Nineteen ♥
*
Grant couldn't see the sunrise. It was something he had enjoyed seeing his entire life, and most days, he could make it happen. Here, though, in this alley, his first signs of morning didn't come until the black of the sky turned to a light-enough colored navy that he could tell the sky was lightening.
A thick knot in his shoulders made it painful when he tried to move his arms. He opened the car door, the dome light turned on. He slipped out and walked down the alley. In the cold, clear light of early morning, after what could charitably be called 'sleep', he could smell the acrid smell of days-old human waste. He pointed himself in the right direction and took care of the full feeling in his bladder.
He made it back to the car. The kid, Ian, had a text. It was from a contact, but from the name–mechanical bullfrog–he guessed that it wasn't someone that he knew well. The message all but confirmed it.
'You really with them?'
Grant picked the phone up. It was near-dead, but he typed in anyways. 'This is the Sheriff.'
The first message had come in five hours ago, sitting there, ignored. To Grant's surprise, the reply came only a few minutes later.
'What's this conspiracy thing?'
Grant tried to decide how seriously he should take the conversation.
'Weren't you in the thread last night? We talked about it.'
'I was there. I want details.'
'I don't have much. We've got a few names. A few C.I.A. guys. An F.B.I. guy. Joe Greene. Peter Cross. They're trying to swallow the girl up. At this point we're both dead.'
'I can look into it for you, if you want.'
Grant looked at the message. Doubt didn't need to form; he was swimming in it. But he wasn't about to look a gift-horse in the mouth. He looked over at Misty. She was asleep, still, or faking it well enough. She stirred, halfway turned. The slight bucket to the seat moved her back to a position nearly approximating the one she'd been in before.
'I'd love that,' Grant typed. Send.
The phone died in his hands, before he could get a response. Grant reached past Misty, pulled the glove box handle. No charger. He let out a breath and got out to stretch his legs again.
Something, whether it was the shuffling around, or the dome light, or the sound of the door shutting, woke Misty. She joined him a minute later, silently.
"Morning," she said.
"Yeah," Grant agreed, as if it were a question. As if there was anything that either of them could do except deal with whatever came to them, at that point.
He put an arm around Misty's shoulder. She leaned her head against his chest. "We should go," she said softly.
"Yeah," he agreed. He decided not to tell her about the text. It was easier not to. It didn't change anything. They still had no way to get out of their problems. They still had to leave, and Grant still had a short list of favors he could still afford to call in. Short, but long enough. Nothing had changed, so there was nothing to tell. "Do we have a phone with battery?"
"Why?"
"To call my friend. We're getting out of here."
Misty didn't lift her head off Grant's chest for a long time. It took him longer than he'd like to admit before he noticed her breathing had become ragged.
"Are you okay?"
"Is it going to work?"
Grant ran his fingers through her hair, brushed it out of her face. He didn't look at her. Something about the moment felt like it would be easier for her if she didn't have to let him see her crying, and he wasn't about to force the issue.
"It'll work," he said. He sounded like he was convinced. It was better than he thought he could do, because the only thing he felt right now was a long way from convinced of anything. He would make it work because he had to. How that was going to happen, well… it was in the future. He could try to figure it out.
"Yeah," she said finally. "I left the phone I took turned off. Should be mostly full."
"Then let's get going."
Grant leaned back, took a half-step. Misty kept a grip on his jacket.
"Just a minute," she said softly. "I'm scared."
Grant put his arm around her again. He squeezed.
"You? Scared? Jeez, what am I supposed to say to that?" He tried to use his tone to let her know that it was a joke. "You're the tough one in this relationship. I thought you were just keeping me around for my looks."
She laughed. The laugh broke into a sob, showed it for the lie it was. "You shouldn't talk like that."
"Once we're gone," Grant said. "Then you can be as scared as you want. But I just need you to be strong for me a little while longer, okay? Just a little while. When we're out of the country, and we've got a plan for what we're doing next… then you can worry. But I don't think you're going to have to."
