Post-coital Panic, Ch. 5

a/n: All plot, folks. I know it took a year for me to get back around to this, but, y'know. This is what I got. Our leads don't do much interacting, I mainly used this to build atmosphere. As always, check my bio for updates. If I post something and it's pending, I'll notate it in my bio.

TW's: some descriptions of violence and gore in the beginning.

Three hours previous, Herr Bauer took his tumble into the sea. His spouse reported his disappearance only a short time ago at the omened witching hour.

Whereas most ships would blare an alarm or announcement to alert its passengers of such incident, ripping them from a comalike sleep, these passengers paid hand over fist to circumvent such discomforts and discourtesies. They'll be discreetly informed via attendant over a breakfast of seasonal fruits, artisanal cheeses, and Eggs Royale. They'll be pleased to have the extra time at sea, as the ship was obligated to turn on a reciprocal heading and backtrack, searching fruitlessly for many hours with the aid of nearby vessels and maritime authority during the night.

The search is procedure. Nothing noteworthy will turn up. His body was dumped between the coasts of Corsica and eastern Italy where shivers of shortfin makos, sandbars, and blue sharks congregate to feed. As far as forensics can or will detect, none have stepped so much as a nefarious toe in his suite outside hospitality staff, his wife, and the women he's solicited for sex. Due to the discretion demanded of us, Bauer didn't engage with his hired security personally or often. Communication with our 'client' was almost nonexistent, and work was expected to be performed at a distance.

A common case of a drunkard going overboard.

The only trace of foul play is with Bauer himself, a molar inlaid with gold filling pried from his putrid gingiva. Trophies are generally against policy when a death is meant to appear accidental, but the client was insistent and willing to pay. Bauer had a habit of gaping his mouth when it wasn't situationally appropriate: laughing with head thrown back and jaw unhinged, speaking through a mangled forkful, and shouting at a volume that cartoonishly throttled his uvula. Constantly flashing the dingy alloy and making a caricature of himself. A propagandist pig in a suit.

Whether the tooth is merely a bit of proof to be discarded or a talisman rehomed under the client's pillow, we're not paid to wonder.

Borislav is another matter. Just as one and one indisputably make two, Borislav's unannounced absence and battered state upon dragging himself through the door were answer enough to where he'd been. His hard, homely face twisted with shame and rage, a knot the size of an infant's fist swelling at his temple.

He'd taken it upon himself to tie up loose ends, rationalizing it as doing me a kindness. Kit is a fleeting fixation that came too close to let live, and even in this line of work, not all are keen to take the life of someone they've slept with. Those who do derive perverse pleasure in killing usually do it poorly and for free.

Some decisions shouldn't be rushed, nor should they be made on another's behalf.

A straightforward principle, standard etiquette, and the implicit message embossed on the 9x18mm cartridge that bursts from Borislav's occiptal under the wide, unblinking cornea of a summer night's gibbous moon.

As he couldn't adhere to it in this life, perhaps embedding the sentiment directly will prevent a similar misstep in the next. For Borislav's sake, if there's anything transcendental in us, it'd be housed in that gelatinous gray matter.

The dense, vaguely wet thud of a body's deadweight impacting a hard floor, the crinkle of a plastic shower liner, are sounds near eclipsed by the large vessel cutting through the din of the sea. Lev stands, stony, in the threshold of the terrace's agape doorway. He's displeased with this turn of events, but not at all surprised or moved in one direction or another. He turns away from the sight of Borislav's collapsed, cooling corpse with the pinched expression of tasting something foul, but knows better than to walk away from the task of disposal.

We'd sooner be enemies than friends. A man you're contracted to work with today, your name might slide across his desk tomorrow. Vice versa, so is the rigidly impersonal nature of the job. Tonight, there's no desk, and it is entirely personal.

His clothes are sliced away to be later packaged in plastic and stowed at the bottom of a suitcase, along with the shower liner and washcloths used to dot away any stray splatter. His pale, doughy stomach is split horizontally by a long gash, a tease of fresh blood and entrails to entice those shivers further south for a second course.

Borislav acted without permission. I've never requested or expected any of my colleagues to clean up behind me. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful. His passage off this mortal coil wouldn't have been the instant, painless affair it just was.

I've not yet made a decision regarding Kit, and having the ability to do so stolen from me is inexcusable. Years of experience and basic logic point to an obvious answer. He knows too much and cannot be allowed to live, to take that knowledge off this ship or across the Atlantic. Even if he's as indifferent as he seems and chooses to do nothing with it. With Borislav's interference, he might be more motivated to blow a whistle or seek out the law. Still, I've yet to make a decision. These ten days of deluxe seafaring and blithe tourism of the western basin's crushed-pearl beaches and hillsides overrun by boroughs of white limestone with rusty red ćeramida roofs have ended.

The job is all but complete.

With Kit, nothing feels so finished. There's too much I don't know, glimpses of him I've only begun to grasp.

Now that he has reason to believe his life is in genuine danger, how will he proceed?

He was capable enough to defeat Borislav, and I suspect he's not without more than his share of guile. Cunning and slippery as an eel when plunged into crisis. I'd wager he's just as adept at running and hiding as he is in a lawless, streetstyle brawl. A puerile giddiness roots in me at the prospect of finding and catching him, and his death isn't what I imagine at the game's end. Dullness setting into his effusive, candied eyes as I crush his windpipe in my hands or drain him from the jugular, ugly and disappointing even for a figmentation.

