Grey caught Nomti as he fell. Blood poured out of Nomti and onto Grey. Nomti gasped to draw in air, and Grey felt the enormous weight of Nomti’s compact body as he held the knife to his jugular and dragged him backwards. Al-Miri watched him, too stunned to speak. The other men on the ledge had their guns trained on both Viktor and Grey.
He saw Veronica twitch and moan, but his surge of relief was tempered by the fact that Stefan wasn’t moving.
“An exchange,” Grey heard himself shout. His words sounded distant to his own ears. He was removed from the situation, so distressed at the outcome that he felt out of body.
Not Stefan. Not Veronica.
Nomti slumped in his arms, his head lolled, and Grey knew it was finished. His last bargaining chip had just expired. He saw Al-Miri’s face twitch, and Al-Miri rasped at his men and gestured towards Grey. Four guards broke line and started forward, guns high and ready. They would shoot him, and then they would shoot Viktor and Veronica, and there was nothing he could do.
They were halfway to Grey when he heard an odd sound coming from the entrance tunnel, the sound of wheels rolling over rock floor. He heard a metal clang, and everyone’s head turned to observe the bizarre sight emerging from the tunnel.
G
rey saw the gurney first, rolling along the cavern floor. The sheet had been lowered and folded across the top of the woman’s chest, revealing the gruesome sight of her shriveled head and neck. He heard people gasping behind him. Then he saw Jax, pushing the gurney from behind.
“Had a little trouble with the rock wall,” Jax said. “Took me a minute to slip this thing through.”
Al-Miri let out an inhuman cry and clawed at his face. “My wife,” he cried. “What have you done?”
Grey thought,
your wife
?
Al-Miri stumbled towards Jax. Jax stopped the gurney, reached down and placed his hands around the woman’s neck. “One more step and I snap her head like a fucking twig.”
Al-Miri stopped as if paralyzed. “What do you want?” he whispered. “Anything. Anything.”
“Just let me and my comrades out of here, you twisted fuck, and I’ll gladly return your wife, or whatever this thing is now.”
Al-Miri spoke to his men, and they lowered their weapons. Grey dropped Nomti and ran to Veronica. The bullet had hit her in the side of her back. She was bleeding heavily, and he took off his shirt and created a crude tourniquet for the wound. “It might have grazed your spleen,” he said. “Hang in there. You’ll be fine.”
She saw the lie in his eyes.
Viktor came over, and Grey left her in his hands. Viktor pointed at one of the men. “That’s our guide. We have a jeep outside. We’re three hours or more from the nearest town.”
Grey went to Stefan. He bent and inspected his pulse, then bowed his head and took a deep breath. He whispered, “Goodbye my friend.”
He stood and turned to Al-Miri. “You
bastard
. I need three guns, the keys to our jeep, and your word that you’ll bury Stefan. If Veronica dies I’m coming back for you and your wife. Believe it.”
Al-Miri screamed instructions at his men. Three of them ran and gave their guns to Grey and Viktor and Jax, and one of them dropped a set of keys in Grey’s hands.
“You have my word,” Al-Miri said. “Leave us in peace, and I will do the same. Never speak of us, never try to return.”
“If I ever see you again I’ll kill you.”
Grey wheeled to leave, but Al-Miri grabbed his arm and pointed at the staircase to their right. A man was sprinting up the steps, clutching something to his chest. The man ran towards them and handed Grey a golden canteen.
“Pour this on her wound after you leave,” Al-Miri said. “You must promise me to use it on the wound alone. All of it.”
“How do I know this will help? Why should I trust you?”
“Because you have no choice. Because I don’t wish you to return.” Al-Miri turned to stare at his wife. “Because I understand this pain.”
Grey took the container and Al-Miri grabbed his arm again. “Promise.”
Grey yanked his arm free. “I’ll use it all.”
“Go!” Al-Miri said, his voice frantic. “My wife cannot survive without the equipment.”
