CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Anna Matthews,” he says. “I think I saw her.”
I let myself glower at him for one more moment, then jerk a thumb behind me to the carriage.
“Get in.”
· · ·
OF COURSE I don’t believe Grant. There’s no way he simply happened upon the exact person we need to find, in a city of millions, a day after we arrived in the country; I’m sure he just saw some woman who vaguely matches her description and jumped at the chance to abort mission.
But, God, am I looking forward to unleashing my pent-up fury when I prove him wrong.
It isn’t easy, but I manage to pedicab our way back in one piece, with only one near-miss by a black cab whose driver flashes two fingers at me. I reciprocate with a sarcastic peace sign of my own.
“That’s not what that means,” Grant pipes up from the back. “It means up yours here.”
I hate that he knows these things. I lower my index finger and turn my hand around for my kind of bird-flipping. And then angle it back to Grant.
“Nice. Thank you,” he says.
I pull up curbside to the bookstore Anna allegedly walked into, jumping awkwardly from the bike seat as Grant clambers out of the back. Before I can reach the door, Grant grabs my shoulder.
“There,” he says, pointing down the street. “There, that’s her.”
I turn, casting my skeptical glare toward the person in question, and freeze at the sight of a familiar head of curly auburn hair swishing away.
The woman tucks a Sharpie into her bag and breaks into a light jog straight toward a waiting bus.
When she turns to board, there’s no mistaking that profile. It’s her.
I cannot fucking believe this.
“Anna!” I shout, taking off after her. Grant runs and yells alongside me, both of us waving our arms and calling her name. But the doors close well before we can reach them, and the bus speeds off down the street.
As it passes, I catch sight of her in the window: Anna Matthews, smiling to herself as if lost in reverie. Probably dreaming up new nightmares for us.
Grant and I stand there, helplessly watching the bus disappear into the throng of traffic. It’s the kind of coincidence even Anna wouldn’t allow her characters—and here it is, slipping through our fingers.
We were only supposed to catch one person today, and now we’ve lost two. It all ignites a brush fire of irritation within me, mingling with my wasted adrenaline until it erupts in a frustrated scream. A flock of startled pigeons takes flight nearby. Grant winces.
“I tried to tell you,” he says.
“Why didn’t you stop her?” I snap. “You could have followed her into the store!”
He stares at me. “Are you genuinely mad at me for not abandoning you with a serial killer?”
“A serial killer that I was supposed to catch! And you were supposed to help me. But no, instead you had to scare him off with your Mission: Impossible routine.”
He squares his shoulders. “That’s not all my fault, you know. Your little performance of Swedish Tourist Number One had to have thrown him. You sounded like the chef from the Muppets.”
“Yeah, the Swedish Chef!”
Grant offers up what can only be described as a full-body eye roll, throwing up his hands and turning away from me.
“This is your fault, and you know it,” I say. “Either go find Anna or stick with our plan—but don’t screw up both just because you don’t think I can handle myself.”
“I know you can handle yourself!” he says, wheeling on me. “But we’re supposed to be doing this together. And what can I even do? You’ve got your protagonist safety net and your six years of self-defense practice—”
“Seven!”
Not a strictly necessary interjection, but I can’t resist the urge to correct him for once.
“Whatever!” he yells. “The fact remains—you’ve got training and experience. But me? I have an MFA in creative writing. What am I supposed to do, critique the character development of the villain as he’s hacking me to death?”
It’s only then that I realize he’s not yelling at me, specifically. The thread of terror in his voice betrays it as more of a desperate, panicked shout into the void.
“No, Grant,” I say, keeping my tone as measured as I can. “You’re supposed to look at the big picture and try to figure out what might happen. Maybe give us a heads up before we get hacked to death.”
“Oh my God,” he groans. “You are operating from such a grotesque misunderstanding of how story structure works.”
“All I’m saying is we each have our strengths. We just have to do our best.”
I know this isn’t exactly comforting. Grant’s right.
Even if my self-defense background falls short, I am the protagonist of this story.
Plot twists notwithstanding, I doubt Anna will kill me off partway through.
Grant, however, is on his own. And he can’t always count on having heavy-duty cookware close at hand.
“We know where Anna will be in a week,” I say. “Until then, there’s a lot of danger in the forecast. So I’m going to propose a plan.”
Grant’s brow wrinkles. “To find her sooner?” There’s a cautious tone to his voice, something very don’t get my hopes up about it. Which is good, because I’m not about to.
I shake my head. “To help you be able to fight back. Tomorrow, we start training. Welcome to Self-Defense 101.”
He startles when I give him a good-natured thump on the shoulder, which doesn’t bode particularly well.