Page 31

CIRCE

“ T his is fucking stupid.” Dom shivers.

“So is complaining every five minutes,” I snap in a mocking singsong voice. He scowls as I toss him another blanket.

He hasn’t stopped complaining since Canada. Somehow, I want to kill him less, I trust him a fraction more. But I fight a daily battle against slapping the shit out of him.

“Not all of us frequent inhospitable holds on cargo jets. You two act like this is normal.”

“Par for the course,” Ero mutters, pacing with his head bent to avoid the low ceiling.

“Not the worst flight we’ve been on. Remember the flight from Johannesburg to Perth?” I shiver.

“Oof. That was claustro-fucked.”

“Picture the two of us holed up in a crate for nine hours.” I’m leaning in, holding my hands up in a box shape. Dom’s face goes pale.

“Sleeping gas wore off after six,” Ero adds.

“And ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ only kills about ten minutes.”

“I’d rather die.” Dom shudders.

“Wish you would. Just take off the blankets. Go to sleep. Let the hypothermia take you.”

“Tempting. It would save me from your rotten company.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I smirk, stretching my legs out wide before I curl back up. It is freezing in here. Only an hour to go.

And we’ll spend it working on a plan for a few days if we’re lucky.

Pressed up against the wall in a slipshod motel just a few days back, I would have never guessed we’d make it this far. The Mocro ambushed us, burst through the windows, stabbed our beds.

Ero’s intuition and knowledge saved us.

From that. We managed to kill two. The third escaped.

All three of us were left with more than a few injuries to nurse while we fled overland. Fortunately, we found an airstrip, bribed a pilot. Since then, we’ve bunny hopped all over the Arctic.

First, we stowed away on a flight to Greenland. We were there for only a few hours before someone alerted the police. As soon as the sirens flashed, someone else came after us, another crew of would-be assassins.

Another cargo plane. Dom payed off the whole crew.

Then it was Iceland, Norway, Sweden. Each location only bought us half a day before we had to run again, barely keeping ahead of the seemingly endless manhunt. That’s what a privately funded bounty will do.

Dollars to death warrants, the bond was posted by Ananke.

Meaning every dumb shit with a gun and access to the dark web thinks they’ll be the one to catch us. Guess I’d try too for nine million dollars.

By the time we reach Stockholm, we’re nearly out of funds. Well, Dom is.

I still have an emergency fund. One I’d rather he not know about. Still don’t entirely trust the wily old mobster. Even if he’s saved my life more than once.

“There’s another flight leaving in half an hour.”

“Where to?” Dom asks hesitantly.

“Does is matter?” Ero grumbles, rolling his shoulders.

“It does if we have any kind of plan. We can’t keep retreating.”

“We’re open to suggestions.”

“Take the fight to Ananke, Daciana, whoever the fuck she is.”

“Good idea! We’ll sneak into Italy, waltz straight into her heavily guarded fortress mansion and—” Ero pauses.

“And immediately put a bullet in our own heads,” I finish.

“Yeah, yeah. Mind control.” Dom flings his hands dismissively. “She’s really got both of you bamboozled.”

“Bamboozled?” I scoff.

“A nice way of saying you got your heads so far up hers and each other’s asses that you got brain damage for the lack of oxygen.”

Ero blinks a couple of times. “Wow. That was a Ciro-level burn.”

“And so graphic .” My bottom lip pulls down in disgust.

“Only slightly less nasty than my twin.”

“The two of you are only slightly less annoying than the Ciro–Ero combo.” Dom fidgets, scanning through a few booklets we snatched from the airport. Most are for tourists, bus schedules, and transit maps.

“Look, believe us or not, we’re not risking it. We need to lie low.” Mentally, I swipe through every safe house and bolt-hole I can think of. Most are compromised. Others might not exist anymore.

“We need to find some way of reversing what she did to us. Maybe time really does work, like it did with Artemis,” Ero offers.

“If she was telling the truth,” I interject.

“Right. If she was telling the truth. You have to admit, we’ve come a long way in just a few weeks.”

“If so, Ananke must have realized that you were getting farther afield. Might explain why she pulled out the rug.” Dom sighs. “Which means she considers you a threat. Me too. I say, we amplify that threat. Buy us some protection. Some muscle.”

“We don’t have enough money to buy a bike lock, let alone an army.”

“We have enough for a ferry ride.” Dom snaps his fingers suddenly, holding up a pamphlet. “Stockholm to Tallinn. Estonia. We follow the coast. Only a few hours to the Russian border.”

Ero’s face brightens slightly.

