I borrow a few bucks from Alice. She won’t notice them missing either. I catch a bus down to the pier, where my funds are waiting for me.
The pier is busy, the people wrap around me and I sink into them, part of the bustle. I have never felt so relieved to be nobody. I let myself forget about the horrors of captivity, of men whose eyes burn and hands hurt. I pretend that I don’t know the world is run by a few select, truly twisted humans who control the wealth and futures of people who wouldn’t recognize them if they fell over them.
My destination is unassuming. It’s a spaghetti booth located in between a surf shop and a pawn shop. It is shuttered up and it rarely opens, if ever. Is a spaghetti booth even a thing? I don’t know, and right now it doesn’t matter. There’s a little alley down the back and it leads to a dirty old door with a surprisingly shiny lock on it. The code is the same it has always been. My mother’s birthday.
I unlock it and step inside the musty little kitchen area. It hasn’t been maintained well over the years, and I’m sure the teenagers hired to pretend to work here never bother to wipe down the walls or mop the floor in between cooking up batches of spaghetti they never sell.
They’ve definitely never pulled the microwave oven away from the wall. The spot behind it is thick with grease, sticky to the touch. I take a knife from the opposite wall and use it to pry at one of the tiles. It comes away, thin tendrils of old oil stringing behind it to reveal a small box pushed into the wall. My father was a very rich man, but he was not born into money. He knew what it was to be poor, and he was always taking precautions against being ruined. There are little stash boxes like these all over the world. I used to laughingly refer to them as his treasure hunts. I never knew that one day, I would need them.
The box opens to reveal everything I need. Thick wads of cash, credit cards that I am sure are linked to separate, untraceable accounts. There’s even new IDs. Two of them. One of them is for my father. Seeing his strong face staring out of the plastic card makes my eyes swim with tears, but also toughens my nerve. He’s providing for me, even now.
When I return the piece of tile to the wall, I notice something I’d missed before sitting just under the box. It’s dark and metal and I wasn’t looking for it so I didn’t notice it. It’s a gun.
It slips into my hand, the weight of it feeling like power. I don’t like guns. They frighten me, both in their noise and their ability to destroy lives. But right now, I like the way it fits in my hand. I like the fact that having this means I can’t be taken again.
If Darko could see me now…
A small smile passes over my lips. There were moments I thought I could love him. He touched me and my body sang. But he humiliated me in front of my enemies, and I don’t regret my escape one little bit.
Now that I have money, I should be good for some time. But where to go? What to do? Revenge plays on my mind. My fingers curl around the butt of the gun. The notion of putting some of those men under is appealing, but I don’t know if I have it in me.
Darko wanted me to submit to the evil. My instinct is to run from it. But the third option, the choice to fight for myself and avenge my father lingers in my mind. I can’t quite let it go.
The usual rules of existence have been suspended. The more I think about my situation, the angrier I get. They’ve taken my father. They’ve taken my homes. My money. They’ve taken my dignity. But I do have one ally left. One man I trust more than anyone else in the world.
Before I can contact him, I have some shopping to do. I need a new phone.
I leave the spaghetti place and head back into the city. I need a car too. It won’t be a new one. It will have to be one that somebody has owned before. I’ve heard it’s possible to buy cars in such a fashion, though I’ve never driven anything other than new luxury models.
My morning is spent purchasing the necessary tools. I buy what I’m told is a midrange vehicle. Ten thousand dollars doesn’t go that far when you need to set up an entire life from scratch. The car I buy has broken air conditioning and a hula girl attached to the dashboard with what seems to be cement. I leave her bobbling there and drive my way around to the motel I intend to stay at.