Nevertheless, Nathan and I had no chance anyway. His brother wanted to kill me and that was something I was certain of. With Nathan, I would always be in danger.
I was looking at the street, a majestic avenue of palm trees when headlights cut through the darkness. A short while later, a dark van with tinted windows pulled up. Nathan jumped out and waved.
Pan grabbed my arm, but I shook him off. “I can get there on my own.” I didn’t even know why I was suddenly so angry. He and Nathan had saved me. Twice.
“I sorry, prinsessa. I only want to help,” he said contritely, which immediately touched my conscience, but I couldn’t apologize. I was not at fault for the situation. If they hadn’t taken me hostage, I would never have been in danger, but those ifs, ands, or buts were useless.
I climbed into the van through the open sliding door. Nathan and Troy followed while Sparta and Pan squeezed into the three-seater bench next to Icarus.
I looked around with my head lowered. I was in a dark storage area, crammed between two affixed shelves with hundreds of bolts, pipes, and tools. Tired, I sank down and leaned against a board with Nathan across from me.
He watched my every move as if he could deduce what I was thinking.
“Who owns the car?” I asked at some point.
“It’s stolen,” Nathan said, rubbing his swollen eye. “Should I look at your injuries?”
I shook my head. I wished he would hug me, but there was something that kept me at a distance. Maybe it was because reality was starting to seep back in. Everything was suddenly different. I knew so much more. A few hours ago, I hadn’t been able to look Nathan in the eyes because of what my father had done or might have done seemed so unimaginably cruel. Butafter the newspaper article, I doubted Dad’s guilt again. What if they were wrong? And wasn’t Isaac cruel too? And Nathan? He had told the men that he wanted to hold me hostage: bread, water, and shackles so that she would learn what deprivation meant!
How could he? Especially since he had obviously liked me when I was eleven.
With my eyes burning, I stared out the tinted window at the colorful billboards.Hilton Beach Resort. Aral. Burger King. I wanted so much to talk to my dad. “And who owns the Agamemnon?” I suddenly asked. “I mean you claim to be as poor as church mice, but you can finance a cutter and fuel?”
Nathan looked me straight in the eye. “Icarus won it from an old fisherman gambling.”
“With marked cards or magic tricks and three aces up his sleeve?”
“I heard that!” Icarus replied from the front.
Nathan didn’t respond. “It was a pile of junk, but we fixed her up again.”
I thought his obvious pride was misplaced. “We?”
“Our village. We scraped together everything we had, every cent.”
I swallowed. “So your whole village knows about…about the abduction?” That was almost unimaginable.
Nathan closed his eyes for a moment as if he had to close himself off to a mental image. “There aren’t that many left, Will.”
Will. It sounded so beautiful the way he said it even though I was angry with him at the moment. And it hurt because I knew that there was no hope for us. I imagined Nathan walking through his impoverished village’s empty streets, searching for old friends. Dressed all in black, knocking on doors but no one opening. Standing in front of an endless row of white crosses, hishair ruffled by the wind. I felt for the bracelet on my wrist.Do you want it, Will? Do you want it back?
“How many are there?” I asked quietly.
“One hundred and fifty-three including children, old people, and the sick. Every family that’s still there has at least one family member who can’t leave the village.”
“And they…they all know?”
“All the young men who were still there joined us. A few older ones stayed to do the necessary work. Chopping wood for winter, repairs, digging graves…”
Through the darkness of the vehicle, I looked at his face with the piercing eyes. “All the young men?” My stomach clenched.
“Without exception. Yes. Our anger is great. But as you can see, there have always been divided opinions about how to proceed.”
“You mean about what happens to me?”
“Yes. But also with what we demand.”
I swallowed again and glanced at Troy, who was sitting on the floor like us, leaning against the shelf next to Nathan in his wet hoodie. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. His fingers tapped an uneasy rhythm against the floor, and his silver ring, which I just noticed for the first time, made the nerve-racking sound that I had heard several times in my cell. Clang-clang-clang. I wanted to tell him to knock it off, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to provoke an argument. Instead, I looked ahead. Sparta and Pan were awake too. Pan was eating chips that he had found in the glove compartment and Sparta had bent his knees with his feet on the seat and was warming himself with his arms. Icarus, who was behind the wheel, was fiddling with the heater.
