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I was waiting for her when she returned.
Thirty minutes had felt like an age but really it passed in a blink.
At least I had a plan now.
A plan that would probably get me killed, but it was a far sight better than being sent home.
“So?” The nurse smiled. “Do you remember the story?”
“The dog with fourteen spots heard a rustling and saw a hungry mouse. The dog counted to five and chased the mouse but lost it when it turned left at the willow tree. The dog sniffed around the tree four times and barked thirty-three barks but still couldn’t find it. After waiting fifty-seven minutes, the mouse appeared, and the dog chased it into the farmer’s back garden, destroying twenty-nine dandelions in his hurry.”
The nurse raised her head from reading along. Her eyebrows raised. “You said it verbatim. No one ever does that.”
I hadn’t been taught that English word, but it didn’t matter. I took her shock as a good thing. “Did I pass?”
“You’re definitely not concussed.”
“Does that mean I can sleep now?”
She frowned and studied me. “You don’t happen to have an eidetic memory, do you?”
Yet another English word I wasn’t aware of. My pulse skittered. “I’m not sure—”
“If I asked you what twelve times fifty-six was, you’d say—”
“Alti yüz yetmis iki.” I flinched. “Sorry, in English, I’d say six hundred and seventy-two.”
“How about forty-seven times ninety-two?”
“Four thousand, three hundred and twenty-four.”
Her eyes widened. “Have you always been good at math?”
My heart folded in on itself. “My father was a math professor.”
“Oh.” She nodded and stood, her eyes still locked on mine. “I suppose that explains it.” Moving toward the drawers, she slipped the concussion test sheet back inside and closed it quietly. “I’m sorry...about what happened.”
My throat closed up.
I said nothing.
She hovered over me for the longest time, almost as if she wanted to say something else. But then she rolled her shoulders, forced a smile, and said softly, “I’ll come check on you before my shift is over.” She went to leave, but at the last second, she placed her hand on my cast, wrenching my eyes to hers.
“You’ll be okay, I promise. I know it’s scary to be interviewed by officials but just tell them the truth, and you’ll be fine. You seem very special and...they’ll see that. They’ll know what an asset you could be to this country.”
Tell the truth?
I swallowed a morbid laugh.
The truth would get me slaughtered.
Pulling my hand from beneath hers, I fluffed up the stiff and bleach-smelly sheets that Neri had wrinkled her nose at. “Goodnight.” I lay down on my side, giving her my back.
A few lingering seconds before a shuffle of her shoes and a quiet sigh. “Goodnight, Aslan.”
I waited until I could no longer hear her.
I waited longer just to be sure.
I waited until the patient next to me behind the curtain started snoring again.
Only then did I rip back the sheet, swing my bruised legs out of bed, and bite my tongue to silence my groan as I dropped to my feet and grabbed the bag Jack had left me.
With shaking hands and fighting the awkwardness of my cast, I quickly tore off the backless gown, shoved my legs into black boxer-briefs and navy shorts that were far too big for me—cursing the boot around my ankle the entire time—and shrugged into a cream t-shirt that dwarfed me. In the bottom of the bag rested a belt that I notched to the tightest hole and flip-flops that stuck out behind my size eight feet.
I only needed one shoe, thanks, once again, to the damn boot.
I turned to go, but something caught my attention.
Cash.
A bundle of pretty-coloured notes folded in half and secured with a paperclip waited in the bottom of the duffel.
My sorrow chose that exact moment to crush me.
Tears burned, and despair choked.
I’d lost my family, yet another had been so incredibly kind to me.
Kind enough to fix me, feed me, clothe me, pay me.
They deserved to be left alone.
They owed me absolutely nothing.
I owed them absolutely everything.
Yet I had nowhere else to go.
Snatching the money, I crept to the window and yanked off the insect screen. With my heart in my mouth, I eased it open.
It stopped halfway, as if rigged to prevent people from using it as an unofficial exit.
In another life, the crack wouldn’t be big enough.
But in this one, where I was malnourished from living on the run and desperation made me determined, I shimmied my shoulders through, sucked in my belly, and slithered like a snake into the wilting flowers below.
Chapter Six
*
Nerida
*
(Sea in Turkish : Deniz)
“SO, YOU SAVED A BOY’S LIFE WHEN you were just twelve. You fell in love with that boy without knowing a single thing about him, and when you confessed it felt different when you touched him, he merely said it was because his life was now yours?” Margot clutched her notebook to her chest. “I mean...wow.”
