Escape (10 page)

Strange to see the reflection of his own smile on Luka's lips. “We should change your bandage.”

“Yeah.” Fatigued and full, Tarik didn't feel like moving, but he got the med kit out of his pack and handed it over. When he pulled off his shirt, Luka cast a brief glance his way, then buried his gaze in the box with its dwindling supply of sterile gauze and the half-empty bottle of antiseptic. After washing his hands, Luka perched next to him.

The adhesive tugged at his skin as Luka pulled the old bandage away, but he always used enough antibiotic ointment, so the gauze never stuck to the healing wound. Tarik could handle pain, but excepting the initial surgery and the hurt of chunks of metal being dug out of his sundered flesh, he hadn't needed to during any of Luka's ministrations. Every touch was deft and gentle.

Except, Luka never touched him. There was just the steady tug of the surgical tape letting go, then the cool wet of the antiseptic-soaked gauze pressing and lightly brushing over his stitches, followed by the greasy kiss of the fresh bandage loaded up with ointment and the soft pressure of the tape sealing it in place. Never a brush of skin against skin.

Even though he'd played with the idea for a few seconds, it wasn't a conscious choice. Not a deliberate motion. Twisting slightly at the waist, leaning back a centimeter or two, anticipating the accidental brush of a fingertip, a knuckle against the exposed skin of his back. An anticipatory thrill, heat and coolness twined together. But no touch. No contact. Like they were two magnets kept apart by an invisible force.

“You're good at this. Ever thought of being a nurse? Or a doctor?” When Tarik looked back over his shoulder, Luka's cheeks had gone pink.

Luka didn't meet his eyes. “No.”

“You like working in the barber shop? Or is there something else you want to be?”

Hesitation. “No. There's nothing else I want to be.”

CHAPTER FIVE: Capriccio

Whoever fights monsters

should see to it that in the process

he does not become a monster.

And if you gaze long enough into an abyss,

the abyss will gaze back into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Luka put the cap back on the water jug and jogged a few steps to make up the distance that had widened between him and Tarik, who only drank when they took their rest breaks. At least his chest barely hurt anymore, even though he was the one shouldering the big rucksack weighted down with food and water and weapons and who knew what else. Tarik's stamina never seemed to flag, despite his injury. His long legs kept their big, steady strides in the woods, on gravel, in the muddy low grasslands while Luka constantly scrambled to keep up.

“What would you do if I let you go?” Tarik kept scanning the distance without looking at him.

A cold thrill shot through Luka. He didn't know if it was hope or fear. “You're going to let me go?”

“No. I just want to know what you'd do, if I did.”

What an asshole.

“You must have thought about it. Made a plan. I'm sure you're not just leaving your fate completely in my hands. Would you go back to your refugee camp?”

No way. Never.

“Is it classified?”

“It's not like I have anywhere else to go. It's not like I can just walk into a village and ask for a job. The Eršbans would kill me. Besides...”

Tarik looked at him now, waiting. “Besides, what?”

Luka tugged at the front of his uniform. “They kill deserters.” It didn't matter he'd never signed up. He had no way of proving he wasn't the soldier the uniform belonged to.

“Or, in your case, they kill just for fun.” Luka's face went hot. Something about the way Tarik was looking at him made him feel like he knew why the soldiers had beaten him and left him to die. “You really want to turn around and give your life to those people? Let them use you to shoot their enemies? Put your body between our bullets and their leader? Or is he your leader?”

“Is your guy any better? Is your side any more right?”

“Nope.
Zivković and Kadryov are singing the same song, in perfect sync with the rhythm of the war drums, lulling us to sleep with their sinister promises to keep us safe from our enemies. Safe from p
ain, safe from truth and choice and our will to survive, while General I
teljević and General Hasanović rampage toward each other, c
ounting bodies like sheep.

Who talked like that? Maybe Luka'd really seen something in those dark eyes, when Tarik was still the bearded menace. Or maybe sanity sounded mad, when the rest of the world had gone insane.

Tarik grinned, looking perfectly lucid. “Do you read sci fi?”

He'd only read a few.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Stranger in a Strange Land. Neuromancer.
So many books he hadn't found the time for, yet. “Not really.”

“Well, imagine, if one kilometer from here there was a door—a portal—and you could step through and end up anywhere you wanted, anywhere in the world, where would you choose?”

Images from photographs and movies flickered through Luka's memory. “I don't speak any other languages.”