No, that couldn't be further from what I imagine, and if Lev notices the impression of my cock beginning to bloat against my thigh as we work in tandem to heft Borislav's body over the railing, it goes unmentioned.

--

Charlie is too stunned to thwart my muscling past him into his suite.

A residence with the same layout as Zakhar's, and hysteria has me doing a sweeping double-take to be sure I've not accidentally wandered into 7115. A bathrobe-clad Charlie sputtering, aggrieved, in the doorway could be some elaborate trap. Fortunately, his costly Bottega Veneta suitcase with the hideous, crosshatched polycarbonate shell is flung open on the couch. Clothes, shoes, electronic ancillaries, and cosmetics are strung around the quarters with a rhyme or reason only Charlie could interpret.

There's also a woman, naked and exactly his preference, halfway sitting in the bed. She clutches the sheet in a nervous fist, hiking it to her chin like I've barged in with the express purpose of ripping it away from her. Bedheaded, bleached hair to the middle of her back and the smudged leftovers of what was probably 'full glam' a few hours ago. Against my will, I remember her in excruciating detail. Married, naturally. The kept woman of a magnate thrice her age, as the man she was schmoozing looked to be melting in the sun when deboarding in Marseille. Saggier than a mastiff, his liver-spotted head barely cresting her chin as he clutched at her in place of a rollator.

Charles Kaiser, homewrecker extraordinaire.

He gathers himself spectacularly, "what the fuck do you think you're doing, Carrington?! Get the fuck out of my room!"

Drawing a slow, measured breath through my nose, I turn and make for the door.

Only to close it, inciting a greater temper from him. He snatches handfuls of the front of my hoodie and brings our faces far closer than I'd ever want them to be. He's not ugly, but everyone's ugly from an inch away.

Dragging out the same question, hissing the syllables like raw cutlets plopped on a screaming flattop, "what the fuck are you doing?"

I bring my wrists between his forearms and explosively knock them away, freeing myself from his tepid grip. He lurches back, startled. As if it was some mystery that I'm stronger than him, that I could beat the features off his face if so inclined. But, I need his face intact.

"947 813 4590."

And it takes a second for the seemingly random collection of numbers to mean something.

"7521193481, 193612489."

Checking.

"4893728610, 193814391."

Savings.

"3760 0300 1981 129, 09/2028, CID 1224."

American Express, Centurion Black.

"08/25/1997, Kilwin, Poopsy."

Birthday, mother's maiden name, first pet.

"Should I keep going, asshole?"

While he might not have every string of numbers memorized, I'm sure some of them pinged a light in his brain. Most people at least know the last four digits of the PAN associated with their accounts and cards. From the jawjutting, eye-popped look of shock, confusion, and burgeoning anxiety that's taken him over, Charlie does too. Drained of color, he darts uneasy glances at the woman in his bed, trying to ascertain if she's alert and clever enough to internalize any of the sensitive information I'd just revealed to the room.

Finally, deciding she isn't, "hey, get out!"

"Wha--? M-Me?" She hedges.

Scrabbling a hand through sleep-mussed hair, he then throws it towards the door in a loss of all patience, "fuck, yes! You! Get the hell out!"

After thirty, terribly awkward seconds of hunting her clothes and essentials from the corners of the suite's bedroom, Charlie and I politely averting our eyes, she flees in an embarrassed bluster. As soon as the door slams on her sequined fringe, heeled hoofbeats carrying her down the hall, Charlie rounds on me with a wild-eyed rage. Afraid of what I know and how I know it, but clinging to indignation.

"Are you... are you stalking me or some shit? How the fuck do you know any of that?!"

This isn't a hand I wanted to reveal, but being accused of having any kind of vested interest in Charlie is an affront I just can't stomach. Scoffing, "stalking? You? Christ, Kaiser, your ass isn't a fuckin' hat, get your head out of it."

"Then, what--?!"

"Once." I hold up an index finger, lending some condescending theatrics to the explanation. "One time. That's it. Whether it's flipping through your wallet, your phone, whatever. If I see it once, I'll remember it for the rest of my goddamn life. Every conversation you've had around me, everything I've seen you do. Shit, I can tell you the date and time, too!"

"Bullshit." He exhales, wanting desperately to disbelieve it.

"February 17th, 2018, you--"

"Stop! Stop, okay. I fucking get it." He scrubs his hands up and down his face, and he suddenly looks all the more foolish in the fluffy, white robe. "What the hell do you want, then? Why are you here? Why does your face look like shit?"

"What's your excuse?"

"Dude!" He barks.

"I just need somewhere to lay low until we get off the boat tomorrow."

"Lay... lay low? Why? What the fuck did you do?"

Man, oh, man. Helluva question. Earlier, there was the nauseating sensation of the floor tilting underfoot as the ship changed course as sharply as her mass allowed for. Then, she began building speed in the direction we'd just come from. Zakhar accomplished what he came for, and once Balbo was reported missing, an obligatory SAR operation had to be conducted for a possible man overboard.

A crime I had full, advanced knowledge of: perpetrator, victim, when, and why. Not only did I do jackshit about it, I had sex with the perpetrator in question multiple times. I let him skip me around the French Riviera's balmy coast in a Lamborghini yesterday. The same Lamborghini this prick saw me climb out of.

"I don't want to talk about it, and you won't either. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, including the guys, I'll sell your shit on the blackmarket. I'll make it my life's mission to bankrupt the Kaiser bloodline. Donate every penny to UNICEF. Just... let me stay here until we dock tomorrow, that's it."

He scowls, "if the police come looking for you, I'll give your ass up in a heartbeat. You can't do shit from a cell."

