Rome had never ridden in the back of a truck before, but it was actually kind of fun, even when King went over big bumps that made him think he might go flying out at any moment. Gus was also having a good time, though he was keeping his enthusiasm reined in so as to keep eyes off of them, Rome supposed.
It took over an hour to get to King’s property, and even then, they had to wind their way through a thick woods to get to his house. Rome and Gus laid down flat in the back of the truck to keep the tree branches from reaching out and clawing at their eyes. Betwe
The aftertaste of King’s stew lingered in Ella’s mouth long after she’d finished shoveling down a few bites, which had been hours ago. She lay in the dark on a small, twin bed, listening to Rome’s heartbeat and trying to be thankful that they were together, despite the fact that she was hungry and uncomfortable.“It could be worse,” he whispered, brushing her cheek with his fingertips. “You could be Mary.”
Rome stared at Gus for a long moment before he said, “So the guy who is supposed to be keeping us safe brought us to a shootout?”“I think it’s more like the guy who is keeping us safe went out into the world to fetch us and brought back some enemies who otherwise might not have known where he was,” Gus said with a shrug.&ldqu
Rome woke up with a crick in his neck. He had to look at his phone to see what time it was, since the windowless room gave no clues. It was just a little past seven. Normally, he wouldn’t get up that early, but something told him he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep under the circumstances anyway. He may as well let Ella try to get another hour or so with the entire tiny bed.He feared using the makeshift restroom would be enough to wake her up, but he didn't have a choice and was glad that she only let out a little sigh when he relieved himself. He put
The weight of someone’s eyes on her face had Ella’s eyelashes flickering. She knew it was Rome before she even opened her eyes, before she was even fully awake, but she didn’t want to come back to the real world just yet. She knew where she was, and she was glad he was there with her, but facing life in the compound wasn’t nearly as blissful as the dream she’d be leaving where she and Rome were alone on a secluded beach, his arms around her, the sun beating down on them as the cool waves crept up their legs.Unable to fight it any longer,
“The key to a good disguise is to make one feature draw the attention away from all others,” King was saying as he worked on transforming Ella into someone else. “You want to make it look as if it isn’t possible that one feature is false, so that the mind is tricked into focusing on that feature and dismissing all others.”Ella watched the face she’d drawn used to recognizing in the mirror transform into something else, a person she didn’t even know. Her eyes weren’t even the same color as usual after King put colored co
There was a rhyme and reason to Rome’s plan when he chose his flight. He didn’t pick the most obvious of no-go flights, the one where he thought his father, if he had an idea of where he was, would suspect they might be headed. He didn’t choose any of the smaller towns one could fly to out of Domazlice. Instead, he picked a medium-sized city, one he doubted his father would pay too much attention to.It was a city in Russia, Orenburg, one Rome wasn’t familiar with, but he saw that it was easy to
The plane landed in Orenburg early in the morning. Rome had arranged for each of them to get to a hotel far away from the airport by different means. He didn’t like the idea of having his eyes off of Ella for even a few minutes, but it seemed like the safest thing to do. He’d arranged for her to take the bus, so she would at least be in public. Likewise, Mary would take a hotel shuttle. Both Rome and Gus would take cabs, but not together. In fact, he waited until he was sure Gus had already gotten into a cab before he even got in line. Once again, he was thankful Bart had managed to get all of his money into an account that would be untraceable to his father so he had plenty of money to make it happen.
The streets of Orenburg were dark as Ella sat with her phone in her hand, back in her own room for some privacy, trying to figure out how to tell her aunts she wasn’t dead. She had to be careful that they didn’t find out where she was and that the call wasn’t traceable. If her father ever found out that she was alive, he’d pressure them to tell him everything they knew about where she was, and she didn’t want either one of the women she loved so much to go through that.She decided to call Aunt Suzette first. It would be easier to explain