Chapter 20 BETH
BETH
Military zone. Trespassers will be shot on sight.
Kenzo huffed, his frown deepening as he raised his right leg, kicking the front tyre of his car as if that was enough to put the air back into it.
“I hate this,” he murmured bitterly, throwing his body against the car dramatically. “Fucking hell, why did I agree to this?”
I shot him a look even though I was greatly at fault and should be on my knees, apologising for the inconvenience I must have caused him.
I didn’t mean to be a pain in the ass. It was just that I woke up this morning and thought, how cool to go on a road trip? He didn’t protest. He had a nice car whose tank was always filled up. Road trip didn’t sound like a bad idea. Then we exited Braemont and I said, why not stop at Glenfallow?
This had really felt like a rather brilliant idea then. Kenzo said to follow my heart. And my heart had been gravitating toward Callan even before I told him to stop coming. So I followed my heart to Glenfallow.
Now standing by a rather lonely road in an unfamiliar town with two flat tyres, following my heart suddenly felt like a reckless, terrifying decision.
If we didn’t get kidnapped and killed here before we got to see Callan, Mother would do the honor if for some reason, I didn’t make it back to Braemont on time and she returned home before me.
“I still can’t believe I actually agreed to this.” Kenzo removed his sunshades, raking his fingers through his golden hair. “No, this is so fucked up.”
“For a second, just shut up and let me think, geez,” I hissed, forgetting again that I was in no place to be angry or irritated. I dragged us into this mess.
“What if we get stranded?” A look of horror flashed through his blue eyes.
“We won’t.” The words were sharp and defensive, a mask for the gnawing doubt in my gut. “Worst-case scenario, we crash at a motel or something. That was already our plan, right? To return home tomorrow.”
“People get killed in motels,” he mumbled under his breath and I pressed my lips together, dragging in a sharp breath. For Christ’s sake, this was the same boy that suggested we crashed at a motel if it got too dark to drive because he hated driving at night.
I wasn’t this terrified before. But his paranoia was beginning to seep into my mind, making my bravery waver.
I had never been stranded in the past, not somewhere that wasn’t about a ten minute walk from home.
We couldn’t find any means to change the tyre or pump air into it.
The network was bad so we couldn’t even contact anyone, not the person we drove all the way here to see.
But no matter what went down here, I must return Kenzo to his mother in one piece. Mrs. Takahashi would raise me from the dead just to kill me again if anything happened to her precious son.
We just needed to make one call. Our safety depended on just one call. There was a payphone across the street. But no coins. Just cash.
Kenzo suddenly nudged my arm, drawing me out of my thoughts. “You think that man would be kind enough to lend us some coins?”
I followed his gaze to the bench by the roadside where an old man sat with a weathered slouch.
He wasn’t there before, though. Where did he come out from? Maybe he was a ghost. The thought made me shiver.
I turned back to Kenzo. “I think he will be motivated if we trade some cash?”
Before Kenzo could agree or disagree, I was already heading toward the man.
“Well, do be careful,” Kenzo called after me anyway, his voice drowned by the rustling wind.
I stood a foot or two away from the man, shifting on my heels nervously. He could actually be a ghost.
“Hi.” It was barely audible, but the man looked up, grey eyes sharp with irritation. Ghosts were always angry.
“Teenagers,” he grumbled. His accent was thick, rough, but nothing like Callan’s at all. Not as enticing. Not that mesmerising. It didn’t make me think of melted chocolate or silk over steel.
“I know, right?” I glanced behind me briefly at Kenzo. He had now moved away from the car, leaning against the payphone as though he was already sure of my success.
“Can I, um, trade this cash for some coins?” I turned to the man, extending the money in my hand. If I was being honest, 50 pounds was a generous offer for 2 pence.
“I don’t have coins.” The response was curt and sharp, slicing through the air like the edge of a blade. If I wasn’t desperate, I would have ran for my life, especially seeing how my hand was trembling and sweat was forming under my collar.
“Please,” I persisted, my voice layered with forced sweetness. “I really, really need to make this call else, my friend and I would be stranded here and we have no money for a hotel.”
Lies. We had enough.
I must have touched his heart with the possibility of helplessness as finally, his hard eyes softened, too discrete to catch, though. Then he reached into the pocket of his brown, worn out coat.
“You’re so persistent,” he mumbled as he fished out 2 pence, handing it to me.
