I’m not without resources. I’m just without … everything else.
It must be getting later. The people on the streets around me are fewer. Somewhere a clock chimes midnight in the City of Light, but I can only see darkness.
I hear laughing, talking. A group of twentysomethings are walking down the center of the cobblestone street, singing too loudly, arms thrown over shoulders and around waists. They’re drunk. That much is obvious in any language. And I can’t help but remember another night on another street. The color of fire and the smell of smoke and the crowds that grew thicker and thicker the closer they got to the flames.
I had my brother with me then. And Alexei. And my friends. But now I am alone.
I press against the stone wall of one of the buildings. Light seeps out of closed shop windows. The street curves, and I am like a rat in a maze, not sure whether to go forward or turn back. But that’s not true, I realize. I can never, ever go back.
I jerk and bang my good fist against the wall at my back. “Stupid,” I tell myself. Now both hands hurt, but it’s what I deserve for believing the PM, for thinking I might be able to trust the Society.
I can’t trust anyone.
And that’s the one thing that makes me want to cry.
I miss Alexei and Jamie and Dominic. I’d give anything to see my friends or my grandpa—to know that Ms. Chancellor is okay. But anyone who might help me might also get hurt by me, and there’s no way to know exactly who my allies are. The Society has taught me that much.
If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I have to keep moving. So I keep walking. There’s a café up ahead. A few small tables dot the sidewalk. Couples sit too close on the same side of the table, sipping coffee or drinking wine. No one notices the too-thin, too-hungry, too-scared American girl with the wild hair and the even crazier eyes.
A woman’s handbag hangs off the back of her chair, unzipped and daring me to do something about it. She and the man are kissing. Too absorbed in each other. Entirely too in love.
When I see her cell phone peeking out of the top of the bag, I don’t stop to ponder that I’m about to commit the second crime of my life. I don’t worry about the stain upon my record or my soul. It’s too late for that.
Murder is hard to top, after all.
So I pull the phone from the woman’s purse and keep walking. I don’t let myself run. I just move smoothly away.
Maybe I should find a hotel or a youth hostel, some place where I can eat some food and take a shower and think. I know I need to think. But thinking has never done anything but get me into trouble.
So I dart into a dark and twisty side street. There’s a dim doorway, and that’s where I stand, hidden in shadow as I dial and wait for the voice at the other end of the line.
I don’t want to hear it.
And I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t.
I just stand, shaking, listening until I hear: “Hello.”
“It’s me,” I blurt. Even my whispers are too loud in the silence. I put my hand over my mouth and the phone. “No. Don’t say my name,” I say. “I’m … I’m in trouble. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
My voice cracks, and maybe I’d even cry if I still had tears. But I don’t. So I just crumble to the ground, my back sliding against the heavy wooden door until I reach the dirty stoop. I pull my knees up and rest my head against them, the phone still pressed to my ear like a lifeline to another world.
“I don’t know who to trust. I don’t … I need help.” Probably the hardest three words in the English language, so for good measure I say them again. “I need help. Will you—”
I listen. I breathe. And in the end, I find some tears after all as I say, “Paris. I’m in Paris.”
Tourists are the same everywhere—every city, every language. It’s a crazy thing that I’ve started to realize: that the very act of seeing other cultures can make the see-ers so the same.
That’s why it almost feels like home the next morning as I stand in the long line of people waiting to board a big red bus. There are fancy cameras and backpacks and sensible shoes.
It’s a good place to hide, I learned long ago. Teenagers are supposed to be dragged along behind adults, sulky and sullen. No one looks or wonders or worries about me here. Everyone just assumes I’m someone else’s kid—someone else’s problem.
So the driver takes my ticket and looks at my Eiffel Tower sweatshirt and the hair I washed in a bathroom sink this morning. I practically feel like a new person. It’s a shame it isn’t true.
I walk alone down the center aisle, then up the twisting stairs that lead to the top deck. It’s open, and the cool air hits me in the face, jolting me fully awake. It’s a good thing. I can’t be sloppy now, not tired or slow. I need to stay moving just a little while longer. If I don’t, I might never move again.