CHAPTER 27
THE BORDERLAND
POV: Elodie Fray
Track: Something In The Way – Nirvana (BBC Polyphonic Cover)
Sensory: The relentless drumming of rain on a tin roof, the smell of damp carpet and stale cigarettes, the taste of cheap instant coffee.
Mood: Gritty Survival & Frustrated Desire.
The rain here does not cleanse. It erodes.
It has been twenty-four days since we stepped off the freight train in a rail yard just outside of Seattle. Twenty-four days of grey skies, wet wool, and looking over my shoulder every time a car door slams.
We are living in the Graypoint Motel, a collection of rotting cedar cabins clinging to the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
It is the kind of place where people come to disappear, or to die quietly.
The manager, a man with no teeth and a shotgun behind the counter, didn't ask for ID.
He just took the wad of cash I peeled off the roll Nyx gave me and handed me a key with a rusted tag.
Room 4. It is our kingdom now. A kingdom of peeling wallpaper, a mattress that sags in the middle, and a heater that rattles like a dying lung.
I unlock the door and step inside, shaking the water from my hood. The room is dark, the curtains drawn tight against the afternoon gloom. It smells of rubbing alcohol and the metallic tang of gun oil.
"Alaric?"
"Here."
He is sitting at the small, wobbly table near the kitchenette.
He is stripped to the waist, the scars on his chest standing out in stark relief against his pale skin.
The bandage on his shoulder is smaller now, covering a wound that has turned into a puckered, angry scar. But it is his hands that draw my eye.
He has a deck of cards spread out on the table.
He is trying to shuffle them. His left hand moves with fluid, practiced grace.
His right hand—the hand that was crushed, burned, and bitten—is a claw.
The fingers are stiff, trembling as he tries to execute a simple bridge.
The cards spray out of his grip, scattering across the table and onto the floor.
"Fuck!" He sweeps the remaining cards off the table with a violent backhand. The movement is sharp, furious. He grips the edge of the table, his knuckles white, his head bowed. The muscles in his back coil and release, a visible map of his frustration.
I lock the door behind me. I engage the deadbolt.
I slide the chair under the handle. Old habits.
I pick up the plastic bag of groceries I bought at the gas station three miles down the road.
"I got the antibiotics," I say softly, walking over to him.
"And whiskey. The good kind. Or as good as they had. "
Alaric doesn't look up. "I don't want the whiskey."
"You need it for the pain."
"I need my hands!" he snarls, turning to look at me.
His face is gaunt. The beard he has grown—dark, thick, unkempt—hides the sharp line of his jaw, making him look wilder.
Like a wolf that has been in a cage too long.
"Look at this," he says, holding up his right hand.
"The median nerve is responding intermittently.
The flexor tendons are scarred. I can't hold a scalpel.
I can't span an octave. I can't even shuffle a goddamn deck of cards. "
"It's been three weeks, Alaric. Nerve damage takes months."
"I don't have months," he says, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Thorne is dead, but the vacuum... the vacuum is filling. I can feel it. If I can't work... if I can't fight..." He looks at me, his eyes burning with shame. "I am useless."
I set the bag down. I walk to him. I step between his spread knees. I place my hands on his shoulders. The skin is hot to the touch. "You are the mind," I remind him, echoing the words I said in the penthouse. "I am the body."
"The body is tired," he observes, his eyes scanning my face.
He's right. I am exhausted. I have dark circles under my eyes that no amount of sleep can erase.
My hands are chapped from the cold and the work.
I have been stealing—petty theft mostly.
Food from the market. Supplies from hardware stores.
We are rationing the cash Nyx gave us because we don't know how long it has to last. The encrypted drive with the two hundred million dollars sits in the bottom of my backpack, a useless brick of potential until Alaric can see well enough and type fast enough to bypass the security protocols without tripping a silent alarm.
"I'm fine," I lie.
He reaches out and touches my hip. His grip is weaker than it used to be, but it still sends a jolt of electricity through me. "You were gone for three hours."
"I had to walk to the pharmacy in town. The truck wasn't running."
"You shouldn't be out there alone," he mutters. "It’s dangerous."
"I have the SIG," I say, patting the gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans. "And I have the knife."
"You are a pianist, Elodie. Not a thug."
"I am whatever I need to be."
