15
They are all waiting for me.
Mr Younge stands on the street at the mouth of the lane, and as the car rolls by him, he follows behind.
I drive into the carpark, and spot James loitering near the bins. He doesn’t look up at me.
My hands are fisted on the steering wheel, so tightly that my knuckles are blotched white, and I pull into the parking spot.
Father stands back.
The nose of the car almost grazes him, but he doesn’t retreat, not even a step.
I avoid looking at him, but I feel his stare burning into me through the window.
The thickness of my throat chokes me.
I focus on the direction of the car—until the sole of my canvas shoe comes down on the break and I wrangle the stick into park.
My breaths shudder out of me as I unbuckle the seatbelt.
Then I flinch.
Because at the exact same moment that the seatbelt whizzes by me, the car door whips open.
I cringe, my wide eyes swerving to the suited figure in the doorway.
Mr Younge.
Without a word, he reaches into the car and takes the keys out of the ignition. Then he swipes the phone from the dash and pockets it.
My breath is pinned to my chest. I hold it, as though to breathe will ignite a spark, a blast, and rage will suddenly storm around me.
But the tension holds.
Silence pulls taut over the carpark.
I step out.
My limbs move slowly, like the dread has turned my bones to lead. Yet there’s a wobbliness to my legs. As I stand, and the late afternoon sun glares at me without its warmth, my legs are turning to jelly.
The sun is setting over the building, but rays of its light are angled right at me.
Turning my cheek to it, I squint against the glare—and my gaze locks with Father’s.
His face is stone. But not unreadable.
The charge of fury brightens his eyes into emerald daggers. His mouth is tight, on the verge of pursing, and his grip is too firm around the edges of his cell phone.
I wonder if he texted Mother…
The thought of her reading a text that I’ve been captured and will be home soon, and the sobs that will wrack her, surges a wretched sensation through me, like my insides have been carved out.
I turn my cheek to Father.
And I find Dray.
At the bottom of the fireplace, directly across from me, he sticks to the shadows—and I bet he’s there to stop Serena from fleeing prematurely.
But in those shadows, the last of the feeble sunlight doesn’t reach him.
Doesn’t illuminate the pale eyes that I remember so clearly, like they are etched into the grooves of my brain.
But those eyes are shadowy right now, and they don’t meet my gaze—they wander my body, more filled out now, and stuffed into a tight shrunken sweater and pair of jeans.
The crunching of loose gravel draws in my gaze.
Oliver comes around the other side of the building, where there’s a narrow alleyway only large enough for a person to fit through, not a car.
He must have been blocking the exit. Making sure I didn’t run—or that Serena didn’t.
They need me first, before they will let her go.
I look at my brother, at the tension on his face, and find that he is the most blatant in his judgement.
He runs his gaze over the scuffed black canvas shoes on my feet, up the stained blue jeans that I got for ten bucks, over the polyester sweater that’s too small because it shrunk in the wash—until his gaze snags on my face, the dark circles around my tired eyes, the pale hue of my chapped lips, and the split ends that fray my hair around my face.
It’s not even my face.
It’s an illusion.
But it will be fading soon, and so the truth of my looks now are coming through the mask.
My split ends, my tired eyes, my pale complexion—it’s all me.
I look down at the oil-stained concrete.
Behind me, the jangle of keys comes before a light clattering sound.
I step aside and look back at Mr Younge.
He sets the keys down on the hood of the car.
And that simple gesture has me looking for the window above.
Serena is a shadow, a silhouette, hidden from the fading sunlight. She stands at the window. She watches, her shoulder quivering, and so I know she’s crying.
I lift my hand.
I don’t even wave, not really. But the gesture is there.
She presses her hand to the window.
A ‘thank you’.
Because I’m giving myself up for her to be free with Sal.
Truly free, in a way that we have never been.
It’s time for Serena to leave me behind, to live her life with her son, no shield, no fees, no illusions. Just life.
“The cars are coming around,” Mr Younge announces behind me, and his voice is too close, like it’s pushing into me—pushing me into step.
And it does.
A sniffle runs through me.
