"What we had is over, Dawn. You don't have to do this anymore. You're free to go."
I traced the glass separating us with my fingers, looking into his green eyes and whispered to the phone, "So you want to know why I'm still here?"
He just stare...
"But at this hour?" Jayne frowned at me, her eyes still narrowed from the bright light ahead of us.
"Can I have the key, please?" I repeated, my thumbnail digging into the tip of my index finger. With a sigh, she walked into her bedroom, the pale satin of her robe flowing behind her and reappeared with the key to the Dodge.
Inspired, I spoke, "Jayne, I will call you in half an hour. But you'll talk to your brother."
"I thought he was..." she frowned, not understanding and decided to let me continue.
"Just say one thing to him," I sighed. "The men you're talking to aren't who you think they are. Get out of there."
"Oh," she nodded, her eyes wide as if her indolence had gone through the window. "Is he in any kind of trouble?"
"Yes, Jayne, he is." I pulled my hair up into a ponytail, walking down the hallway towards the main door while she followed me.
"Can I help in any way?" She looked genuinely concerned when she stood at the threshold watching me climb up the stairs to the road.
"Just do that. It's more than any help." I halted on my boots slightly just to give her a reassuring smile.
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The chilly November air made me shiver as I drove down Via G. Marconi. I had walked into the closet and threw myself into the nearest pair of jeans and a shirt I could find. What I had in mind was a good way to stall them. But a lie only took a few seconds to fall apart. My mile-per-second-thoughts increased my anxiety even more. The nightmare of us in Florence in a hotel with blood splattered onto the bed came to my mind so naturally that I could feel beads of cold sweat rolling down the back of my neck, dampening the collar of my trenchcoat.
A deep sense of screeching pain tried to bore through me at the endless possibilities. Nonetheless, it was Silas. He was an unpredictable man. He was probably going to figure out himself. I felt proud of that tiny thought.
Again, the nightmare flashed in my mind. I concentrated on the road ahead, trying not to think of anything. Outside, the localities had surrounded the road finally. The smell of brine still wafted around the air. The dodge went smoothly into the dead of the night.
"It's okay," I muttered to myself, not believing how I had started talking to myself. "It's okay."
I was feeling anything but okay. It could be anything. Once the package was exchanged, mostly the middleman wasn't relevant anymore. But at this point, it felt as if the moment he would pass them the drive, he wouldn't be relevant anymore.
"Don't," I muttered, trying to calm the fuck down.
If they weren't feds, who were they? Could it be that Megan's people already found us? It sounded so ridiculous. There was no way they could trace us back here. We had been as cautious as the feds would be. Finding anyone would take a few seconds but finding someone with no existence was hard.