I pull away from him and start picking up the cards from the floor. "We have a problem," I say, changing the subject. "The pharmacy... the guy behind the counter looked at me too long. He asked where I was staying."
Alaric stiffens. "What did you say?"
"I said I was passing through. Heading to Vancouver."
"He didn't believe you."
"No. He looked at the bruises on my face." (They are fading, but still visible—yellow and green shadows from the factory fight). "He thinks I'm a junkie. Or a battered wife running from a husband."
Alaric laughs, a dark, humorless sound. "Well, he's half right. You are running with a monster."
"He might call the cops. Or someone else. We need to move."
"We can't move," Alaric says, looking at the rain lashing the window. "The truck needs a new alternator. I can't fix it with one hand. And we are low on ammo."
He stands up. He walks to the window and peers through the crack in the curtains.
"We are pinned, Elodie. The Syndicate is in civil war. I’ve been monitoring the dark web frequencies on the tablet.
It’s a bloodbath. The factions are tearing each other apart to claim Thorne’s territory.
If we surface... if we make a blip on the radar.
.. both sides will come for us. One side to kill me for the codes.
The other side to kill you for the land. "
He turns back to me. "We stay. We heal. We wait for them to kill each other."
"And if they find us first?"
"Then we make this motel a tomb."
Night falls early. The darkness comes off the ocean like a fog bank, enveloping the cabin.
We eat a dinner of canned soup and stale bread.
Alaric tries to eat with his left hand. He spills soup on his chest. He slams the spoon down.
"Leave it," I say before he can explode.
I take the spoon. I dip it in the bowl. I hold it to his lips.
He stares at me. His pride is warring with his hunger. "I am not a child."
"No," I agree. "You are a king in exile. And kings get fed."
He opens his mouth. I feed him. It is an intimate act. A reversal of the breakfast in the asylum, weeks ago. Back then, he fed me to dominate me. Now, I feed him to sustain him. But the tension is the same. The air between us is thick, charged with unsaid things.
When the bowl is empty, I wipe his mouth with my thumb. He catches my hand. He kisses my thumb. Then he bites it. Gently. "You taste like rain," he whispers.
"You taste like rage," I reply.
He pulls me closer. I am standing between his legs again. He buries his face in my stomach, inhaling deeply. "I hate this," he murmurs into my shirt. "I hate being weak in front of you."
"You aren't weak." I run my fingers through his hair. It’s getting long. "You survived."
"I survived because of you. I am a parasite, Elodie. I am feeding off your light."
"Then feed."
He looks up. His eyes are dark, dilated. "Be careful what you offer."
He pulls me down. We tumble onto the sagging mattress. The sex in the Borderland is not like the sex in the penthouse. It isn't polished. It isn't a performance. It is desperate. It is gritty. It is the sex of two people who are trying to prove they are still alive.
He can't support his weight on his arms, so I straddle him. I take control. I strip off my clothes, shivering in the damp air. I strip off his jeans. I sink down on him. He groans, his head falling back, his hands—the good one and the broken one—gripping my hips. "Elodie..."
I move. I set the rhythm. Adagio. Andante. Allegro. I ride him. I watch his face. I watch the pain and the pleasure mix in his expression. I watch the way he looks at me—with worship, with hunger, with a terrifying possessiveness.
"Mine," he hisses, thrusting up to meet me. "You are mine."
"Yours," I gasp.
We climax together, a shuddering release that leaves us both gasping, slick with sweat, tangled in the grey sheets. For a moment, the rain stops. Or maybe I just stop hearing it. For a moment, we are not fugitives. We are just a man and a woman in a bed at the end of the world.
I wake up to a sound. Not the rain. A thud. Outside.
I freeze. Alaric is asleep beside me, his breathing heavy. I reach under the pillow. My hand closes around the cold steel of the SIG Sauer. I slide out of bed, naked, silent. I creep to the window. I peel back the curtain a fraction of an inch.
The parking lot is wet, illuminated by a flickering neon sign that buzzes incessantly. M-TEL. The 'O' is burned out. Our truck—a rusted Ford pickup we bought for cash—is parked in front of our door. But there is another car. A sedan. Black. Nondescript. It wasn't there when I came home.
Two men are standing by the truck. They are not wearing tactical gear. They are wearing leather jackets and jeans. Local toughs? Or something worse? One of them is shining a flashlight into the truck’s cab. The other is looking at our door.
I step back. "Alaric," I whisper.