“So? You can learn another language. Where could you imagine being happy?”

Nowhere.

A faint smile curved Tarik's lips as he stared into the distance, combing his thick mop of dark curls back with his fingers. “A little town somewhere in France? The Australian Outback? The beaches in Mexico?”

“Amsterdam. Or maybe New York.” Once he said it, all Luka could picture was being homeless in those cities where a meal probably cost what he'd paid for a week's worth of food in his village.

“Really? A big city like New York? Ever lived in a big city?”

“I've always lived in a tiny village or small town. And I've always hated it.”

Tarik was quiet for a while. Finally he said, “I think a lot about the south of Europe. Somewhere warm. A medium sized city. Porto. Grenada. Marseille.”

“Sounds nice. You should go, when the war's over. You're going to survive.”

“And you're not?”

Luka shrugged.

After their mid-day rest, they picked up the same rigorous pace, Luka struggling to keep up. But an hour or so later, Tarik eased up a little. He seemed watchful. Uncertain. And Tarik's uncertainty gave Luka a stomachache. Another hour passed, and from the fringe of the woods, in the distance Luka could make out the gray roofs of a small village. Tarik kept moving forward, cautiously picking his way between the trees, halting and gesturing for Luka to stop every few minutes, as if he were listening for movement. Finally Tarik gestured, and Luka shrugged off the rucksack and slumped it against the trunk of a tree. Already feeling the evening chill seeping through his sweat-damp clothes, Luka started gathering wood for a fire.

“No fire. We're not making camp here. We'll get going again after it's dark.”

What the hell had Tarik so wound up? There were no signs of any troops—Eršban or Bokan. Probably the only people left in that pathetic little village that didn't look so different from his own, were mothers with little children, and the few who were too old or too broken to fight.

What were they fighting over, anyway? Here he was, probably three hundred kilometers into enemy territory, and now that they were out of the strange barrenness of the stony plain, it looked exactly like home. When he'd seen a few of the pirated broadcasts from Eršba, the Bokan rebel leader, Kadryov, sounded exactly like
President Zivković
. Just change the names, and it would be the same stupid speech. And here they all were, ready to kill each other. Ready to die, trying to kill each other.

Tarik split the last of the cured beef with him. They sat there another hour, waiting for it to get dark. Then Tarik rummaged around in his rucksack, and got to his feet. “Come here.”

A cold weight dropped in Luka's gut. He hadn't realized, he'd almost stopped being afraid of Tarik. But there was something not right about the tone of Tarik's voice, and the fear was back, icy adrenaline pumping into his veins with every heartbeat.

“Luka.” Tarik's voice was cold and hard.

Light-headed, Luka stood up and took a step toward Tarik.

In the dark, Luka could barely make out what Tarik was holding in his hand. The coil of cord. “Don't be scared. I won't let anything happen to you. But I have to tie your hands. I'm sorry. Once we're in, I'll untie you. I promise.”

When Tarik took hold of his arm, a jolt of terror shot through his body. He took off running. Away from Tarik. Away from that village that made Tarik afraid, and looked too much like where Luka'd grown up, where he'd learned how quickly and haphazardly love could turn to fear and sadness and distance.

Grasping claws raking his back. Like a bear. But it was Tarik. Tarik yanking him off his feet. Tarik on top of him. Tarik wrenching his arm back.

“I'll tie the cord over your sleeves so it doesn't cut into your wrists.”

Liar. Faker. Giving him food. Talking about portals that go to nice places from pictures in magazines. All that just so he could turn him over to his Lieutenant and get a slap on the back for bringing them a POW? And he'd been a gullible moron, thinking just because Tarik fed him and talked to him, that he wouldn't hurt him.

A murky, sickening shadow slid over the POW theory. That's not what this was. This was something stranger. Uglier. Scarier. Something that had nothing to do with the rules of war. Maybe the village was starving. Maybe Tarik was going to sell him.

Tarik finished tying his arms behind his back, then hoisted Luka to his feet. “Keep quiet. You might feel like I'm your worst enemy, right now. But believe me, I'm not. I can keep you safe, but only if you do what I say.”

The thick, heavy dark filled up with the sound of their feet scuffling through leaves and twigs, the sound of their panting. The airless dark. He was suffocating. Body shutting down. Legs not working. Luka stumbled and collapsed to his knees. Tarik grasped him under his arms and hoisted him back to his feet.

