The Espionage Effect(6)

“Idiot,” I muttered, turning on my heel and heading back toward the open door of our suite. The disparaging label had been meant for me, but I mentally widened the umbrella to cover Anna too.

My invincible roomie habitually went running in the middle of the night, something I’d gotten used to at college. But we weren’t in the States. We were one thousand seven hundred twenty-eight miles south of there, in a country where we’d been advised to look like tourists straight off the plane so we didn’t stand out as targets to their rampant kidnapping rings.

Common sense screamed that when an attractive jogging opportunity appeared before a marginally moral employee or a desperate local, all of Anna’s self-defense training would be put to the test.

“Why tempt fate?” I shook my head as the answer came to me, even though the reason paled in the face of the risks.

Jogging to Anna nearly surpassed her need to breathe, like her muscles would twitch and she’d bounce in place if deprived until she was able to relieve all that pent-up energy. On occasion, she never came back during the night, choosing instead to watch the sunrise from a park bench overlooking the Charles River.

I glanced at our room’s slender doorknob. The DO NOT DISTURB sign still dangled from a delicate fraying rope which was threaded through the top holes of each corner and strung with colorful beads. When I shut the door, my fingers hesitated over the throw latch. I couldn’t bolt it from the inside, or I’d lock her out. But not securing the door meant I’d remain vulnerable to anyone with a passkey: a random employee…someone worse.

“Get over yourself, Dev.” Old fears died hard. Demons from the deep reaches of my mind haunted me with far greater effect than actual reality.

I backed up toward the bed, never taking my eyes off the door handle, until the backs of my thighs hit the edge of the mattress. I sat down, then scooted backward until I reached the center. Out of habit, I bent my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs.

“Calm down.” I whispered the low words, followed by a drawn-out exhale. Logic always pacified my spiraling anxiety. I simply needed to immerse myself into the reasoning part of my mind.

My gaze tracked from the door, scanning across the room to the french doors leading to the terrace. Through the left door’s exposed mullioned glass panes, I made out the right end of a hammock fastened to the ceiling by a thick metal hook. The rest of the hammock disappeared, screened from view by the slats of a closed wooden shutter over a window. Faint light spilled over from somewhere, probably a patio light from the neighboring unit on the right. A noise scratched against the adjacent window around the open corner of the building. My educated guess was the tips of palm fronds lashed against the glass as the strong breeze whipped them about.

The cloak of darkness within the room soothed me, and my heartbeat began to regulate. When the shadows that existed outside matched my insides, my world settled into harmony. No more pretending with coconut drinks that sported colorful umbrellas. No more perfect talcum-sand beaches tempting my unsuspecting inner child out to play.

The dark of night hid nothing. The realness of the world existed there: all the badness. Humanity’s baser instincts crept out around the witching hour, predators stalking forth, embracing their true selves.

And yet, no matter how right it all seemed to be, even though I felt more at home letting the darkness that tainted my soul mix with the real shadows encircling me, fear still pulsed in my veins. Anger did too. And with every next heavy beat of my heart, the stark emotion transformed, deepening, until white-hot fury took its place.

Then calm descended, like it always did with enough steadfast patience. The inner shift happened in slow measure. Until no fear remained. Only vengeance.

With willful purpose, I entered that deepest place inside my mind and heart. Cold, hard, sharpened like the edge of a blade, the inner determination to fashion myself into a weapon to mete out justice, overtook me once again.

I remained fully aware of my surroundings: every dark shape in the room, each muffled crash of waves, the shift of filtered light through the wooden slats as palm fronds rustled.

The familiar inner power centered me. It guided me when I found myself lost. Strengthened me when I became weak. Gave me purpose when I drifted—which was rare.

Every day since that harrowing one, I remembered who I was, though details of that night were sketchy at best, thanks to my distant parents.

But even my parents didn’t truly know me.

Years visiting world-renowned psychologists hadn’t unearthed what lay inside either.

But I knew of myself the only two things that needed to be known. I was a survivor. And every step I took in life would make me the hunter.

All of a sudden, as I sat on the bed, ensconced in soothing darkness, the details of my calm environment changed in rapid succession. A low pop! was followed by a high-pitched tinkling. The faint light on the terrace vanished, leaving only dim illumination from an adjacent building across the courtyard. A dark silhouette glided beyond the slats, then edged into view through the left french door. The hammock flailed for an instant, then a low thud echoed.

I launched off the crumpled bed sheets and flattened my body against the outer wall between two windows, hiding in shadow. My pulse skyrocketed, firing a rush of adrenaline into my veins.

My genius mind sharpened further, assessing the situation, searching for a weapon—becoming one.

Could I have scrambled out the front door? Sure. It was my only escape from the threat on my patio. But I still hadn’t determined what that threat was. Or if a greater threat lay in wait beyond a door I couldn’t see through.