He wakes instantly. No grogginess. He goes from zero to lethal in a second. "What?"
"Two men. Outside. Checking the truck."
He sits up, wincing. He reaches for his gun—the Glock from the factory—on the nightstand. "Syndicate?"
"Don't look like it. No earpieces. No discipline. They look like... vultures."
"Scavengers," Alaric realizes. "The vacuum. The local gangs are expanding their territory. They probably saw you in town. Saw the cash."
He checks the magazine. "Can you shoot?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Good. Because I can't aim past ten feet."
He stands up. He is naked, scarred, and terrifying. He walks to the door. "We don't wait for them to knock," he whispers. "We open the door. We surprise them."
"Alaric, your hand..."
"I can pull a trigger," he says grimly. "That’s all I need."
He counts down. Three. Two. One.
He throws the door open. The wind and rain blast in. The two men spin around, startled. "Hey!" one yells, reaching for his belt.
Alaric fires. BANG. He misses. The bullet hits the truck’s fender, sparking. His hand jerked. The nerve damage.
The man laughs. He pulls a shotgun. "Bad shot, old man!"
I step out from behind Alaric. I raise the SIG. I don't think. I don't hesitate. Structure. Aim. Press.
CRACK. The man with the shotgun drops, a hole in his chest.
The second man panics. He pulls a knife. He charges. He is fast. Too fast. He tackles Alaric. They hit the wet pavement. Alaric grunts as they land on his bad shoulder. The man raises the knife.
"NO!" I scream.
I run forward. I can't shoot. They are tangling. I might hit Alaric. I switch the gun to my left hand. I reach for the knife on my thigh. The ceramic blade. I jump on the man’s back.
I am a banshee. I stab him. In the neck. In the shoulder. In the back. He screams, thrashing, trying to throw me off. Alaric gets a hand free—his good hand. He punches the man in the throat. The man gags, falling back.
I stand up, panting, the bloody knife in my hand. The man is writhing on the ground, bleeding out. Alaric scrambles up. He looks at me. He looks at the body.
"Get in the truck," he orders.
"We have to pack!"
"No time! The gunshot... the manager will call the cops. We go. Now!"
I run back inside. I grab the backpack with the drive. I grab our coats. I run back out. Alaric is already in the driver's seat. He has managed to start the engine. I jump in.
We peel out of the parking lot, tires spinning on the wet asphalt. We leave the bodies in the rain. We leave the motel behind.
"Where now?" I ask, my hands shaking as I wipe the rain and blood from my face.
Alaric drives with one hand, steering the truck onto the coastal highway. "We burned the safe house," he says. "We burned the motel. We can't hide, Elodie. Hiding doesn't work."
"So what do we do?"
He looks at me. His face is illuminated by the dashboard lights. He looks tired. Old. But his eyes are clear. "We stop running," he says. "We find a place where we can stand our ground. A place where the terrain favors us."
"Does such a place exist?"
"Yes," he says. "But it’s not on a map."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone. Not a burner. A satellite phone. He hands it to me. "Turn it on."
"It will ping the satellites. They'll find us."
"Let them find us," Alaric says. "I'm tired of the quiet."
He glances at the dark ocean churning below the cliffs. "There is a man," he says. "An old... associate. He owes me a life. He operates out of a decommissioned oil rig in international waters. It’s a data haven. A fortress."
"An oil rig?"
"It’s the only place the Syndicate can't touch. It’s sovereign territory. If we can get there... we can unlock the drive. We can access the funds. We can buy an army."
"How do we get there?"
"We need a boat," Alaric says. "A fast one."
He presses the gas pedal. The truck roars into the night. "Call the number," he commands. "Tell him the Wolf is coming. And he’s bringing the Queen."
I dial. The line rings. Static. Then a voice. Deep. Distorted. "This line is dead."
"Charon sent me," I say, using the code Alaric taught me.
A pause. "Charon is a myth."
"Not anymore," I say. "He’s bleeding in a truck next to me. We need extraction. Coordinates to follow."
"Cost?" the voice asks.
"Two hundred million dollars," I say. "And the head of the Syndicate."
A laugh. Dry. "Welcome back to the game, Director."
I hang up. I look at Alaric. "He's in."
Alaric nods. "Good. Then let's go to sea."
The borderland is behind us. The ocean is ahead. And the sharks are waiting.