38 #2
The gate to the estate opens without anyone asking a damn thing.
The arm lifts and the guard shack gives us the green with its same old sluggish vibe.
Not a single intercom buzz. I think about how well a decent checkpoint would work and how useless I am at setting one up.
The car ahead doesn’t stop at the main entrance; it swings around it, brazen as hell. We ride its bumper.
We pass the mansion’s lit facade. Soaring windows, warm light inside; way too perfect for this moment.
We keep straight, where the pretty ends and the useful begins. The mansion lights fall behind and another kind of lighting appears, lower and colder. Sketchier.
The internal road narrows. The asphalt that was wide a minute ago shrinks to a strip.
On the right, the hedges of the formal garden end in a clean cut.
On the left the grove begins. Tall pines, dark trunks, pale silhouettes against a washed-out gray sky that’s starting to drizzle.
The branches cross overhead. The asphalt loses its black shine and goes matte, that grain that, with a few drops, starts to reflect the floodlights and not much else.
Low path lights mark the way every hundred feet.
Enough light for the ground, nothing for the treetops. Instant tunnel.
"Where are we going?" Alaska asks, fully awake now, voice rough and curious. My chest tightens, just enough to remember I was breathing badly before and now worse.
"What’s going on?" Vega adds, no sarcasm, just a pure need to understand. I adore her and she scares me at the same time. Hell of a combo.
Silence settles over us. Not movie-heavy—real heavy, the kind where you don’t even know what to ask. The engine hums low and steady, with a tic I can’t tell was there before or I’m inventing because I’m nervous.
The tires bite into the gravel of the back road, the forgotten one.
The one you use once a year and always at the last minute.
The vibration climbs my legs and pings me in the pit of my stomach.
To the right, the vegetable plots: tomato plants tied to canes, black plastic, a sharp, sour smell.
To the left, the woods for real now, no hedge to hold them back.
The line of streetlights spreads farther apart and the rain comes down hard.
The wipers let out that hateful rubber squeal. I let out a nervous laugh.
I check my phone. One sad little bar that comes and goes.
Perfect for calling absolutely no one. The car ahead signals right with a lazy blink and vanishes behind a tight bend.
We follow the wet shine of its tire tracks.
My hands itch and I shove them under my thighs so I won’t ask us to stop.
I can hear myself thinking way too loud.
Rashel breathes through her nose, total control.
Irina clicks her nail against the door’s edge.
Small, steady. Rhythm of "don’t you fall apart now. "
"Seriously, are we going somewhere that isn’t creepy?" Alaska asks, weakly.
Irina doesn’t answer. She turns the wheel a little more and the car slips into a zone where the trees close in.
The forest canopy lets through little water and lots of dark.
The headlights light up wet trunks, bark shining in patches, leaves pasted to the ground.
The road skirts the last fence by the fields and dives straight into pines.
She brakes just enough not to slam our heads and then accelerates again.
My stomach signs the disaster paperwork.
Alaska tightens her seat belt. Vega brushes her arm and looks at me.
She doesn’t speak. I nod—the "everything under control" version not even my reflection buys.
The streetlights run out and it’s just the car’s beams and the rain. The road narrows even more. I bite my lip. I feel brave in three-second bursts. Then I go back to my baseline setting, which is "not dying today, thanks."
We pass the old shed, a black rectangle of low corrugated metal, roof hunched, rust everywhere.
The tires crunch over the gravel and the ground sweeps into a broad curve.
The curve drops us into a clearing that opens all at once, no curtain of trees to hide it.
I clock it instantly and my insides twist.
Behind a row of poplars, tall and skinny, there’s a hard-packed widening with rutted tracks, two side access roads that don’t show up on any map, a gate disguised in the service fencing, and green mesh patched up with zip ties.
Streetlights with burned-out bulbs, fake cameras with dead LEDs, and a sun-bleached sign that says No Trespassing.
If I had to say goodbye to something that doesn’t deserve any more world—something that has to disappear—I’d do it here too. A shiver runs through me.
"Nat," Alaska whispers. "You tell me."
My skin goes cold; my pulse won’t drop. In the cabin, the only light is the crappy glow of my phone.
It lights our knees and a slice of seat, and that bit of light cuts us off from the rest. I type with my thumb, fast and clumsy because my hand is shaking.
I set the phone on her thigh so she can read it, no doubt. The message:
"Don’t get out of the car, no matter what."
Alaska reads. Her eyes stay on the screen and then climb to me.
They’re light as hell and in this half-dark they shine with a dangerous glint.
She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t shake her head.
She taps the base of my palm with her thumb, a tiny gesture that stands in for a whole sentence: "I read you. Got it."
I know, with that annoying kind of certainty, that she won’t listen to me. She doesn’t stay still even when she sleeps; less than ever here.
Vega asks again, this time out loud.
"Irina? What the fuck is going on?"
Irina glances up at the rearview mirror. Her eyes meet mine in the reflection and I swallow the complaint. She chose this. She brought us so we’d see it, so we’d be here and tell it. She doesn’t give us a single word. Just adjusts her seat, that’s all.
Rashel reaches a hand back without taking her eyes off the front. She doesn’t touch anyone. She leaves it in the air between the seats, with that odd authority she always has. The gesture screams, "Easy, but alert." And we shut up. Or try to.
She kills the engine. I can hear crickets, but they’re on pause—the world muted, waiting. Ahead, another light, but it isn’t a streetlight; it’s lower, steadier, pinning a point in the black.
"What’s happening?" Alaska repeats, this time with a low simmering anger that lifts the hairs on my arms—anger not at us but at the situation, at the uncertainty.
I squeeze her hand until I feel her bones.
"Look at me," I whisper, my voice barely a murmur only she can hear.
She turns. Under the dim glow of the car ahead, I see her face: determination and stubbornness at the same time. Without a word, I promise her I’ll protect her with everything—my life, if it comes to that.
And I also know she’s going to do whatever her heart wants. I give up. I surrender to her will because I love her to a degree I wouldn’t recommend. And yeah, I know, I’m being extra; someone revoke my drama card and stick me in the time-out chair, please.