Grey saw someone whose mind had fled the rational confines of this world long ago. Al-Miri’s hands shook as he started towards his wife, but Jax made a snapping motion with his hands. Al-Miri sobbed and clutched his face. “Please, we will not follow. This is all for her, for her.”
Viktor gently lifted Veronica and cradled her in his arms. Jax and the shell-shocked guide fell in behind them. Grey’s eyes lingered on Nomti’s prone form, his hump a grotesque protrusion.
“I’ll leave her at the entrance,” Jax shouted as they backed away. “Don’t follow us.”
“He’ll keep his word,” Grey said.
T
hey left the gurney by the door dividing the rock tunnels from the laboratory. Jax wanted to disable the door, but Grey stayed his hand. Letting the wife die would do no one any good.
Viktor led the way to the front entrance. Their jeep was parked just outside. Grey laid Veronica on the back seat and squeezed in beside her, her head on his lap. Viktor took the front seat, and Jax stood next to the spare tire. They sped into the endless expanse of burning desert.
“Two and a half hours,” the driver shouted. “Maybe less.”
No one followed.
Grey stroked Veronica’s hair. She smiled weakly back at him, skin grey and clammy. She had lost a good deal of blood. Grey kept his face calm, but his insides were careening down a steep incline with no breaks.
She rested her cheek against one of his hands, and he opened the golden container with the other.
“What’s that,” she murmured.
“A gift.”
“What kind of gift?”
“Something for your wound.”
She tried to lift her head to see what he had, then gasped in pain and stopped moving.
“Be still,” he said gently.
He poured a few drops of liquid from the container onto his own hand. A viscous green fluid issued forth, thicker than water, lighter than syrup.
She gasped again, this time not in pain. “Is that—is that what I think it is?”
He tested a drop on himself. It was tasteless. He thought he felt a tingling somewhere deep inside, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t have a choice at this point. She wasn’t going to make it on her own.
“You can’t give that to me,” she said. “I won’t take it.”
He stroked her hair again. “Just relax.” He moved aside the shirt he had wrapped around the wound, and swallowed as he saw the bloody gap where the bullet had exited. He tipped the bottle to pour, but Veronica reached up and grabbed his hand. “Do you understand what this is? This makes all of this worth it. This is our future.”
“You’re bleeding heavily. You need this. You might not have a future.”
“No!”
He tried to force her hand down, but she was clutching his arm, and he didn’t want to hurt her. He transferred the container to his other hand. “Be still. I’m using it. Please, Veronica.”
“I’ll be fine. I can wait a few hours.”
“You don’t know that, and it might be more than a few hours. There’s no telling what kind of facilities are in this town. You could
die
.”
“I’m telling you, I—” she arced in pain and gripped his leg, “will make it. I’ll take the chance. It’s my decision, not yours.”
“I’m sorry,” Grey murmured, “but it’s not.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Then it doesn’t matter anyway.”
He lowered the container, and she flung her head side to side. “Do you love me?” she whispered.
He kept the container out of reach, and she covered her wound with her hands. “Do you?”
“Move your hands, Veronica.”
“Not until you tell me. Tell me and don’t you dare lie to me.”
“You’re delirious. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I’m not delirious!” she screamed. “Don’t pour that on me!”
The roar of the jeep drowned much of the conversation, but Grey knew everyone had heard the exchange. No one was looking at them.
Grey put a hand on her cheek and gently stroked her face. He forced himself to forget every bit of doubt, every thought of Nya, that he knew would shine through his eyes and poison his response. Veronica deserved that. She deserved someone far, far better than he. “Hey,” he said, leaning down and smiling as he stroked her cheek. “Of course I love you.”
Veronica turned her head and stared back at him. She didn’t resist as Grey moved her hands aside, but she started to cry softly.
Grey poured half of the container straight onto the wound. There was no fizz, no bubbling, no visible sign that it was doing anything at all. Grey tried to move her to pour the liquid on the entry wound, but she winced in pain.
Jax noticed, and leaned over to help. “Tilt her to her side,” Grey said. “Gently.”
They raised her just enough for Grey to pour, and he emptied the container straight onto the ugly hole in her back. The liquid seeped in and faded away.