I make space for myself on the sofa, collapsing into it with a ragged sigh. Charlie only bites back a disgruntled noise when my feet land in the contents of his open suitcase.

"Go ahead."

Compared to what else is out there, I'd welcome the security of a cell.

--

Midday turns into three in the afternoon.

The SAR operation was aborted after two hours of fruitless searching, and while the Corpo delle Capitanerie di porto picked up the effort, the chances of retrieving a survivor from open water decrease rapidly after the 'golden window' of those first few minutes from going overboard. Emil Bauer wasn't reported missing for almost three hours, 'falling' sometime after midnight when none were around to witness it. Apparently, he and his wife had separate suites. A real blissful union.

Charlie had questions.

He roughly shook me awake at one in the afternoon, apparently at his wit's end with Henry's incessant worrying since discovering my absence from a ransacked room. Yesterday's binge drinking compounded with the long night's many stressors had me enmeshed in the thickest sleep I've achieved since this trip began. Charlie couldn't pry open my crusted-over eyes with a crowbar, so he resorted to dumping half a cup of water across my face. Waterboarded into consciousness, every nerve pounding with primal fear, I'm greeted by the loom of his apprehensive, angry face.

"Did you kill someone?!" He hisses conspiratorially.

"What the fuck?!"

Play dumb, Kit.

"No? What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"Then why the hell did you come sneaking into my room in the middle of the night like some fucking rat, beat to shit, after someone went overboard?!"

Widening my eyes in a convincing parody of surprise, "someone went overboard?"

"Yes!"

By means of blackmail, I was able to get away with giving no explanation the night before. Now, armed with more information than he was, Charlie needs to be convinced he isn't housing a fugitive.

"I had nothing to do with that!" I deny hotly. "I... fuck, I've been hooking up with this girl I met a few days ago, okay? I didn't know she was married, but her husband came to my room last night. Laid me out, wrecked the place. There was glass and shit everywhere. If I went to Henry, I'd never hear the goddamn end of it."

He appraises me with more scrutiny than I thought he would. The biggest pothole in my tale is that I'd ever come to him for refuge over Dakota or Cam, but I'm praying he'll gloss over it. Maybe he'll even be heartwarmed by a sense of camaraderie--one homewrecker to another, fellow victims of Henry's henpecking. Also, this isn't a weekend bender on the Discount Express. I doubt there's many among this limp-wristed, well-to-do crowd who'd stoop to violence over a little infidelity.

He's convinced enough to physically deflate, shoulders sinking as tension bleeds from them. Pulling back with a small frown, he warns, "you better be telling the fucking truth, Carrington."

"So, what happened? Who went overboard?"

"I don't know, some German politician. An old guy. Word is he was piss drunk, but the police boarded around ten to do whatever the fuck they do. Interview a few people, review the security footage."

I pause in the middle of digging my phone from the crossbody, "... security footage?"

Charlie had tasked himself with packing, otherwise he might have caught a quiver of nerves in the question. While I haven't committed any explicitly criminal acts aboard the ship, I've damn well been in Zakhar's frequent company. Borislav hadn't disguised himself for last night's little B&E, either.

Fuck, we all played at the same table. If they're caught, I could be implicated.

"Yeah, but it's been hours." He continues, shrugging. "As far as I've heard, no arrests have been made. They're not looking for you, at least. The guy just partied too hard and took a dive."

I never thought I'd receive any measure of comfort from anything Charlie had to say, but there's a visceral, heady wash of relief as he carries on. Bone-grinding tension departs from me so suddenly, I'm sleepy all over again. If I was a person of interest, I'd know by now. It's just a matter of dodging Zakhar & Co until... until the airport? The plane? Home?

No, no way. I didn't point any fingers. If I was going to tattle, there's been nothing but opportunity. The police have come and nearly gone, and if Charlie's secondhand information is worth a quarter of a fuck, no one's been detained. They're chalking it up to an accident. Surely, Zakhar can respect my continued discretion. He's a busy man with bigger fish to fry, there's no way he'd squander time and resources in an overseas pursuit of a Nobody like me.

"Can you get the fuck out now?" Charlie snaps, seeming to remember he should be unhappy with my presence. "Don't you need to pack?"

Pack?

As in, go back to my room?

The first place Zakhar would have eyes?

"Fuck that," I sigh, aiming for casual. "I've got everything I really need in here, it's just clothes and toiletries."

He flinches back with a face crumpled in disgust. Materialism was bred into his genes, and while he might mistreat his belongings for their easy replaceability, abandoning them altogether is unthinkable. Things and stuff are half his personality.

"Shouldn't you be exercising some frugality? You're practically penniless."

It'd be less humiliating if it was the shopworn shit-talk we trade back and forth, but he delivered it with something like real concern.

"Thanks for the advice, Princess Morbucks. I've got more clothes and deodorant at home, believe it or not. I just want to get the fuck off this boat."

And I'm unaware of it at first, as I'd heaved myself to sitting on the sofa's edge, taking stock of the 'everything I really need' in the crossbody to be sure nothing important was missing from it, but an unsettling hush fell between us. Charlie had paused in his aggressive, haphazard packing to frown at me. My ears perk to the lack of rustling, stomping about, and surly sighs mixed within.

Lifting my head, we hold each other's gaze for a long time. Longer than we've ever acknowledged the other's existence in a room.

"Uh..." I start, nervous. He looks vexed, curious...?

"What you said last night, is it... is that true?"

"Which part?"

"You have a... a photographic memory or some shit?"

