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“Thank you. The house we’ll be at is about seven doors down on Helmet Street.”
“Got it.” I clutched my sudoku book. “You and Jack have fun.”
“We’ll try. Thanks again.”
I stayed sitting up as she closed the pre-made door that Jack had purchased from a store shelf almost two months ago. The sala got stuffy at night, but I was grateful it had a door. The two windows he’d put in had Perspex instead of glass and slid open for a much-needed breeze, but I wouldn’t have survived without the fan in the corner.
Flicking it on, I reclined on my bed again, opening up the puzzle I was almost finished with.
Memories of playing math games with my cousin came and went. Toward the end of a year in hiding, we were used to packing up in the dead of night and fleeing before we could put the kind-hearted strangers who housed us at risk. We never stayed in one place too long, and my parents ensured whoever welcomed us was well compensated for their generosity. Despite being homeless, the hospitality of my people ensured we never went hungry or without a roof.
Whenever we’d step into a different village, seeking somewhere new to hide, my mother would always whisper angrily that we were putting them at risk. I hadn’t known what we were running from back then. Only that nowhere was safe. It was why we’d taken the risk to return to Istanbul and catch a flight.
The day we flew away, was the day I knew what true terror looked like on my father’s face. He’d sweated and twitched in the city, breathing hard as we checked in, never relaxing until we were in the air.
I’d thought he was insane back then.
But now...now I knew what he was running from, and it was all my fucking fault—
Fuck, stop.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I forced the ghosts to recede, laid the sudoku book on my chest, and closed my eyes.
* * * * *
I woke with a grunt.
My fingers stung from trying to hold onto my sister.
My ears rang with my mother’s screams.
Bolting upright, I rubbed my face and tried to get a hold of my breathing.
Only...
Something splashed.
Water.
Neri.
Shit!
Scrambling out of bed, I ripped open my door and tripped into the garden.
The palm tree and scant flowers hid beneath the dense darkness with thick clouds in the sky, preventing any moonlight. If it wasn’t for the solar lanterns ringing the vegetable patch along the fence, I wouldn’t have made out the shadow on the bottom of the pool.
My heart stopped.
I didn’t think.
Limp-sprinting to the water’s edge, I jumped onto one of the man-made rocks and hurled myself into the pool.
Water crashed over my head.
Everything that I’d been running from crashed with it.
The pressure of the sea as it forced me down.
