From Darkness

Twenty-Six

We said our goodbyes out front. Dana found an old backpack and filled it with a few of her clothes and things of Beata's she thought I should have. She made sure I still had the silver case and tucked the book of recipes into the bag before handing it off to Bucky to put in the car. We decided to travel light, but the older woman was having none of that. She stuck an old cigar box in my hands and made me promise to take care of the photos. Then she and Dana both hugged me, and even though I felt so far away from home, I felt welcome and safe there. I knew I could come back if I ever needed to. And I trusted them to make sure Ivan went home to my family. Even if I never got to go to his funeral or say goodbye to them.

When they pulled away, Dana took my face in her hands. Her eyes had gone glassy, and I knew I was wrong for thinking she hated me. I understood her pain, and I couldn't blame her. But her anger had come from love. And now I felt nothing but love when she looked at me.

"He's with Beata now," she told me. "Where he belongs." I nodded even though I didn't believe it. She gave me a kiss on each cheek, and then her mother did the same.

Then she took my hand and said, "Johanna." I didn't know what she meant. So she put her hand over her heart. "Babulia, Johanna." I nodded slowly.

"I was named after you?" She smiled and nodded. I'd always been told I was named after my grandpa Johan. But suddenly, Ivan's final decision on my name was clear. He and Beata couldn't be my parents. But he'd still given me a piece of each of them: his father and her mother. And I hugged her again, overcome with emotion just from the small connection to this little family in Belarus.

I was pretty sure I'd never be back, and I'd probably never see them again. I hated that I couldn't get to know them better, but I was glad to leave. Maybe in the future, I'd want to go back. But now, all it held were painful memories of a time I was eager to move away from.

When we were on the long dark road, I slumped in my seat and shut my eyes. Bucky reached over to squeeze my hand.

"I have something for you," he said.

"I don't think there's any more room in my backpack for gifts," I remarked. He smiled and nodded toward his backpack on the floor by my feet.

"Front pocket."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

So I leaned down to unzip it. But all I found were all the snacks and food Dana and her mother forced us to take on this trip.

"You want me to eat?" I questioned.

"Keep digging. You'll know it when you find it." So I did what he said, and eventually, my hand found something smooth and long. I knew what it was before I even pulled it out. It fit in my hand like it belonged there. I clutched it in my fist and pulled the pink knife out so I could examine it.

"Is this...?"

"It's yours."

"How did you get it back?"

"Graham pulled it out of the railing. He gave it to me before I dropped him off at the hospital. I've had it ever since." I took a deep breath and ran my fingers over the familiar handle. Then I flipped the switch to release the blade. It was sharper than I remembered, which meant he'd probably sharpened it for me.

"I probably shouldn't have this right now. Just because I didn't try to kill you last night doesn't mean I won't try again. It's probably best if I don't have access to weapons."

"I'm not taking you anywhere unarmed. We'll be out in the open. I need to be sure you can handle yourself if we get separated. But a gun will draw attention, and I know you don't like to use them anyway. You're better with knives."

"I used to be."

"It's muscle memory. You'll get it back. We'll practice." I flipped the blade closed and tucked it into my pocket.

We decided to stop in the nearest town to dump the car and find another one. Bucky was (not surprisingly) very good at finding a car and getting us on the road before anyone could notice. The town was quiet as we drove away, and I knew whoever owned the car wouldn't even find out until morning. By then, we'd have put a lot of distance between us. And we'd likely be out of Belarus before Stark got there, hopefully long before he even thought to check the roadways.

When the sun rose, we dumped the car and took a train instead. Dana slipped money to Bucky before we left, but he swore it wouldn't be a problem. He took what he needed, and he'd never gone without. She refused to listen to that, insisting that stealing would just draw attention to us. She gave us what she had, and it was enough to get us as far from them as possible.

So we found a table at the back of the train car. Bucky took the seat with his back to the wall so he could watch everyone, but he was wearing a baseball cap, trying to look inconspicuous. I sat before him, silent and with my hood up.

"So this place in Bucharest," I whispered as the train began to move. He looked up at me from where he was digging in his backpack.

"It's an ideal place to hide out. Top floor. Right off the stairs. Can't be overwhelmed. But it's not nice. No furniture. Probably no heat either."

"As long as there's working plumbing and a floor to sleep on, I think I'll be fine."

"Well—it has a decent floor, at least."

"How did you get the money for this place anyway?"

"Same way I got the car."

"You're a regular Robin Hood, James." I was pretty sure I caught him smile.

"You do what you have to do to stay alive. Sometimes it doesn't always mean you do what's right."

"I got it. I was your accomplice. No need to explain it to me."

"So what does that make you then? Maid Marion?" I scoffed.

"Little John, thank you very much." He smiled for real this time. "Even though he was the bear."

"The—bear?"

"Cartoon. We'll have to watch that one. You missed out on a lot." He nodded to agree.