The village was eerily quiet and almost completely dark. The black night was just faintly stained, here and there, by a dim light behind heavy curtains. Tarik led Luka along the edge of the woods, then down through a field of tall grass toward a small house set off from the tighter cluster of houses that formed the center of the village. Instead of walking up onto the porch and knocking at the door, Tarik pulled Luka around to the side of the house. Sticking out from under a window was a white towel. When Tarik gave it a gentle tug, a bell chimed inside the house. Around the corner, the click of a latch and the squeak of a hinge.

Dragging Luka along, Tarik crept back around to the front of the house. The front door was open a crack. Inside, the house was dark. Luka couldn't see anyone as Tarik led him up onto the porch and through the door.

A movement, a dry scuffing sound, maybe the sole of a shoe scraping over a wooden floor, then the click of the door latching shut. In the dark a gravelly voice ordered, “Lace your fingers behind your heads.”

Then Tarik's voice. “My hands are up. His are tied behind his back.”

A light flickered on, blindingly bright, then faded down to a gentle dimness. Two men pointing guns at them. Not soldiers. Ordinary men. Unless they were out of uniform. The smaller of the pair came forward and took Tarik's knife and gun, then gestured at Luka. “What's this, then?”

Tarik's voice was smooth and quiet. “That's my prisoner.”

“You brought a Bokan soldier here? Are you fucking kidding me?” The man with the gravelly voice was terribly thin and his eyes were strangely glassy.

“I lost Emir.” Tarik nodded toward Luka. “And he fits the bill.”

Over in the corner, pointing his gun right at Luka, the bigger man laughed. “What do you mean, you lost Emir?” The guy was tall, built like a Calvin Klein underwear model, and his smile was the creepiest thing Luka had ever seen.

“Emir backed out last second. He was convinced we'd end up in front of a firing squad.”

“So why didn't you take him hostage instead of this Bokan piece of shit?”

Tarik grabbed the scruff of Luka's jacket and gave it a possessive yank. “This is my problem. You have your own shit to worry about. If you've taken care of your own shit, we'll be gone by morning.”

“Do you know how fucking hard it is to get the stuff you wanted? How valuable it is?” the skinny one with the hectic eyes and rough voice asked. “I'm not giving that stuff to this Bokan cockroach.”

Tarik let go of Luka's collar and sank into an armchair like he was bored. “No? You got another twenty year-old guy his size for me to go with?”

“That's your problem.” The underwear model seemed familiar to Luka. Like Pero. Beautiful and cruel.

Luka was afraid he might puke. But Tarik was still slouched in the armchair as if he might be about to nod off. “Look. I fulfilled my end of this thing. Fulfill yours, or you're going to have a much bigger problem than an unwelcome house guest.” Tarik got up, walked up to the skinny one with the frenetic eyes, and held out his hand. “I'd like my weapons back.”

“Not 'til we resolve this shit.”

Before the skinny guy could stop him, before Luka even realized what was happening, Tarik snatched his gun out of the other man's hand. Then, while Skinny was still startled and flustered, he snatched the knife. “There. It's resolved. You have clothes for us?”

Skinny and Calvin were glum and silent as they all moved toward the back of the house, into a small room with a child's bed and pictures of kittens and puppies on the walls. Skinny pulled two piles of clothes out of the little white dresser with pink knobs, and tossed them onto the bed.

Tarik eyed the clothes. “Coats?”

Skinny opened another drawer and pulled out two more items. Tarik lifted the bulky coat and the jacket as if he were weighing fruit at a market. “The coat's fine, but we'll need something heavier than this. It's still cold out, and we still have higher terrain to cross.”

“That was all we could get.” Skinny headed for the door.

“You've got a nice heavy coat on.”

Skinny laughed. “Fuck you. I'm not giving your pet cockroach my coat.”

When they were alone in the little bedroom, Tarik shut the door and untied Luka's wrists. “Get changed.”

Luka almost asked why. But what was the point? Tarik would tell him, or not. Either way he was going to make him take part in whatever insane plan he'd hatched up, and his buddy had sanely backed out of. Luka picked up the pile Tarik shoved toward him, and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“The next room, to change.”

Tarik laughed. “Your modesty is charming, but I'm not leaving you alone with them around.”

Efficiently and without a trace of embarrassment, Tarik stripped out of everything, including his army-issued skivvies, and started putting on the worn but reasonably clean civilian clothes. Luka hadn't meant to watch, to stare, but he saw and now his face was hot and he turned his back so Tarik wouldn't notice.