from that life and then somehow wander back into it anyway, just without the intergenerational blood feud.
“I cannot emphasize the severity of this situation enough,” Roma had said after giving his instructions, his voice tight over the phone. “Someone’s life depends on it. I need your help to get Lourens into Zhouzhuang as soon as possible.”
“Who’ssomeone?” Benedikt had asked out of curiosity, holding the receiver tight against his ear and furrowing his brow, glancing at Marshall across the room. Marshall hadn’t been paying attention at first when Benedikt picked up the call, but he’d looked up fast as soon as he realized it was Roma on the other end of the line. Roma or Juliette usually had set times that they called so that they wouldn’t be missed—and Marshall and Juliette certainly hated missing their gossiping sessions—so the telephone ringing with an unscheduled call from Zhouzhuang was unexpected.
“Have you been reading Shanghai’s newspapers recently?”
Benedikt scrunched his nose. He tried to avoid bringing newspapers into the house if they were reporting on international news: the last thing Marshall needed was to see his father’s face without warning.
“I’m a bit tuned out.”
“Let’s just say that Juliette’s side of the family is in a bit of trouble. Actually, scratch that—they’re in a lot of trouble… international war–level trouble.”
Benedikt shook himself out of his reverie, unfolding his shirt and hanging it in the little nook beside the bunk bed.
“When we get to Vladivostok, we have to find Lourens within hours to make the train into Harbin,” he said to Marshall, if only to hear their planaloud once more. “Or else we won’t make the earliest train into Tianjin. And then we’ll miss the next train into Suzhou.”
And from Suzhou, they would have to drive an hour by car before finally arriving in Zhouzhuang. The route wouldn’t have needed such an intensive plan if they took the last train leg into a major city with plenty of rail activity, like Nanjing or Shanghai, but Nanjing was a key capital crawling with Nationalists, and Shanghai was even more dangerous for getting spotted and hauled in. They could hardly bring Lourens for help if the three of them were marked en route as former White Flowers and taken in for execution.
All to say: Benedikt was stressed. It wasn’t only the train schedule that they were up against, either. Vladivostok to Harbin ran on what was once the Chinese Eastern Railway, a shortcut that diverged from the Trans-Siberian line and passed through Manchuria instead of around. But Manchuria was under the control of the Japanese now, and in journeying through that territory, Benedikt and Marshall could only hope that they weren’t stopped by a soldier making trouble with their entry papers or some larger conflict on the land that pulled all passenger transport to a halt. Each step of this journey had to go smoothly if they were to get to their final destination in time.
Once they left Vladivostok, it would be another two days of traveling, give or take. They would have to squeeze in their sleep during the train rides, which was a risk when the stops didn’t come with station announcements and they needed to pay attention to when they were getting off. For now, at least, Benedikt and Marshall had these seven days until they had to fret about what was coming next.
“I am most concerned about whether we can get Lourens to come along once we find him,” Marshall said. “Do we have a plan if he refuses?”
“We kidnap him,” Benedikt replied easily.
“Are you going to pistol-whip him into shape?”
Benedikt shot over a brief glance. He put his gun on the shelf. “Would you like me to?”
“Now who’s the one flirting?”
Before Benedikt could throw his hands up in defeat, the floor jolted beneath him. The tracks emitted a loud screech, and the train’s heavy wheels began to turn. Each clank of metal and clatter of chains strained through the glass of the compartment window with effort. Then the whole train shook once, and they were moving, pulling away from Yaroslavsky Station with little other warning.
Marshall went to stand by the window, staring out at the snowy white landscape, his hands shoved into his pockets.
“Honestly,” he started, “this might even be fun.”
Coming from anyone else’s mouth, Benedikt might have fumed at the very idea that such a stressful assignment with someone else’s life at stake could possibly befun. But it was Marshall, and Marshall brought genuine levity anywhere he went no matter how dark the night grew, so Benedikt only walked over too, joining him by the window as the train picked up speed.
“Whatever you say,” Benedikt replied, knocking their shoulders together. “All aboard the Trans-Siberian Express.”
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