"We'll find work when we get settled. Something to hold us over."

"I don't speak Romanian."

"I know. We can work on that too. Enough to get you by."

"So you're pretty fluent in multiple languages, I've noticed."

"Languages are easy to program when they stick your brain in a blender. I learned languages quicker than I learned anything else." I nodded slowly and looked out the window at the passing city. "What about you?"

"I took Spanish in high school. Only learned enough for a passing grade. Russell—Ivan wanted us to speak multiple languages. We all knew something that the others didn't. That way, we'd be more likely to have at least one translator. So we split the most common languages between us. So we'd all have advantages in different places. We did most of our work in Europe, so we usually stuck with European languages. Except for Tran. He already spoke Vietnamese when he joined. So he chose something else. Russian for some fuck off reason. Mostly because he was a nerd, probably." Bucky nodded.

"What can you speak?"

"Sharpened Spanish and learned French. Nothing special when it comes to languages. But I wanted to stick with romance languages. Latin was easier for me to understand since I spent a lot of time memorizing medical terms."

"Were you any good?"

"With Spanish, yes. Enough to get by in French. Pronunciations are all whack."

"Romanian is a romance language too. You should have no trouble getting the hang of it. The only thing I'm concerned about is your dialect and your accent. Americans tend to stand out," he continued. "The marriage thing will have to stick for now. People may not notice in the States, but they'll pay attention here. Being multilingual will help you find work, but we'll have to work on Romanian if you don't want to stand out too much. You'll have to practice pronunciations a little harder than before. You won't get away with mispronouncing things. I won't expect you to speak like a local, but you need to sound like you've lived here a long time, at the very least."

"What's the ultimate goal? We just—disappear forever?" He glanced at me and shook his head.

"We don't have the luxury of having an ultimate goal. Right now, we just need to focus on surviving and disappearing. You'll need to learn hand-to-hand combat again. You'll never make it if you don't. But we have to do this knowing that someday it's going to end. They'll find us eventually. And they're probably not going to take me alive." I didn't want to think about that at all, but I nodded slowly and turned back to the window.

"I hope you don't expect me to do your laundry. I hate doing laundry for other people. Grosses me out," I muttered. He smiled again.

"Never even crossed my mind," he said. "But we'll definitely have to divide chores."

"I'll hold you to that because if I get landed with everything, you'll regret it. And I don't exactly excel at being a housewife."

"Wouldn't be much of a team if one person shouldered all the work, would it?"

"God, if I could kiss you right now." I tapped my lips. "Full on the mouth." He just smiled.

The train was a lot more comfortable than the car. I rested my head against the seat and stared out of the window. Bucky eventually pulled a notebook out of his backpack and began writing. I watched him for a while since I didn't like the idea of falling asleep in a public place. But he caught me quickly. He did occasional sweeps of the train car to make sure everything was okay, and no one was acting suspiciously. I watched him glance up and around before his eyes fell on me again. He watched me for a moment, then leaned on his hand, the gloved one, to block his face from passengers who might be watching.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm just trying to stay awake," I told him.

"You haven't slept. You should rest." I shook my head and adjusted my arms over my chest.

"I don't want to fall asleep here. With so many people around."

"I understand." I turned to look back out of the window.

"I know you do."

"You can still rest. Here. Lift your feet up." I did as he said and lifted my legs. He moved over so I could stretch them out next to him. But the position just made me sleepier than before. He gave me another once-over before going back to his notebook.

"What are you writing?" I asked. He looked up, barely peeking at me from under the bill of his cap.

"Just—trying to keep track of things. Memories. Trying to make sense of what I remember. Making sure I don't lose things again."

"Like what?"

"The image of you half asleep on a train. The feeling of knowing you're safe." I looked away again.

"That's something you don't want to forget?"

"I don't have a lot of memories like this. Peaceful ones. I try to keep all of my memories of you. Even the ones that aren't so nice." He went back to his notebook, and it took me a moment to finally recognize it. It was the same navy blue one from before. He'd shown it to me once, but it looked like he'd filled up more pages since then. He even had little color-coded tabs sticking out of the sides.

"I didn't do it," I told him. He looked at me again.

"Didn't do what?" I shut my eyes and rested my head against the vibrating window.

"I didn't pull the trigger. In my head. When the girl made me see things. I never did it. They didn't like that."

"Why didn't you?"

I took a deep breath and let it out. Giving in to sleep was much easier than talking. I was stupid for bringing it up, but it was all I could think about when I examined his face. Those horrible memories and nightmares of him murdering all the people I loved. How I'd always had a way to make him stop. Knives or guns, usually. How it felt when I put the gun in my mouth instead.

"You already tagged that page," I remarked. He put his hand on my leg in a comforting gesture.

He didn't need to say anything, and I was glad he didn't ask what I'd done instead.