Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
The hood lifts slightly away from my jaw, and I’m able to look down at my feet enough to see that I’m on a sidewalk and am being led into an alley between two buildings. Roan pushes me up against a wall and leans in close.
“You tell anyone, you will die. Understand?”
Adrenaline flows through me.
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“We might,” he responds. I hear the click of a switchblade and feel the press of a blade against my ribs. “But not today. You keep your mouth shut. We have ears and eyes everywhere. Understand?”
“Yes.” I nod quickly.
“Count to sixty, then remove hood.”
I hear the sound of his footsteps walking away, and then I start counting.
“One…two…three…four…” The adrenaline is still coursing through me like it’s been pumped into my body with a firehose. My hands are shaking, my toes and fingers are cold, and it feels like I have goosebumps all over my body.
When I reach twenty-seven, I hear the sound of a car engine. It must be Roan and Edmond pulling away, and part of me wants to just pull off the hood early and look around, but then I remember the sound of the switchblade and the feel of the blade against my ribs and I keep counting until I reach sixty. Only then do I lift off the piece of heavy black fabric from my head.
I blink at the surprisingly sunny day and look around.
I’m definitely standing in an alley between two buildings. I see regular people walking by and go out to the sidewalk, where I realize that I’m in a downtown district filled with stores and shops. It actually looks quite nice and friendly—a place I wouldn’t mind visiting if I hadn’t ended up in this country the way I had. But right now I have one thing on my agenda: finding my parents.
I spot a coffee shop across the street and jay-walk over to it. I take a seat at the high-top next to a girl with her headphones in and realize I have absolutely no money on me. In fact, I have nothing on me: no wallet, no cell phone, no passport, no I.D.
How am I going to get out of Albania? How am I going to find my parents?
I see the girl next to me is working on her laptop. She looks like a college student. If she speaks English and I can convince her to let me use it for a minute, maybe I can get an e-mail to Iris. There has to be something she can do. Maybe she could get in touch with the US embassy, and they could help.
I’m just about to reach over and get the girl’s attention when I see something pop up on the TV hanging behind the register. And what I see takes my breath away.
My body goes stone cold, my legs tingle, and I nearly fall out of my chair as a news report fills the frame. I don’t speak Albanian, of course, but I don’t need to in order to tell what’s going on.
There’s a man on the scene of what looks like a quarry. Walls of rock rise up behind him with a pool of murky water below. People in uniform scuttle around, some very clearly police officers, and some that look more like emergency services workers.
The reporter is speaking to camera, but none of this is what has my attention. What has my heart frozen and my chest feeling like a giant’s foot is crushing down upon it are the two photos in the bottom left of the frame: the two photos of my parents’ faces, both of them clearly dead.
The urge to vomit comes over me. I fight it, ball my fists, and push the feeling back down.
I turn to the girl seated next to me and brush her on the shoulder, getting her attention.
“Excuse me,” I stammer. “English? Do you speak English?”
“Yes.” She smiles. “A little.”
“There.” I point. “What is that? What are they saying?”
The girl turns and listens to the reporter as my heartbeat increases. I grip the countertop, steadying myself to keep from falling.
She frowns. “They say a man and woman were found dead…the man was shot…and the woman…choked? Strangled? And there was–”
“Thank you,” I reply as I get up from my chair.
Yep, definitely going to throw up now.
I stagger from the store and back out into the street, brushing past random strangers, my hand over my mouth, searching for an out-of-the-way spot. I’ll never be able to make it back across the street to the alley in time. I turn, searching for another, but the buildings on this side of the road are all packed close against each other, and I can feel the vomit coming up in my throat.
Without a second left, I bend down behind a trash can and throw up my breakfast. I hear a child make a disgusted sound behind me before her mother ushers her away. Wiping my mouth on the back of my sleeve, I get up quickly and start walking in the opposite direction. I have no idea where I’m headed or what I’m going to do now.