"Yeah, I guess? Photographic, eidetic, some freak hybrid of the two. I'm not sure."

"Then--" He stops himself, turning to glower at the wall. And by God, he's actually thinking about what he wants to say instead of spewing it tactlessly. "--why are you... like this? Why aren't you..."

"What, somebody?" I sneer, because even if he's struggling to mean well, fuck him. "Worth a shit? Showering in doubloons? 's none of your goddamn business, Kaiser."

"With a recall like that, you could do anything!" He bolsters the point, temper surging reactively to match mine. "I mean, shit, that's a cheat, Carrington! If you can actually remember everything, you could be anything. You're... you're paycheck to paycheck. You live in a studio, for fuck's sake. I paid for you to be here, because Henry doesn't know when to trim the fuckin' fat! Deadweight clumps together, I guess--!"

Charlie drops hard after my fist molds to the softness of his cheek, his rant ablated to a bleating yelp. Dazed, but not unconscious. Ragdolled on the floor, astonished, his hand shakes as it comes up to cradle his jaw. I'd either knocked a tooth loose or his tongue came under the scissors. His teeth tint pink with blood. I find it hard to believe he's never been struck before, but if so, I'm ecstatic to pop that cherry for him. A pleasant ache hums in the bones of my hand. Between men, a form of communication that can be therapeutic, a resolution, a pis aller, or 'hello' and 'goodbye.'

Lashing him by the collar, "it might not make sense to you, but I like my studio. I'm happy with this life you're so eager to shit on. I don't need to explain myself to anyone, least of all a nepotistic son of a bitch like you. What, are you that proud of riding Daddy's coattails? Of accomplishing nothing for yourself? You're not half the man Henry is either, and greasing your way into Harvard isn't the same thing as deserving to be there. He earned it. When have you ever had to earn anything?"

I separate myself from him, and our harsh, discordant breathing softens as the gusto leaves us.

"Get up, man." I grouse. "When the guys ask, we fought. That's why my face is wrecked."

"That's fucking stupid," He grumbles. "Mine's fresher than yours, idiot."

"Shit."

The story became a monsterfied patchwork. Fortunately, Cam and Dakota share a crumb of common sense, Cedrick doesn't give a shit, and Henry's at a point of choosing to believe Frankenstein's Lie for the preservation of his own peace.

We reunite at the tail of a long, winding line that leads out onto the second level's outer deck, and the queue continues to lengthen behind us. Once cleared by the Italian Coast Guard, foul play officially precluded in the disappearance of Emil Bauer, the ship dropped anchor in Civitavecchia Port.

A squall line blots out the sun, a migration of pregnant thunderheads colored baleful gray and hemorrhage blue. The murky bay shudders with increasing violence, welted by warm gales from the distant Atlantic. Through the ship's railing, with no light to reflect, the water looks like a shattered mirror. Unmoving and deadly sharp. The lanky trunks of palms lining the pier bow to the bluster, as they're nimble enough to keep from snapping.

We shuffle forward in the line, and I navigate questions about my lack of luggage, the made-up woman I seduced, and her made-up husband that beat my ass. I feel safe amongst the herd. Zakhar's not John Wick either, at least not in the sense he'd expose himself to large crowds in broad daylight. I assume anonymity is like a credential for assassins. Infamy only works in the movies. And though he and his methods are largely a mystery to me, I fiercely will that to be true. Otherwise, I'm the unforgivable coward who'd surrounded himself with meat shields. A meek, helpless sheep who feels secure in numbers, because the wolves and foxes have to pick off the edges first.

I don't participate in conversation unless directly addressed, and I'm overly aware of the pistol weighing down my pack as it thuds between my shoulders. Google identified it as an FN 509 Tactical, a 9mm tipped with a Rugged Obsidian 9 suppressor. I haven't the faintest clue how it was smuggled aboard, nor am I comfortable attempting to smuggle it around myself. There are no security checkpoints when passing through the port's terminal after disembarking, but the airport--

"Come on, man! It's starting to rain!" Henry cries out, hunching into one of the two rideshares.

So consumed with fretting and cracking my head over each shoulder to catch the boogeyman's afterimage in the faces behind me, we've already traversed the long, cement pier to the little lot packed with white minivans, hatchbacks, and sedans. Marked as taxis with a nondescript block of numbers on the side, they narrowly clash in cutthroat competition for spots, passengers, and first place out of the car park. Our's are a pair of sleek, black Jeep Renegades.

Regardless of the make, model, or condition, a Born & Bred tassista is sure to have us rattling around the interior like fireflies in a Mason jar. Driving in Rome is a league all its own, and none of us were up to the task. Whoever's the biggest prick gets to go first, tenderfoots are left in the dust. Hesitation is a surefire way to cause an accident. Back home, the horn is used sparingly for fear of escalation. Redblooded, rage-prone Americans who wouldn't hesitate to ram you headfirst into oncoming or put a few rounds through your passenger side.

Here, it's a language second only to Italian.

I climb in beside Henry mere moments before the bottom falls out of the sky. Slanted rain crashes to the ground in deafening sheets, and thunder grumbles a belated warning. Overheated bodies stuffed in the vehicle's tight quarter blooms sweat against the inside of the windows, much like the sheen at our brows and the drip down our backs. My knee rests comfortably against Henry's, and vibrations from the undercarriage soothe me with the same efficacy it'd have on a newborn in a Bugaboo.

