Page 70

70

Eva

While Jonathan is securing the location, I walk down to the market. You can buy anything in Les Puces. Anything you could possibly need, to live or to die.

You can buy a new identity—or three, just to be safe—in the little room behind the passport photo booth at an internet café.

You can buy ashes, cremated bodies, bones and teeth in the taxidermy shop on the south side of the market. They might not hold up to DNA testing, but I have a feeling that the neckbeards accessing the network don’t want to get their hands dirty in the real world.

I buy two jars of cremains and a few bones that remind me of Jonathan. I stick them in a bag and head back to our hotel room.

On the way there, I stop and pick up Jonathan’s suitcase. It’s so heavy that I have to get a cab. I feel pretty cool carrying a bunch of ashes and antique weapons across Paris. There’s nothing quite like executing a plan to kill.

When I get back to his hotel room at the Ritz, I take the most decadent bubble bath. The thing about me is, I appreciate the small things. I could die tomorrow, or in the next five minutes. I try to enjoy every minute.

I hear the key in the lock. Until I hear Jonathan’s voice, I am prepared to kill whoever walks through the door.

“He’s agreed to it,” Jonathan says. “Made me feel like shit about it first, but hey, that’s family.” He stops in the washroom doorway. His eyes sweep over me. He loosens his collar. “You look very cozy,” he says softly.

“That’s your urn on the right,” I say. I have both of our jars of ashes on the counter, watching me take a bubble bath. “I wanted them to get to know us intimately, so they can play us well.”

“You’re delightfully odd.”

“I have a surprise for you,” I say, and duck under my bubbles. “It’s in the hallway closet.”

He gives me a look and then follows my instructions. I can hear his shriek from the tub.

“My suitcase!” he says. He comes running back in with a sword. “I can’t believe you were holding on to these all this time and never told me.”

“I forgot…slash was trying to kill you,” I say.

“Fair enough.” He disappears again and I can hear him drag the suitcase to the middle of the room and start unpacking. “My dueling pistols! My flamberge!”

I snort. I climb out of the bathtub and wrap myself in a robe. I walk into the bedroom and perch on the arm of a chair. I watch him tear through his weapons. It warms my heart.

“You’re delightfully odd,” I say back to him. “Do those grenades actually work?”

“Everything in here works,” he says, absently stroking a serrated blade. “You think I lug all this around for fun?”

“Yes, I do.” I stand and cross over to him. “I also think we should leave these at the house. To help sell our story. No one would ever believe you would walk away from your collection alive.”

His grip tightens on a sword. “You’re right. And I guess I won’t be needing them where we’re going. Wherever that is…”

He gazes longingly at all the weapons spread across the floor, probably trying—and failing—to imagine a place where that could possibly be true.

I can’t imagine that place either, but we’ll deal with that when we get there. Or something.