“The Bratva. I know for a fact Daciana’s had trouble getting anywhere with the Russians. They won’t negotiate. They don’t cave to threats or attacks. Might be the last holdout against Pantheon.”

“Assuming they don’t shoot us on sight or turn us away, what could we possibly offer them for asylum?” I protest, running out of patience.

“The Bratva are pragmatic. If they see what’s going on, they’ll welcome any intel we can offer on Ananke and Pantheon.”

“Or we’ll make handy bargaining chips.”

“At worst, it keeps us alive long enough to figure something else out.”

Dawn.

Fog rolls in off the Gulf of Finland.

Ero’s on autopilot, keeping to as many minor roads as we can until we pass Sillam?e, the last town of note along the coast. If it takes a little longer, it will keep us safer. Signs a few clicks back told us we’re close to the border.

We’ll follow the coast all the way to the Narva River. South to the town of the same name.

Then we have to figure out how to cross unnoticed.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and an outpost of Bratva will escort us to St. Petersburg.

Fuck luck. I’ve only ever had shit-out-of-luck as my gold standard.

Farmlands ghost by in the morning haze.

“Peaceful,” I whisper, checking to make sure Dom is still snoring softly in the back.

Ero nods. “Quiet too.”

“I always imagined retiring somewhere like this. Near the coast, but not beachy.”

He starts to smile, to agree or elaborate when a frown pinches his brows. “Cirs…”

A tip of his chin points out a wooden gate up ahead. Beyond it, fields roll over hills. Trees run in strips south in long swaths, breaking the land up into blocks. My first instinct is to laugh. “You want to see if it’s for sa?—”

The words and the humor die on my lips as Ero slows down.

Not just because of the barely visible Keep Out and No Trespassing signs. The English words are certainly out of place. But the fading blue paint on the posts jabs at my perception, making me flinch.

I’m out of the car before he puts it in park.

Tugging aside more of the crawling vines, I tip over a rusted, dented mailbox. A strobe light of memories flashes before my eyes. The same mailbox, freshly painted. Where the rusted holes gape in silent outcry, I see letters.

“Ero…?” I gasp, reaching back for him as he edges up to join me.

“Dalca. It used to say Dalca.”

With barely a backward glance to check on Dom, we hop the rotting crossbeams of the gate. My hand finds Ero’s, twining fingers. Past the first hill, we see a glint of windows. White paint, accented in pale green.

One minute we’re standing a hundred yards away, staring at the haunting profile of the house.

The next, we’re at the door. Dirt and leaves speckle the porch, a wide, tiled affair stretching out from the archway of the entry.

A blackened, empty fountain crouches to our left, a stone railing lining the drive back around the side of the house to our right.

“This feels?—”

“—familiar.”

“The photos. In the box under the bed in Greece,” I mutter, unconsciously reaching for the handle at the front door. “We were standing right here.”

“Smiling.”

“With Theo.”

“Holding Eva.” Ero’s voice trembles, his hand falling atop mine.

Our eyes meet, brimming with horror. With grief.

“We—”

“It was real.”

“No. No it can’t be.” I shoulder the door open, dust and debris scattering across the hallway. Stale air breathes back on me, sepulchral. As if I opened a long-sealed mausoleum.

The remaining furniture litters the living area, the dining room, scattered about haphazardly. Like someone moved out in a hurry. Or no one bothered to finish moving the items away.

Because the occupants were gone.

Because we were removed and reprogrammed.

“Cirs.” Ero’s subdued tone turns my attention to where he’s staring. “Wiring. For a camera.”

A one-eighty shows me more, some of the devices still mounted in corners, the crown molding concealing the equipment cracked and torn down in sections.

Naturally, we follow the lines back to a hub, a splitter box mounted beside a door in the hall, a stark outline echoing the frame that once hid the breaker board.

Ero tinkers with the door, kneels to pick the lock. Just like he kneeled when he?—

The patter of tiny feet jerks me around toward the back door, the sliding glass that led to the pool out back. A giggle jingles from the pantry, hiding in a half-opened cabinet.

But there’s no one here.

Just ghosts. The ghosts of my babies . Yet why do I feel like I never knew them?

A soft nudge summons me back.

The door stands open, revealing stairs leading down into darkness. We give each other one final look before we take the first step. Ero taps my shoulder as I lead the way, my pistol ready ahead of me. At the first landing, I click on the tac-light attached to the bottom of my barrel.

Another level, I check the doors.

“Closet. Electrical hub,” I whisper.

“Hallway through here. What do you think the odds are that the power still works?”

“I haven’t paid the bill since we were here, so…” A nervous chuckle. Locating a large breaker, I throw the switch.