I shouldn't, not yet, but my body melts into the bench. We're less than a mile from the boat, but it feels years behind me. After last night, even if he wasn't directly responsible, Zakhar became something much worse than a homoerotic hiccup, and maybe I'll dig deeper into that side of myself one day. I finally feel like I'll get the chance to, like there's a 'one day' to anticipate. The pressing danger he represents is shrinking in the rearview, and the Eternal City opens up in the windshield. A cradle of western civilization. A place so dedicated to its beginnings, one can choke down a Big Mac standing in the shade of two millennia.

Modernity meets history in a complex dialogue, new structures cut to size instead of built atop the bulldozed remains of the Renaissance.

Though the city's largely walkable, the narrow, cobbled sidestreets aren't bottlenecked with pedestrian traffic. Most unwilling to brave the sudden deluge. The Pantheon's ambitiously large dome becomes visible as the Jeep squeezes down Salita de' Crescenzi. Cresting the corner, her grand colonnaded portico dominates the square. An architectural blueprint spawning substandard imitations all over... Washington...

...?

I sit straighter in the seat and squint through the bespattered window. Then, Henry gets an elbow in the ribs.

"Hey, where are we going?"

"The hotel."

"Ho... tel? Why the fuck are we going to a hotel? When's our flight?"

The growing urgency per question earns a concerned frown, "you don't remember?"

"No, dude!" I snap without meaning to. "... no, I don't remember."

"Tomorrow night, 11:23 or something."

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck--

--

"Can I borrow some clothes?"

I didn't anticipate squatting in Rome for another goddamn day, and now I've made a jackass of myself by leaving everything on the boat. The six of us paired off for rooms, and Henry and I are sharing a suite with two twins. We're booked at Hotel Artemide, which advertises itself as a 'haven nestled in the historic center of Rome.' It boasts elegance, premium amenities, genuine hospitality, and an unmistakable sense of luxury. The biggest buzzword there is sense, as in a sense of luxury. Like the essence of gold flaked on a two-hundred dollar dessert, the staff swears it's there even if it can't be seen, smelt, or tasted. Felt only in the wallet.

A nice enough lodging on the bustling thoroughfare of Via Nazionale, but hardly worth the unholy sum Charlie had to fork over.

Without batting an eye, he hands over a folded square of clothes.

Sheepish, I take them into the bathroom for a long, introspective shower. Even if I wasn't in desperate need of one, I'd have to change out of eyereach anyway. Borislav landed his fair share of body shots, and Henry wouldn't consider my contused ribs a badge of honor. He can barely look me in the face as is, disgruntled by the sorry state of it. The battered visage I find in the mirror, worth a double take for all the wrong reasons, doesn't put me off the way it does Henry. No matter how bad, I could always look worse.

We tread around each other's abridged nighttime routine, and once cozied in our side by side twins, Henry says, "well, we've got almost a whole day in Rome. Anything you wanna do?"

I suspect answers like 'not die' and 'get out of the city alive' won't ping on the board. Nor am I sure of the best way to accomplish that. Should I incorporate myself into a few guided tours, surrounded by witnesses? Lurk at the edges of selfies and panoramas in a ballcap and sunglasses? Or, camp out in this room until housekeeping comes to evict me, back to the wall and Borislav's FN 509 trained on the door?

Instead, I return the question, "not really, man. You?"

Henry's sidelong glances have only become more prolonged and suspicious. "Kit, seriously? There's nothing you want to do? I thought Rome was on your bucket list."

Living ranks a little higher than posing in front of the Spanish Steps for an Instagram highlight, but again, "I'm just wiped, dude."

"So, what happened with that guy? He was all you could talk about yesterday. I wasn't going to mention it in front of the guys, but where'd this woman suddenly come from? A married one, too? You didn't say anything about a--"

Sherlock fucking Holmes over here, fuck.

"You caught me, man, okay? I'm a whore, and life's too short to be choosy. Men, women, even the married ones!" I sound hysterical to my own ears. "I fucked my way through this stupid trip, you got me--"

"Holy shit." Henry jackknifes in the bed, and my stomach somersaults into my ass. "Did he do that to your face? Your room?!"

I mean, by proxy.

"No, I told you--!"

"Oh, fuck off, Kit." He spews the admonishment, and the abrasive delivery is jarring from someone normally so even keel. "You didn't fuck anyone's wife. Christ, I can't believe I bought that stupid story for a single second. You even texted me that bullshit about 'if I go missing--' a few nights ago! What the hell is going on, man? What happened?"

He's asking all the right questions, but there's no salvation in the truth. If he's worried now, he'll worry himself straight into the grave if privy to the extent of what I'd gotten myself wrapped up in. Or, Zakhar might figure out I'd sprung another leak, and he'll wind up in a grave by uglier means. Unmarked and separated by thousands of miles of ocean from everyone who'd mourn him. I'll die alone any day before dragging Henry down with me. My best friend who embodies goodness and is resolved to believe in justice. My best friend who can't wait to get home and marry his best friend, a woman I'm more than fine bequeathing the title to. My best friend who's always been the best of both of us.

I sit up in the bed and turn to hunch on its edge. Henry mirrors the action. Our socked toes inches apart, a funerary seriousness between us, we put our faces together like we used to do as kids when brokering the terms of a ceasefire on behalf of our green, plastic armies. Shellshocked, dismembered (via scissors offstage), 'Dear John' letters rolling in on the MPS trucks. The tiny, plastimold men just couldn't carry on the bloody fight for expanded territory of the other's bedroom, and Henry and I were benevolent warlords.