Grant held his breath. If he could have, he'd have stopped his heart from beating, for those long seconds. It was hot and stuffy and far, far too crowded, pressed into the tiny box with Misty. But there wasn't much other choice. The voices on the other side were friendly. From here, Liam's voice sounded almost totally different. The only thing that made it identifiable was the things that he seemed to say, and the fact that it was fully an octave higher than the booming voice of the harbormaster.
"Yeah, you're fine," he said finally. The car started to sputter, and Grant felt their momentum shift in the darkness. His head bumped the back of the seat in front of them, but if the harbormaster was there to hear it, he made no indication. They kept moving until they didn't any more.
A minute later a knock came on the trunk. Then it opened, and the light immediately forced Grant's eyes shut.
They moved quickly. It was the only way that it could be done. The good news, at least, was that they made it inside. Grant let out a breath. Now they just had to get caught. It was the stroke of genius of the plan. Someone had to see them. They just had to avoid seeing Liam with them, and maybe at that point things would work themselves out.
Grant stretched out his muscles. The hardest part of the plan was the time in the trunk, and that had come to an end. He spread his back and hugged himself. His spine made an unpleasantly loud popping noise. He turned, and it made another long series, like a zipper going from his hips to his neck.
"Remind me never to do that again."
Grant looked over at Misty. She seemed no worse for wear. Whether that was because he had a good ten inches on her, or because she had been worn down so far that nothing they did to her could be considered bad at that point, he didn't know. They had bigger things to worry about before he could ask himself how she was doing.
She laid a hand on his shoulder. He'd never seen the ocean before. It seemed strange to think; he'd flown over it a handful of times, but military flights aren't exactly comfortable experiences, and he wasn't in much position to gawk out the windows. If he had, it would have been at such an altitude that it would have been more clouds than ocean anyways.
"I was listening," he lied.
"I asked if you were ready."
"As ready as I'll ever be." He touched her cheek. "I just want this whole thing to be over with. When it's over. That's when I'll be okay."
She leaned in and kissed him. Grant's eyes drifted shut and for a moment he felt whole. "It's going to be fine."
"I know."
They walked for a few long minutes. After beating one person until his face caved in, and abducting another, it didn't take long before people started to recognize them. Grant almost felt like a local celebrity. The fact that criminals could feel like celebrities chafed.
"Time to go," he said softly.
Somewhere nearby, a whistle sounded. Someone was coming after them. Grant jumped onto a boat. Whoever owned it had left their keys inside, apparently trusting that the club was so thoroughly genteel that nobody would bother stealing. Well, they had something to learn. The engine roared to life while Misty worked knots on the stern. She let out a yell, and he started off.
Misty kept working behind him. There weren't many more moving parts in the operation, Grant thought. Now he just had to hope that they weren't going to get burned, literally or figuratively.
By the time they made it out to sea properly, Grant was watching a retinue of craft following behind. There was no place to run. That had always been the case, the fatal flaw in his plan from the beginning. He let out a breath.
"Ready?"
He met Misty's eyes. She looked more ready than he had ever felt.
"I love you," she said.
Grant stood and reached out. She reached back to him. Their fingers intertwined. "I love you too," he said. "Now let's get ourselves killed."
Down the coast a few months later, a woman with a deep tan walked along the shore. Grant–no, he was James, now, he reminded himself again–watched her coming. The way that her hips swayed, he almost would have believed that she wanted him. Then again, he thought, smiling, she had always swayed her hips like that, ever since she was in high school, and he'd always watched it with the same interest.
"I love you," he called.
She turned, shaded her eyes to look towards him. She smiled.
"I love you too," she said. She lifted a bag that hung by her side. "And I know I said I wouldn't, but I splurged a little." She pulled out a bottle of something amber. "Just to celebrate."