Page 67 of Fury

“You’re welcome.” Tania hugged him back. “This will all work out. You’ll see. She’ll be fine.” She pulled back from him and put her arm through mine.

“You take care of her for me,” he said to her.

“I will. We’ll take care of each other. Now go.”

Finger got on his bike and started her up. That blast ripped the air, making my heart beat even faster. I’d considered it an ugly sound for so long, yet right this second it was a symphony bursting with promise and possibility and glory. He put his gloves on, looking away, on purpose, I was sure of it, as he adjusted himself in his saddle. It had only been a couple of days since he’d been on a bike, but I could tell it had felt like forever for him.

He sucked in a deep breath, his back straightening, and stared at me and Tania. His dark eyes were now shielded by his goggles, but I knew they burned, burned same as mine. One day soon I would be on a bike with him, and we would ride together without hiding, without fear. That longing, that emotion, that determination radiated between us, and I sucked in its heady fragrance through every pore and let it fill me, fill me with courage to face the very next moment without him, and then the next, and the next.

My eyes blinked from behind my sunglasses, and something in my stomach dropped and unspooled, but I pulled it in. Yes, one day soon. I had to believe. I had to be patient.

I had to be careful.

His chest heaved. “Tell me to go. I don’t think I can—”

“Go, baby,” I breathed. “You have to go.”

I clasped the compass tightly. It was the one thing I owned now, the one thing that was mine in all this world. He’d lain his heart and soul in my hands, and I would keep them safe. I would never let them go.

Ever.

We made it to Chicago.

Tania and I got that apartment she’d had a lead on, a tiny walkup in a crap building in Pilsen. The neighborhood’s charming decrepit buildings were slowly starting to turn into lofts, but it was still affordable, plus the area had a lot of ethnic diversity which we both liked.

Within a few weeks of landing in Chicago, Tania got her old job back at a restaurant as a waitress and substitute bartender a few nights out of the week, and an additional job at an art gallery during the day with Neil, a good friend of hers from college. I found work at a vintage clothing store taking in stock and keeping it organized which I was very good at. I dressed the way I wanted to, bought clothes at a big discount for myself and Tania. It was fun.

Finger had gotten me a new name, Social Security number, and driver’s license as promised, but I was nervous about using the number so I managed to get paid under the table. I’d told my boss I’d just gotten a nasty divorce and wanted to stay under the radar for a while, and he was cool about it. I was now “Ashley Wyeth” to the world.

Hello world, hello shiny normal life.

Well. Kind of normal.

Tania and I settled into being roommates very easily. She took the one small bedroom, and I slept on a futon sofa in a corner of the living room. I’d separated my corner from the rest of the room with a broken Asian screen we’d found on the street which we cleaned up, patched, and repainted. I didn’t mind the living room. In fact, I preferred being in the much larger open space instead of that tiny, tiny bedroom. I couldn’t breathe in there.

Tania loved flea markets and rummage sales, and I discovered I did too. We spent our weekends scouring Maxwell Street Market, which was gritty but had loads of character. We always found something we had to have. Tania often brought home odd pieces she’d find on the sidewalks that other people had thrown away. She saw something in each piece, and I loved getting my hands on whatever it was and giving it new life. We made a good design team.

We worked hard on making our living space special. I would scrub a trashed piece of wood furniture clean, stripping it, varnishing, painting it an odd color, then scrub it again to make it seem antiqued. I’d find quirky hardware pieces and use them for handles or as eccentric details. We decorated the apartment with inexpensive tapestries. I made a mini chandelier of sorts out of rusty bicycle chains and the prettiest small bulbs. Tania bought old pillows, and I patched up any holes or tears with contrasting fabric. Each time I opened the front door, the colors, the textures, the lines all sang to me in a bright rich chorus of YES.

On the weekends, Tania and Neil would drag me with them to funky art parties at galleries or artists’ studios or performance spaces. I met people my age, I made friends. Well, sort of. I made acquaintances. I wasn’t ready to let people in, I wasn’t sure when I would be. I stuck to Tania and Neil. They were enough for me for now.

What I really wanted, needed, was out of my reach.

After too many weeks, Fingerwas finally able to come to Chicago for a visit.

He didn’t come to the apartment. In fact, I didn’t think he ever would. We’d agreed it was best that when he was able to come to Chicago, he and I would meet on neutral ground in case he was being watched or followed.

I headed to the low budget motel in the northern outskirts of town. I knocked on room 103, my stomach churning, my mouth dry. Three sets of two knocks as he’d told me to do.

The door opened, and I held my breath. A threshold to a new life, one with him in it. Would the emotional and physical intensity between us be the same? I didn’t want the heady chemistry between us to change, but maybe it would be different now. Would we still want and need each other the way we had in that motel, or was all that only us being swept up in a life-threatening drama? We still were in a life-threatening drama, but without the immediate fear of death and destruction hanging over us like the last time.

I stepped through the doorway, thrumming somewhere between anxiety and excitement. My skin tingled, my pulse pounded. The motel room was dark, and the door thudded and clicked shut behind me. A deep, ragged exhale released next to me.

I reached out. “Finger?”

Strong arms embraced me. “Baby.”

I held onto him, squeezed him, smelled his skin, sweat, soap, and cedar. I turned and buried my face in his throat, took in his breath, reveled in the press of his body. His lips found mine and we kissed. My heart thundered in my chest, I couldn’t breathe right.

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