How To Hide A Body

You'll Never Look As Good As Your Ex

Getting out of the Catacombs was a blur. My feet walked by themselves, following the map on Valentin's phone. Bart and I didn't exchange a word. My mind was elsewhere: I thought about Alex alone, waiting for Jean to wake up. I thought about Luis' crumpled body. I thought about what Alex must be feeling. I thought about Bart.

Before I knew it we were standing on the streets of Paris, busses and tourists passed like a blurred photograph in front of us. The sun was rising, and I realised that we had been walking through the Catacombs all night. Life seemed too fast. It was like a speeding train that we were trying our best to jump onto, but were unable to without disrupting the flow.

Sometimes, I would grab Bart's hand and give it a gentle squeeze, to remind myself and him that we were in this together. Our fight in the prison cell seemed like it had happened years ago. It didn't matter anymore. What was happening was greater than ourselves and I wouldn't be able to live if Bart ended up dead in this charade we had become involuntary participants in. I think Bart felt the same.

After we had put enough distance between ourselves and the Catacombs, I pulled Bart into an graffitied alleyway. "Do we have to?" Bart asked, pulling the bomb detonator out of his pocket.

"It's for the best," I explained. Bart took a deep breath and pressed the button. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the ground rumbled slightly and a car alarm a few streets away went off. Other than that, no damage occurred on the surface. But, what happened underground, was anyone's guess.

I threw the detonator and Jean's burner phone in a trash can outside a corner shop. When I looked up, I almost screamed as I saw my reflection in the shop window.

I was covered in dirt and cobwebs. My grey jumpsuit was torn at the knees and I was bleeding from when I had fallen to the floor to grab the flashlight. The shoes that the prison had given us had a small clavicle bone tangled in the Velcro. I picked it out and threw it into the street. A car immediately drove over it, crushing it to a fine powder.

"Sol, what's the plan?" Bart asked me.

"Plan?" I echoed, picking spider silk from my hair. "Well, where are we?"

Bart looked around for a street sign, "Rue Auguste Comte, 6th arrondissement." I froze. I had been dreading this moment, even though I knew that it was inevitable. I had to see her.

Bart would not be pleased. He despised her for some reason. But, I couldn't shake the feeling that, maybe, she was being held hostage or had a spy in her household. How else would Steve McQueen know about her? I tried not to think about the possibility that she had been killed as a punishment for my failure in the previous task. I wanted to bury myself in the Catacombs; I had no idea to how she would react to me rocking up on her doorstep after six months. We had parted on good terms, but if I had seen her in public under normal circumstances, I would have hidden myself rather than purposely seek out confrontation.

"Parfait! We know someone here!" I forced a smile and masked my voice in fake confidence. I glanced down at my hands and found that they were shaking, again. I had to find a way to fix that.

Bart, however, was not yet aware of who we were about to visit. I tried to calm myself, so I would not give myself away and make Bart bolt. I promenaded the streets searching for an address or name I recognised, while Bart followed me, and pestered me with questions I refused to answer. It didn't take long to spot the apartment I had basically lived in a couple years ago.

I looked up at the cream coloured walls and snaking black balconies. I tried my best not to run when I saw her. Standing in a billowing silk dressing gown, one hand holding a cigarette between two perfectly manicured nails and the other on the lacy, nightshade balcony, she looked like Aphrodite reincarnated. My heart started to beat uncontrollably fast. I felt a wave of different emotions flood over me: relief that she was still alive, unbearably happy nostalgia, and then, of course, absolute fucking terror.