Fullthroatedly, looking him square in the eye, I lie:

"Henry, I swear to God, I'll tell you all about it soon. When... when we're home. For now, I'm fucking begging you, drop it. Please, please drop it. I know I look like shit, but I'm fine. I was being dramatic with that text, too. What happened on the boat, that was then. Now, it's over, and I just want to go home, okay? Trust me, please. If it was serious, you know I'd come to you."

He scoffs softly, digging thumb and forefinger into his eyes to dissolve some of the tension building behind them.

"That's just it though, Kit. If this had shit to do with me, if it was my problem, sure. I'd trust you to move Heaven and Earth! I trust you with my life, my life. When it's your problem, your life, you won't ask for help unless you're literally dying in a ditch somewhere! I mean, fuck, I'm not sure I won't have to fish you out of the Tiber before we leave! You always try to solve everything on your own, and you never talk about anything until it's already over. No, I don't think you're fine. I don't think you'd come to me, either."

Christ, he's astute.

I sometimes forget he knows me as well as I know him. We argue the point back and forth for several minutes, but he makes no progress in prying any truths from me. I deny that there's any to be told until I'm blue in the face. He concedes with the final threat of, "you're with me tomorrow, got it? Stay where I can see you."

"Yeah, yeah, sure."

We say our goodnights and turn over under the thick bedding. Henry gives me his back, though I can barely find his shape in the voidlike darkness. Closing my eyes, I dial into his breathing. Historically, Henry's good at sleep. Totally gone within five to ten minutes, and he might change position once or twice. He does so almost with intention, lifting the blanket to shift beneath it. In the morning, his bed is sure to look just as it did the night before. Free of wrinkles after a quick tug. He doesn't snore, kick, or grind his teeth. The first two and last two of the eight hours he religiously achieves are nothing short of a coma.

After fifteen minutes, I fling the covers aside and slide off the bed. His tablet is in the inner pocket of his duffel bag, and despite the egregious racket of a zipper grinding through metal teeth, Henry doesn't stir. My phone performs all the same tricks, but I need a bigger screen not spiderwebbed with fractures.

I don't have weapons and currency in caches scattered across the city. I'm confident in my physique, but no amount of handstand push-ups will save me in unarmed combat against Zakhar.

As far as fortifying my chances at the eleventh hour, this isn't a movie.

No, my version of "you're breaking the ribs!" is--

Google. Speedrunning the Internet for anything and everything remotely useful, branding it in my mind forevermore. Transportation schedules for the city's buses, trams, and metro. Tours and excursions. Departures from Leonardo da Vinci International, Giovan Battista Pastine International, Roma Urbe Airport, and Aeroporto F. Baracca. Emergency first aid without a kit. Defending against a larger opponent. YouTube tutorials on proper firearm discharge, specifically the FN 509. Polishing my Russian and Italian. Maps. A metric fuckton of maps.

Reddit, as always, proves to be a goldmine.

More than simple memorization, comprehension. All the thousands of snapshots I've just taken, I need to wholly understand their content before sorting them away. An extra step I usually neglect. I need to know the highways, sidestreets, and shoulder-width passages of this city as more than lines, icons, and labels. I need to know how to pack a gunshot wound like I've been shot hundreds of times. I need to know everything I don't know. And by two in the morning, I'm daunted by the realization that a single night of rapidfire Googling can never stand up to Zakhar's lifetime of firsthand experience.

I set Henry's tablet on the nightstand between us. My eyes feel dehydrated and bloodshot as lids scrape over them, blinking at the ceiling.

"Fuck."

--

"Kit, checkout in an hour. Get up, man."

"Fuck you."

"No, fuck you, asshole. And did you use my tablet last night? It's almost dead! I had the first three seasons of New Girl downloaded for the flight, you asshole!"

Excavating my head from the pillow, I immediately rebury it as the full force of midmorning sun blares through the window. He'd knotted the drapery at their respective hooks, likely in hopes of waking me the natural way. I'm surprised he didn't swing it open for a pair of cowled bluebirds to chirrup a Disney 'good morning!' directly into my ear canals. And the city certainly is lively, the traffic on Via Nazionale below carrying out fleshed conversation in the Italian dialect of toots and beeps. The table clock reads 11:03 AM, and I'm pleased to find I wasn't slain in my sleep. Ten more hours to go, give or take.

"If we're checking out, what's the plan?"

"I had breakfast with Charlie and Cedrick, and there's not one. It's impossible to experience all of Rome in less than a day."

We congregate in the lobby, and any tourist hotspots are vetoed unanimously until late afternoon. There's no appeal in rubbing elbows with strangers for upwards of two hours, homogenizing into a bubbling people pie under the equator's broiler. The humidity is barely breathable after yesterday's rain, and the sun prevails over an uninterrupted, pristinely blue sky. Should time and circumstance allow, I throw my hat in for Saint Peter's Basilica. I'm neither a critic nor a historian, but some things don't require expertise to invoke awe. One look at Michelangelo's compulsory masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel subtly desecrated with his rebellions, and I'd be able to wallpaper my mind with the world's most treasured frescoe.

The real reason for Rome's ranking as a bucket list destination.

Room additions in a castle that's only as finite as my mind's uncanny function. The splendor of Michelangelo's Pietá, the enmbarbled Virgin Mary cradling a deceased Christ, somehow dwarfed by the scale of the ornate chamber. Next door, Mr. Heckel's third-grade geometry class. He never replaced his Expo markers, and they squeaked obnoxiously as he drew washed-out angles and rays. On the first day, I stuck a wad of chewing gum under the desk, and it felt like a pebble under my fingers halfway through the semester. Just as I can feel that pebble of gum as clear as if I were sitting in Mr. Heckle's classroom now, I'd be able to stand under the "Creation of Adam" whenever a mood strikes.