I didn’t bother acknowledging his obvious dislike for, well, teenagers. I was only relieved he wasn’t a ghost. If he was, his hand would have been cold when it brushed against mine.
“Thanks,” I said sweetly, flipped around and dashed for the payphone.
“Took you long enough,” Kenzo commented, pushing off the booth as I stepped into the confined space, slightly grimacing due to the smell of cigarette lingering in the air.
“He hates teenagers,” I told him, slotting the coin into the machine. I glanced at the bench and found that he hadn’t suddenly vanished into thin air.
He was really not a ghost.
“I share his sentiment though.” Kenzo shrugged. “Teenagers are difficult to deal with. Pompous, rude, annoying and entitled.” Then he physically shivered.
But was he not a teenager too?
Waving his ridiculousness off, I returned my attention to the phone, punching in Callan’s number. It began to ring almost immediately, and my heart started to pound.
It rang for some minutes, but no response. Kenzo said something under his breath, but I couldn’t hear it due to the increasing blare of the lorry coming from a distance.
“Please, please, please,” I chanted, dropping the second coin, dialing the number again.
It began to ring, and it rang for nearly thirty seconds. But just when I was losing hope, I heard a click.
“Kto ty?”
His voice was slightly different speaking Russian–deeper…harsher. And the way he growled the words made a shiver run down my spine. It was unusual, the way he sounded; cold, unwelcoming.
“Look, I don’t have all day, so fucking speak!” The harshness made me jump. I had never heard Callan raise his voice. He didn’t look like he had ever raised his voice before. It sounded so strange, like I was talking to a completely different person.
Kenzo leaned in, whispering, “If he hangs up before you say anything, I swear to god–just fucking speak, Jesus!”
I took in a sharp breath, then released. “Hi.”
Silence echoed from the other end.
“Well?” His voice suddenly shifted, not harsh anymore, but mischievous, cunning.
“It’s uh, it’s me.” I paused to hear his reply and when nothing was forthcoming other than silence that felt weighty, I added, “Beth. It’s uh, Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth.” His voice wrapped around the name slowly, like he was testing it on his tongue.
I swallowed, hands gripping the receiver as if it was the only thing keeping me tethered. “I’m um, I’m stranded…sort of. With–with my friend, Kenzo.”
“Where are you?” he demanded. It wasn’t because he didn’t know it was me anymore. There was really a coldness to his voice, strange…taunting.
What was going on?
“Our car broke down at…” I trailed off, looking for a street sign or a billboard that might sound familiar to him. “We are at-”
“Text me the location, stay in the car, I’m on my way.”
And then he hung up. Just like that.
What the hell?
“What happened?” Kenzo demanded, trying to decipher the deflect in my expression.
“He’s on his way,” I said simply, my voice losing its cheer.
“So…why aren’t you jumping in joy?” he corked a bushy brow. “Didn’t you miss him?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, hanging the phone and exiting the booth.
I missed him. But right now, I wasn’t sure he felt the same.
???
“That’s not scary as shit, at all,” Kenzo commented, his voice laced with sarcasm as his gaze locked on the same sign post I was staring at.
MILITARY ZONE. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT.
“Wait, will you guys actually do that?” I turned to Callan, who was sitting next to me in the backseat, but hadn’t uttered a single word since we entered the car.
“That’s the rule.” His response was curt, detached, his gaze locked on his iPad as he looked through a spreadsheet of some sort.
He wasn’t here with me clearly. Didn’t desire my presence enough to care that I was right here. His mind was tangled elsewhere, on more important things.
“If I had your address, I would have just shown up at your doorstep, you know,” I said softly, my gaze returning to the window, a heaviness settling in my chest. “Would I have been shot?”
“Definitely.” Again, the reply was direct. “Right in the fucking skull.”
What?
What was going on? Why was he sounding so crude and cold to me?
Should I really not have sought him out? Did he take me too seriously and moved on so fast? Or did he never care as much as I thought?
Was it normal for someone who didn’t know how to swim to dive headfirst into a large body of water to save someone he didn’t care about?
Was that just a normal gesture for him? Did I read too much meaning into it?
“I have never been saluted before, definitely not by a soldier.” Kenzo’s voice cut through the silence, shifting my attention to him.
“I hope you realise it isn’t you they’re saluting but their Marshal,” I corrected, my soft chuckle filling the car despite the sudden dark cloud I could see covering my sky.