Chapter 44
forty-four
HANNAH
“Nothing to do about the broken lock,” Hannah murmured to herself, earning a wary look from the woman sitting next to her on the train. She had managed to jimmy the antique lock of Mirren’s sister’s attic workshop before and easily, but she must have jammed the screwdriver too hard last night.
There was a definite clank of broken metal when she’d used the palm of her hand to hammer the handle of the tool. The bruise was already turning purple and smarted when she tried to carry her travel pack.
We should have already been at your mom’s, but you took too long at the girl’s shop.
Then we had to listen to you puke your guts up all night.
And then, the second the puke dried on your crusty lips, you ordered a fucking pizza instead of packing your bag.
Diseased cow.
“The meds make me sick,” she hissed the rejoinder, earning more nervous glances from her traveling neighbors.
She’d been forced to check into a dive motel near Busáras, wanting to be able to easily walk to the bus station the next day to buy a ticket.
Unfortunately, she only became more ill, her stomach emptying the hot, cheesy pizza she’d enjoyed way more going down than coming up.
By ten o’clock the following morning, she’d been forced to call the doctor’s clinic she’d gone to for blood tests and beg them to call Hannah in some nausea medication to an apothecary near the bus station.
She’d then spent even more money to have them delivered to the motel, as well as paying a second driver to deliver some water and crackers to ease the vomiting.
She’d lain in the midst of the creaky bed’s rumpled, dingy sheets throughout the rest of the day, listening to the voices mentally flay her.
Her hope was that the little bitch was already a bloody spray decorating the colorful embroidery floss and stacks of creamy cottons.
Maybe you wouldn’t have worn your sloppy body out if you hadn’t taken so long to plant the bomb.
Yes, she had been sick and tired after planting the bomb, but it wasn’t like she learned how to rig a bomb at her fancy boarding school. The man she’d purchased the explosive from had given her rudimentary instructions at best.
What about the wasted time you spent picking out an embroidered memento?
Hannah felt her cheeks heat. The girl did make pretty things, and it had been a very long time since she’d owned anything so fine.
The bus seat was uncomfortable, and she pressed a hand to her distended belly. The usually soft paunch had grown larger and harder, resembling nothing short of a misshapen pregnancy.
She felt her mouth screw up in distaste, feeling when the voices took control of her facial muscles.
The nurse had assured her that the side effects of the HIV medicines would last only a few weeks.
Only.
She’d been living in hell for so long. What was a few more weeks?
Soon, she would be happy. Soon.