As we go through the motions of checkout, I flex a little of the Italian I'd poured over last night.

I ask the matriarchal madame manning the desk, "per caso ha qualche consiglio su dove comprare dei vestiti decenti? Temo di aver perso il mio bagaglio nella follia."

Do you happen to have any advice on where to buy decent clothes? I'm afraid I lost my luggage in the madness.

I'm proud of how it comes out, not so much Brad Pitt's Americanized butchering in Inglorious Bastards. She, too, is impressed, and the Customer Service Smile she was struggling to maintain brightens with sincerity.

"Parli bene! È terribile. Sarei felice di consigliarle qualche negozio."

You speak well! That's terrible. I would be happy to recommend some stores.

"Grazie. Ho imparato per rendere la vita un po' più facile a una donna gentile e adorabile come lei."

Thank you. I learned to make life a little easier for a kind and lovely woman like you.

It never hurts to grease the wheels.

She looks away with a small, abashed smile, and I've always been a staunch believer of beauty in age. Older than my mother, but she's glowing like a girl after a little flattery. A flare of happiness, and her life's story is calligraphed on her face in smile lines and crow's feet.

"Santo cielo! Ci deve essere qualcuno che aspetta un bel giovane come lei."

Goodness! There must be someone waiting for a handsome young man like you.

Grinning, I lean against the desk's edge, "temo di no, ma se avessi venti

anni di meno...."

I'm afraid not, but if I were twenty years younger...

She was a big fan of that one, and I walked away with a handwritten list of her finest recommendations. The only one who was truly dumbfounded by the showboating display of fluency was Cedrick. Henry flings his eyes at the ceiling, exasperated. Dakota leans into Cam and mutters, 'man, what a legend', to which Cam nods in grim respect. Charlier, however--

He's heard bytes of my clunky attempts throughout the trip and seemed to think nothing of it. Now, he's scrutinizing me as he did yesterday morning. Critical, perplexed, a little angry. Neither of us address it.

Charlie, never one to be inconvenienced, rented a rideshare for the entire day. An SUV big enough to hold all six of us and everyone's accompanying luggage. A great gig for the driver, because Rome is a city that almost forces you to walk. And we do, we put down more consecutive steps in Rome than any previous port of call, and it proves a grueling hardship for our weaker ranks. There's no linen breathable enough in the world to spare a man, and my new ensemble clings to me like a wetsuit. Many breaks are had in shops and cafés with a wall-mounted split above the door, not the industrial-grade arctic blast we're used to but a brief respite from the heat nonetheless.

Though we know we're meant to, it's hard to marvel at the crumbled ghosts of history when they come into view. For me, it's especially hard.

Paranoia born of anxiety, or I'm being watched.

The feeling comes and goes, though it's most intense as we traverse the streets and brave the crowds. Late afternoon, we dedicate ourselves to the large swaths of cobbled, pedestrianized passages in Trastevere for its closeness to Vatican City. A locality hugging the Tiber, there's plenty of excuse to stop, sit, and escape the swelter. And it's here that my nape prickles as if swarmed with lice, an agonizing unease. Talented buskers performing their hearts out, mere noise. Velvety gelato, slow-cooked chicken stuffed in a pizza bianca, and rich coffee from a dainty, ceramic cup, flavorless ash as it passes over my tongue. I feel like a gazelle too nervous to graze.

Obsessively, I pin myself on the map and take stock of what's nearby. Flickering my eyes from face to face, reaffirming the extra weight in my bag.

"Should we check out the basilica?"

Cam, surprisingly, is the one who suggests it. One of Rome's smaller, often glossed over churches, the entrance is literal yards from our lounge on the steps of Piazza di Santa Maria's focal fountain.

"Won't you catch on fire if you enter a church?" Dakota jests.

Cam, unsurprisingly, doesn't get it. "What? I'm not a fuckin' vampire, dude."

During the time we sat idle, a few pigeons gathered to forage for crumbs in the gaps of the cobblestone. They're spooked off by our sudden motion, and the frantic, offbeat flap of their wings echoes in my chest.

Without having to be reminded or reprimanded, it's an instinctive thing to whisper as we cross the portico. The smallest noise holds tremendous weight, amplified to a cringeworthy degree as it travels the grand space. The memory of pungent incense stamps the air. Stale now, but a scent that never fully fades. Three naves are divided by more than twenty granite columns of varying diameter, and the gilded, lacunar ceiling feels untouchable for more than its height. Our heads naturally crane back to behold it, and it reminds me of a YouTube video that simulates DMT trips. Like we might suffer an ego death if we stare at it for too long, driven to enlightenment by cosmic secrets.

"Jesus..." Charlie exhales.

"That's the point, I think." I murmur back, never too out of sorts to make Charlie feel foolish.

This basilica's crown jewels, so to speak, are the gold and glass mosaics that aggrandize the entirety of the apse. Pietro Cavallin's Life of the Virgin, and above the episcopal throne, Madonna and Child flanked by Saint Paul, Saint Peter, and the church's benefactor. A place of somber reflection, and while I don't feel any closer to God, I'm humbled by my fellow man. You don't credit the muse for an artist's labor.

Above, distant through the walls, a bronze bell clangs to signal half past five. I'd sat down in one of the pews without realizing it, and Henry sits beside me.

"Finding religion?"