Viktor and Jax eased Veronica back into her original position. Grey continued to stroke her hair, and silent tears trickled down her cheeks. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth, her tears.
He kissed her until she slept.
• • •
Grey gazed at her for a long time as the jeep sped over the golden swells of the dunes. He looked back and saw Jax squatting uncomfortably, one arm around the tire, one holding onto the roll bar.
Jax nodded towards Veronica. “How is she?”
“The bleeding stopped, and her color’s better. She’s stabilized for the moment.”
“How’s that?”
“You tell me.”
Jax swore softly. He looked at Veronica’s wound and shook his head. “Obsession. It liberates in the short term and destroys you in the end.”
Grey placed the back of his hand on her forehead. The fever had subsided, but was still there. “Why’d you come back?”
Jax chuckled. “Couldn’t find the exit. Figured I’d have a better chance at getting out with the rest of you helping me. I thought about what we saw in that room, and the plan popped into my head. You know the rest.”
“You didn’t spend much time looking for the exit.”
“Don’t kid yourself. I did what I did for me.”
“I’ll draw my own conclusions.”
Jax snorted.
They rode in silence again. Grey tried to stretch, and bent to move an article of clothing blocking his legroom. He picked it up: a light blue jacket he’d seen Stefan wearing at night in Cairo.
Grey held the jacket in his hands and closed his eyes. When he opened them he noticed the tip of an envelope sticking out of an inside pocket. He pulled it out. The envelope had Grey’s name on it. He held it for a moment, then pulled out a sheet of paper covered with scrawled handwriting.
My friend,
I hope never to have to send this letter. If I do, then it is because you have learned I have not been truthful with you. Even more: you will have learned I have betrayed you.
These things will be true, and I am sorry.
The truth is I am afraid to die more than I am afraid to live. I am so afraid, my friend. I do not believe in God. I do not believe in anything. Do you understand the meaning of death? We will crumble and feed the worms of the earth. Honor, friendship, love, family, right, wrong—none of this will matter.
I cannot return to dust, my friend. I cannot.
Maybe you do not understand this. Maybe you are privileged to be a man of faith, or see the value in an existence as short as a human life span. I do not. Behind me I see the shattered illusions of youth. Before me I see a mirror with no reflection.
I betrayed you so that our friendship, all friendships, all of what we have gained from the cosmic impossibility that is life on this planet, might survive longer than the pittance we are allotted by that same impossibility. Is it not the cruelest and most ironic of jokes? We have been given only enough time to be aware of how much we will lose.
I will not stand by and watch that happen. I
The letter was unfinished and unsigned. Grey felt eyes on his back. He turned and saw Jax look away. Grey crumpled the note and threw it into the wind.
“Sorry to pry. I’m kind of stuck back here and don’t have a lot of places to look—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t you worry about it, either.”
“I thought he was a friend,” Grey said. He returned to stroking Veronica’s hair, willing her to survive.
“What Stefan did doesn’t surprise me one damn bit,” Jax said. “I lost my faith in people a long time ago.” Jax maneuvered his body so he could light a cigarette, cupping his hands and hunching against the wind. “But I’ll tell you this. Knowing you has restored a tiny bit of that faith. Just a tiny bit, you hear? Just a tiny, tiny little bit.”
Grey didn’t answer.
G
rey walked down the cobblestone street, a black windbreaker shielding him from the Prague chill. When he reached the wooden door with the carving of the wheat growing out of the skull, he opened the door and lugged his backpack in behind him.
He spotted Viktor at the bar, and they exchanged a warm embrace. Grey set his pack against the wall and took a long draught from a beer the bartender slid in front of him.
“I apologize again for leaving Cairo so soon,” Viktor said. “How’s Veronica?”
“She’s with Manhattan’s finest.”
“When shall I see her up and about?”
“I expect soon, but I’m not sure.”
Viktor raised his eyebrows, and Grey said, “After she stabilized she stopped taking my calls.”
“I see.”
Grey let his eyes rove the establishment. “Nice bar.”