City of Saints & Thieves(51)

Boyboy just hugs himself and shakes his head.

What I don’t say is that as scary as Bug Eye is, I am sort of beyond caring what he’ll do if he finds out I’m skipping town. Some things are more important than ass kickings.

? ? ?

It feels good to sleep in my own bed. Even the guilt I feel when the driver, and then Michael, call and text repeatedly until I turn off my phone isn’t enough to bring me down. I’m just relieved to be in my own place, with my own smells, my own things, the lights of my own city stretched out like stolen diamonds on velvet.

I think about going to see Kiki, but she won’t be expecting me and I’d have to knock on the dorm window. I don’t want to get her in trouble. It’s only Monday. I’ll be back by Friday, I tell myself.

I wake up before it’s even light, jittery and nervous, but excited too. I’m finally doing something.

It doesn’t take long to get ready. I brush my teeth and tuck new bobby pins into my hair. I stuff as much of my emergency cash as I think I’ll need for the trip into the seams I’ve ripped open in my jacket. Then I pull the concrete block up to the eastern corner of the main room and stand on it. I reach with two fingers into a crack between the bricks in the wall and pinch out a plastic bag. After I blow off the dust, I look at the prayer card, at Saint Catherine’s face, her breaking wheel at her side, sword under her feet, palm branch in her hand.

Sometimes I feel like I split Saint Catherine in half. Kiki kept her name and her goodness. I kept the things that killed her.

I fold the plastic bag around the card and put it in my backpack with the photo of my mother. Maybe one day I’ll add a triumphant palm branch to the tattoos of the sword and the wheel on my arms. But not yet.

? ? ?

The bus terminal is orchestrated chaos, as usual. Hawkers, touts, pickpockets, and travelers press past one another in the early sun. Wide-eyed men and women from up-country clutch their bags to their armpits and furtively count out bills stashed in bosoms and underwear. Steely-eyed men and women who work the buses and market stalls watch them with predatory disdain.

I nod greetings at a few of the other light-fingered crowd workers I know and give them the signal that I’m not working today. They look relieved.

And that’s when I spot them.

One in a very lime-green hat and plaid capris, scanning the crowd; one trying to look like he hangs out at bus depots all the time and failing miserably because any fool can see he’s a sonko rich boy and doesn’t take the bus. It’s in the way he’s avoiding touching things. Also because he’s half a shade whiter than anyone except the blind albino guy rattling his tin cup for coins.

“What are you doing here?” I demand, marching over.

Michael has the nerve to look relieved to see me.

“Waiting for you, of course,” Boyboy says, puffing up his chest. He’s going for bluster, but he shrinks under my scowl.

“How did you even find me?”

“Tapped into your phone’s GPS,” Boyboy says. He shoulders a travel bag.

“Why?” I ask, giving the bag a suspicious once-over. “And what is Michael doing here?”

Boyboy and Michael look at each other.

I narrow my eyes at Boyboy. “You called him? You told him?”

Boyboy puts an indignant fist to his hip. “Somebody’s gotta look out for you, and I am simply not made of that sort of manly stuff.”

“I can take care of myself! I don’t need manly men.”

“That’s what you think. You’re a minnow getting ready to swim with sharks. Man, woman, whoever, you need the safety of numbers.”

Michael still hasn’t said anything. I round on him. “And I suppose you agreed to come to make sure I keep my end of our bargain?”

His eyes glitter. “You’re the one running off. Don’t act all high and mighty.”

I fold my arms over my chest and try to look down at him, but it’s less intimidating than I’d like, seeing as I’m a head shorter. “You seriously think you’re going to tag along?”

“I don’t want to just tag along. I want to go,” Michael says. “I made a bargain and I’m sticking to it. I’m going to figure out who killed your mom. If that means going to Congo to find Mwika, then let’s go. But yes, I also want to make sure you don’t bail.”

I grind my teeth. “I wasn’t going to release the dirt on your dad. Yet. I haven’t gone back on my word.”

“The deal was to do this together.”

“Aren’t you grounded?”

“Don’t you want to keep on not giving a shit?”

We stand glaring at each other until Boyboy rolls his eyes and says, “Ngai, you’re like two roosters fighting over a hen. Are we done with the chest beating? Because time’s wasting and we have a long way to go.”

“I just don’t want to be around when his father sends out a small private army to track him down!”

“You don’t need to worry about my father.”

“Oh really? Bet that’s what my mother thought too.”

Boyboy puts his sunglasses on and steps between us. “Okay! Time to go! Which bus is it?”

I take a deep breath. “So that’s it, then. You’re both coming?”

Michael nods.