Page 105 of Bitter Burn
There’s no greeting, but Mark doesn’t seem to expect one. When the speaker clicks, he says, “It’s Trevena.”
“Took you long enough,” a deep American voice says after a minute, and then the gates slide open. Mark rolls the car up the drive.
Isolde is awake by the time we park, and as we walk up to the front door—stiffly, sorely, slowly—I appreciate what a mess the three of us look like right now. In clothes at least two days old, covered in blood, beat to hell, haggard and weary. And when the door is opened for us and I see our host’s reaction, I know we must look even worse than we feel.
“Holy shit,” the man says. Then he looks us over again and shakes his head. “Well, you better come in, I guess.”
There are showers—not shared, even though I’m sad about that less for sex reasons and more because I don’t want to let either Mark or Isolde out of my sight—and fresh clothes. I’m given food, some Advil, and then pointed toward a bed, where I lie down and sleep for what feels like a million years.
It’s morning when I wake up, a clear one with cool air coming through a cracked window and a soothing view over the lapis saucer of the lake. I’d had a nightmare, I think, judging by the rapid thud of my pulse when I sit up, but by the time I dress and use the en suite, with a new toothbrush and toothpaste helpfully provided, I’m wooed into something like calm. The view, the air, the sound of a house bustling full of people—even though I know we’re not safe, that we’re only another misstep away from being chained to a warehouse pipe again, everything about the morning feels like safety. It’s like the best parts of the farmhouse and an Army base all rolled into one.
Downstairs, Mark is sitting at a table with a lanky man with dark brown skin and a short woman with pale, pinkish skin that looks easily sunburned. They’re wearing tactical clothing, sturdy boots, and expressions of sly capability that make me think they’re something more complicated than military.
The open-plan living room is crowded with another ten or eleven people, a few of them playing cards, two of them napping, and the rest gossiping like old men at a doughnut shop. Black duffel bags and gun cases are stacked neatly against a wall.
I walk to the table, and Mark gestures at the empty chair next to him without looking at me.
“I think any day now,” Mark is saying, and the lanky man nods.
“We had someone at the Mass he said yesterday, and it looks like the swelling has reached his jaw. Any longer and he’s going to need a hospital, not a dentist.”
“He’ll schedule a visit to the museum of the summer palace under some pretense, and that’s when he’ll come here for treatment. I don’t suppose there’s any way to…”
“Look at the dentist’s schedule? It’s all done by paper and phone, alas.”
Mark picks up his cappuccino and sips, and as he does, he puts his arm over the back of my chair. It’s casually possessive, flagrant even, with the way his fingers pluck at the shoulder of my shirt, and I flush, because we’re in front of other people and he’s married to someone else, and also because his claiming, affectionate touch makes me want to sink to my knees and press my face into his thigh. Even with everything that’s happened…maybe even especially with everything that’s happened.
I think of his hand pressing against my heart as bullets flew around us.
Do you feel that?
I’m holding on to something good.
It wasn’t even a question for him, to risk himself in order to save us. Like it was preordained. Like no other option existed for him.
The people at the table don’t seem surprised by Mark’s fingers toying idly with my sleeve. They notice, because they are the kind of people whose job it is to notice, but it seems like an utterly neutral detail to them, and they carry on talking.
“I wonder how my clockmaker got that appointment record then,” wonders Mark aloud, looking out the window.
“We checked on that. The office had a brief foray into online booking software, abandoned after only a few months.” It’s the woman speaking now. She nods at her colleague. “Palmer made friends with the former office manager of the dental practice. Seems like the system was dropped after a few high-profile patients raised concerns about safety, so they went back to a fully analog system. She was grumpy about it, even years later.”
Palmer scrubs at his shaved head with his hands as if personally victimized by the paper schedule. “We’ve got someone listening on the phones here at the house. It’s very Cold War, very old-fashioned.”
“Palmer is a man of modernity,” Mark informs me. He turns his head when he speaks, and when I look back at him, the full weight of his gaze, the same color as the lake outside, nearly breaks me. It’s never been fair that his attention can feel like this, that something as inconsequential as sharing a dry little comment can feel like he’s chosen you above all the world to share his kingdom.
For his part, Palmer is shaking his head in vigorous denial. “I’m merely practical! Ferguson is the modern one. You should see her try to use a paper map. She was driving circles in Athens for half a day the last time we were there. Missed a rendezvous with an agent by three hours.”
The woman—Ferguson—flips him off with an unbothered smile.
They talk a little bit longer, mostly about the location of the dentist’s office and the layout, and then after Mark’s finished his drink, he withdraws his arm from my chair and stands up. “I’m going to check on Mrs. Trevena,” he tells the table and then tilts his head to indicate that he wants me to come with him.
I stand, make an awkward goodbye to Palmer and Ferguson, and then follow him up the stairs, where he leads me into a room with a king bed and a view of the glittering lake. The pillows on both sides are dented, and I guess I can’t hide my envy, because he says with some amusement, “You were already asleep by the time I finished talking with Ferguson and Palmer, and I didn’t want to move you. You can sleep here tonight if you’d like.”
I would like, but it does make me wonder what it means. What any of the last two days—two weeks—this last year—means.
And does it matter? While Cashel is still hunting us? What future can there be when our present is filled with bullets and blood?
Isolde is sitting on the window seat, her back against the wall and her legs drawn up to her chest. Her hair is wet, wet enough that it shines in the morning light and drops gather at the ends. She’s wearing nothing but the blanket she has wrapped around her shoulders.