I wipe at my nose before I move for my brother.
Oliver waits for me to pass, with a face like stone, a mask moulded for the audience around us.
He plays his role.
I understand that.
But I don’t understand him.
I turn a dark, watery look on Dray.
Unflinching, he just stares back at me.
He waits for me to pass—and I’m being herded to the lane.
And there is another man at the end of the lane.
One I don’t recognise.
The man turns his back on us and, with his broad shoulders set, he leads the way around the corner of the building.
We pass the rows of shop windows below the loft, then onto the street, across the road, and around the corner onto another narrower street.
A pair of sleek sedans with blacked-out windows idle quietly on the side of the road.
Rentals.
BMWs.
Not a car brand I would have considered luxurious back in my days of wealth.
It’s luxury for the middle class.
But now, as the red-headed man who is a stranger to me pulls open the car door, and I fumble into the backseat, the smell of leather floods my nostrils and it’s nostalgic.
It’s an echo of luxury.
I’ve spent so long in rusty cars and mouldy motels, it’s ruined my taste.
Before I can scoot over to the other door, it opens, and Oliver slips onto the seat.
Father sits to my left.
Mr Younge takes the passenger seat.
I don’t know who the driver is. I don’t recognise the glimpse of his face I can make out in the rearview mirror.
But I do know the car is full.
James, Dray and the red-headed man take the other car.
But just because Dray isn’t in this car, and Mr Younge is in the passenger seat, doesn’t mean my family speak to me.
I am flanked by silent, tense statues.
For the drive out of town, and a while longer, I stay quiet. I keep my head down. Hands wringing on my lap. Nails cutting into my skin.
I weep.
Quietly.
Face twisting, sobs swallowed down.
No one says a word.
It’s only when we’re on the highway that Father speaks—and it isn’t to me.
His phone buzzes in his hand.
It vibrates just once before he’s bringing the phone to his ear.
His voice is low, a murmur, and I can only make out a word here and there.
That resurges the tears through me, because I know, I know, he’s talking to Mother.
My sobs are choked—and they continue long after Father gets off the phone.
And still, not a word is said to me.
Not even when the cars come off the highway, and pull into the small private airport, hobby airports.
Parked there on the tarmac is a black plane… much, much bigger than the jet I remember.
It’s as large as the commercial planes Serena and I took to get out of Europe.
But my awe is hesitated when the car doors are pulled open from the outside, and the crisp night air strikes me.
Oliver steps out first, his shoe thudding down on the concrete.
He pauses, turns to me, and offers his hand.
I avoid his cold stare.
I smack my hand down on his—and the slap steals me back to the corridor at Bluestone, when Dray’s hand came cutting through the air, and he struck me right across the face.
My lashes shut on the memory.
And when I open my eyes, Oliver has firmed his hand on mine, almost like he’s reassuring me with an imperceptible squeeze.
It works.
I get out of the car and look over at the other.
Father has wandered to that BMW.
He stands with Dray, and though Father’s mouth moves around words, I can’t hear anything he says, not over the winds lashing down the tarmac.
Dray nods at something my father says—and his eyes find me over the hood of the other car. His eyes are as sharp and piercing as the cold air.
I turn my cheek to him.
Nothing kind in that gaze, not with the tension stroked along his cheeks, a quiet rage contained behind a mask.
At the nose of the car, Mr Younge clears his throat, and it’s an obvious nudge-along.
Oliver’s hand tightens on mine before he leads me to the stairs leading up to the plane.
Without a glance back at Mr Younge, I know he follows. Probably treading all over my shadow.
Oliver’s fingers slip away from mine. He lets me go, and I climb the stairs before him.
I’m first inside.
And I falter.
I knew it wasn’t the same jet as before I ran. The sheer size of it gave it away.
But I didn’t expect it to be on this level.
I’m faced with a marble staircase that spirals up to the second floor.
To my left is a thick glass sliding door, and beyond it, a commercial kitchen.
Staff move around in there. I only count three, but they are all dressed in kitchen attire, with striped pants and proper shirts and aprons. The chef is identifiable by the white hat on his head.