"I wish. Everything's easier if there's a prize at the end."

"How nihilistic." He snorts, and at every pause, I can tell it's killing him not to pry. To keep things light and surface-level between us. "Ah, Sarah's calling. I'll be right back, reception's shit in here."

"Dude, He's listening." I point at the ceiling, and Henry damns himself twice by flipping me off as he slips out between the pews.

Slouching down in the pew, I hang my head over the back of it. Assumption of the Virgin Mary looks down at me, her arms outstretched to Heaven and a litter of babes clinging to her bright blue tunic.

But, maybe He is listening. Maybe he only pays attention to the woe a person carries in their heart if they lay it at his doorstep, and that's why none of my throwaway prayers have been answered. Placebo, probably, but my burden feels noticeably lighter since entering a holy ground. It's easier to dismiss myself as having been paranoid all this time. Nearing six in the evening, he'd have done something by now. His window of opportunity is closing, at least as I rationalize it. I've completely disregarded the possibility of an international pursuit.

From the left, Henry's returning steps. The pew creaks under weight beside me, and we share yet another terse silence loaded with questions.

--is what I'd like to say, and fully believed was true for three precious seconds.

Cologne.

"For you and I, compared to this, 'home' is an uninspired place."

Every muscle stiffens up so fast, it's just shy of paralysis. The shapes in the faraway ceiling melt together as my vision starts to swim. Blood retracts from my extremities, a creeping cold that starts in my fingertips. Nauseous, dizzy.

Suddenly, horrifyingly, I can't remember anything.

My mind's gone blank.

Cranking my neck to look at him, he isn't looking at me. Not at first. He's studying the apse with a placid expression. Reclined against the pew, his hands laced together in his wide lap. The stud in his ear glitters like a priceless artifact as late, rosette sunshowers collimate through stained glass. He's dressed more casually than our previous encounters, as casual as a man like Zakhar can appear to be. His biceps look strangled in short sleeves, and with the top three buttons of his shirt undone, the mural across his upper chest draws more attention than Pietro Cavallin's magnum opus.

My attention, if no one else's.

With no weapon in sight, my first thought: "... with his bare hands?"

Finally, his face turns toward mine.

"Nothing that would steal a breath, only ugliness."

And before our eyes meet, he studies the bruises Borislav left behind for a long, long time. When his right hand detangles from the left and begins to reach, I flinch. I only realize I'd been breathing all this time when it gets caught in my throat. The hugeness of his hand as it fits under my jaw, the unnatural coolness of his fingertips as they gently dent my cheeks. Terrifying, even as he shifts his grip to stroke a tender thumb beneath my eye where the swelling is ugliest.

"Я прошу прощения."

I apologize.

"... what?"

Apologize?

Shifting straighter in the seat, I cut a glance around the vast chamber. While it isn't empty, none of my party is visible.

"Your friends are outside." He says, reading the explosion of panic in my face aptly. "Henry stepped out for his call, the rest followed."

Somehow, I find the gal to be angry. Furious, even. I feel toyed with. Played the fool. I'm positive he could've killed me a hundred times over between today and yesterday, but he left me to anticipate it. The muscle in my jaw leaps with tension, and I rip my face from his flimsy grip. Flimsy only because there was no intention of maintaining it.

"What are you waiting for, then? You should've killed me yourself from the beginning, instead of leaving it to your lackey to make a big, fucking mess--"

The placidity is gone, and in its place is the version of him that lives in the mirror in my mind. An inescapable predator. A cold, hard man that should never be crossed. The man I've been looking over my shoulder for, terrified of. He reasserts his grip around my nape, and it isn't flimsy or meant to shake off. Though our faces draw closer, his stature makes me feel like a mouse looking up from his palm.

"Borislav acted of his own accord and has since paid the price."

"Paid... the price?"

"He shares a grave with Emil Bauer."

I'm left stupefied by his declaration, information that contradicts everything I thought I knew since Borislav crept into my room to kill me. And the very alarming fact that he's dead, killed in turn. Disposed of as simple as that.

"... why? Wasn't he... your...?"

"Friend? There was no such sentiment between us."

"And what sentiment is there between us, that you'd kill him for it?"

His expression gives nothing away, and it happens so fast, I've no chance to defend against it. A kiss. His hand's placement at the back of my neck seems strategic now. I can't back up, and wrenching my face to the side only breaks contact for less than a second. Before long, I understood why he chose to answer in this way. He's forcing me to abandon the survivalist mindset of the last two days. My life's not at stake. And being devoured by him, memories are invoked. Vivid, inebriating memories that shoot straight to the bottom of my stomach. The hands that were supposed to be shoving him away make weak, twitching fists in the front of his shirt, and his left finds hard, squeezing purchase at the back of my knee.

His tongue is feverish as it licks into my mouth, and I suck on it like we're not in God's house, what the fuck. The creaking of the wooden pew, the aborted sounds in the back of my throat, the wet skid of our lips, the breath we fight for. Surely this debaucherous concerto is clapping off the walls of Saint Maria's Basilica for everyone to hear. If anything, the noise kicks my imagination into hyperdrive, and I imagine Zakhar fucking me over the altar during Sunday Mass. Pews packed with horrified catholics.

A first-class ticket to the second circle of Hell.

Goddamnit, why is it so good?

Why is this all it takes to forget everything else?

Like the suggestion of stale, day-old incense that clings to the air, my anger, dread, and despair are figments of the past.

When he retreats only far enough to answer, I can't even remember the question:

"I'm curious about that as well."