Page 71 of These Godly Lies
Hold on. She has to hold on. She promised.
But it’s too much.
The last thing she’s aware of is the sound of her name, the breath in her ear, before she passes out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He can see it in her eyes—a last, wordless appeal to leave her behind and save himself. To run. As if he could ever find peace on a path she didn’t share.
NEWYORK, UNITEDSTATES
JUNE1975
She’s being held.
It’s the first thing she registers when she comes to—the feeling of movement, the press of hands cradling her to a firm chest and her legs draped over a lap. The next is the sound of traffic: car horns, the throaty purr of engines, and a kaleidoscope of voices. The smell of trash and sewage is heavy, the air humid. Stuffy. Anna’s stomach revolts, clenching painfully, but she doesn’t have time to be sick. The world won’t stop spinning, but it doesn’t matter, because she has to run. Shehas to—
“Shh,” Khiran soothes, his gentle voice tangling in her hair. It settles around her like the comforting weight of a familiar blanket. “It’s alright. Breathe. Nice and slow.”
A voice, one she doesn’t recognize, to her left. “How’s she doing there, boss?”
That accent. She recognizes that accent—has heard a version of it fifty years ago in the Bronx. New York. They’re in New York. She swallows down her nausea, closes her eyes and concentrates on the press of her ear against Khiran’s chest and the heart beating beneath it. Alive. They’re both alive. Her tongue feels like cotton. “What—”
“Later, dearest,” he soothes, his voice soft but still loud enough to carry. Words that aren’t meant for her ears alone. “We’re in a taxi. Pete here was kind enough to offer us a ride. You’ve had a nasty fall during our walk in Central Park.”
Her face is tucked into his neck and shoulder. Opening her eyes, she’s relieved when her vision remains steady. She pulls away to look at his face, but the movement makes her head throb. Her limbs feel heavy, but she can feel the buttons of his shirt digging into her palms. Even unconscious, she’d managed to keep her promise. She held on.
Acid is rising in her throat. “I’m going to—”
“Got some puke bags on the car door there, boss.” That voice again. The one she doesn’t know. “Good stuff, too. Wife’s a nurse over in Manhattan. She brings ‘em home for me. Night shifts can get a little crazy, if ya know what I mean.”
Khiran hands her a bag, plastic crinkling. His fingers brush the clammy skin at the nape of her neck as he pulls her hair back, and Anna’s stomach surrenders. She heaves, gagging on the rancid taste coating her tongue. Her chest aches with the force of it, her throat burning. Traveling alongside him has never crippled her like this before. She supposes that must be the difference between crossing continents and going to the other side of the world entirely.
He takes the bag from her, carefully tying the top closed. Anna wipes her lips with the back of her sleeve, cringing, before the sight of it makes her falter. The ash stained dress she’d been wearing is gone. In its place is a belted green skirt that kisses her ankles and awhite blouse with long airy sleeves that cuff at her wrists. She reaches for her neck, fingers gliding over a silk patterned scarf. She glances at Khiran, noting that his t-shirt has been traded in for a collared button up and a vest.
He catches her eyes, gaze flitting towards their taxi driver pointedly. Anna bites back the question she wants to ask, chews on it until it resembles something safe. “How long was I out?”
“Only twenty minutes, give or take,” he murmurs, studying her. “How are you feeling?”
She swallows, wincing at the taste still coating her tongue. “Better.”
“Ya know, the wife says vomiting after head injuries can be a big deal,” the voice—Pete, she reminds herself—chimes. Anna meets his reflection in the rearview mirror, his blue eyes flicking between her and the road. “You sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital?”
Khiran pipes up before she can, the lie slipping off his tongue like dark chocolate—smooth with a bitter edge. “Thank you, but I’m afraid my wife has had this sort of episode before. It’s chronic, you see.” His eyes meet hers. “A bit of fresh sea air and she’ll be right as rain.”
The sea.
Of course. If they can reach the sea, they can find safety beneath the waves with Kaia.
Pete’s pale brow furrows under his cap as he stops at a light, but it’s followed by a shrug of his hefty shoulders. “You’re the boss. Though, you know, I wouldn’t say Coney Island’s ideal for R and R. You sure you won’t want to go somewhere quieter?” Outside, a breeze snakes between the buildings, stirring up a bunch of pale pamphlets littering the sidewalk. Anna watches as they float on the wind like stiff-winged butterflies. One of them catches on Pete’s windshield, causing the middle-aged man to curse. “These damn flyers. Gonna drive off all the tourists and then where am I gonna be, huh?”
He continues to grumble complaints as he cranks down the window, but Anna’s too focused on the image staring back at her toregister them. Above a black and white illustration of a skeletal grim reaper, his mouth grinning and his eye sockets dark and empty, read the words:Welcome to Fear City.
Anna almost asks, but there’s a sudden shift in the air. A pause.
In the rearview mirror, Pete’s expression is frozen, his lips pursed around a sentence he can’t finish. Outside, suspended and motionless, the pamphlets float as if pinned in place by an invisible force. Anna’s eyes slide to the traffic light. The red has turned green, but the line of cars doesn’t move. Everything is still. Everything is silent.
Every thing, everyone, is suspended.