I look to the sliding glass door on my right—and beyond it, there is a sort of lounge area, with a curved leather sofa and two armchairs.
Oliver’s smooth, quiet voice comes from behind me, “Come on.”
He moves around me, and just stepping near the door, it slides open automatically.
He leads the way through the lounge, and down a generously sized corridor that’s flanked by windows overlooking the airport on my right, and on my left, closed doors that lead to enclosed rooms.
The corridor goes on too long for a private plane. It’s the sort of extravagance Father always said was too obnoxious.
But for whatever reason, in the past three years, that changed.
The corridor ends where a large room begins.
This is nothing like the old jet.
This is a living room.
Long sofas line the left wall, and on the other are lush armchairs are bolted in place.
The sheer amount of space is startling.
Oliver stops, looks over his shoulder, and Mr Younge must be close behind me, because there’s nothing gentle about the way Oliver considers me.
“This way,” he says, then leads me down the living area to the end of the couches.
And it’s like a jet of cashmere and silk is gliding over me with every step I take down the Brazilian Walnut flooring, all the way to the privately situated armchairs at the back.
Oliver understands my need to hide.
To be tucked away in the corner while the entire party is angry with me.
He gestures to the sliding door—but this one isn’t glass. “The bathroom is through there.”
I nod, because I can’t find words.
I can’t find the words to speak to my brother, my twin, and I can’t find them for the sheer grandiosity of this plane, either.
Oliver leaves me, and heads back to the spacious living area as the others start to file in.
I avoid the stares that flicker my way and consider the two armchairs angled towards each other.
I take the one in the corner, giving me a full view of the entire lounge, the couches, the corridor, and the corner bar.
I consider the bar, from the black marble to the gold trim, the reinforced glass cases lined with crystal tumblers and decanters, and I think I could do with a strong drink right about now.
On the smaller jet, I could lean to the side and reach out my arm, and touch the next chair. But not on this one.
The bar is metres away.
So I can’t just reach out and snatch a drink—not without getting up and being noticed.
The need to be invisible is too strong.
I loosen a weighted breath and chance a look at the spacious lounge.
Father drops onto the chaise-end of the couch, and lets his spine sink into the cushions.
Exhausted, he shuts his eyes and brings his hand to his face. He pinches the bridge of his nose.
Mr Younge sits on the couch opposite, talking with the redheaded stranger, who I think is also a right-hand man. Oliver’s maybe, since James seems to be working for Dray.
James might be working for Dray, but he tucks himself away on the distant corner of the couch, far from the others, and he stays out of that—
Oliver and Dray haven’t taken their seats yet.
In the middle of the lounge, Oliver’s face is stone, his eyes are daggers, and whatever hushed words he delivers to Dray don’t seem at all friendly.
But Dray is unaffected.
His face is unchanging before he says something I can’t hear, then draws away from my brother.
Dray comes down the lounge—right for my little area.
I sit up a bit straighter, a bit stiffer.
Oliver just shakes his head, then drops onto the couch. He falls onto his back, arm draping over his eyes, and that’s it.
Like Father, he just shuts down.
Dray passes me by.
Without even a glance down at me, he pushes through the door and disappears into the back of the plane.
Oliver said the bathroom is through there, but I crane my neck and peer into the gap before the door shuts, and I saw a few other doors.
So maybe another lounge is back there. Or a couple of bedrooms. Or more than one bathroom.
I need a print-out of the floorplan for this plane.
There’s already so much on this level, what could possibly be up the staircase?
I sink deeper into the creamy leather seat. It welcomes me, an embrace.
My lashes shut on the luxury.
Blind, I kick off my flat sneakers, then draw my legs up onto the seat.
The commotion around the jet is a distant, muffled noise. Attendants march up and down the aisle, tending to their last-minute preparations for take-off.
My eyes stay shut.
The jet starts its smooth drive to the runway.
My head falls back as we start to speed up the runway—then the nose tilts upwards.
We lift into the air.
We glide.
I sink further into the seat. I sink into the relaxation. And I already feel like I’m back where I belong.