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Chapter Two: The Sweet Scent of Death... and Hamburgers
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"A cheeseburger, plain. Oh, and with a side of fries."
"The girl would like a cheeseburger combo with no extra toppings."
Arya leaned forward to the driver's seat and poked Jaqen on the shoulder. "Can I have a soda, too?"
"Would that be wise?" he asked his little passenger, turning his head to face her eager stare.
"Dad always lets me get a cherry Coke on the weekends," she assured him with a really-not-all-that-assuring grin.
Jaqen leaned out of his car window and said into the drive-thru speaker, "Change this to a combo meal with a small cherry Coke." He shook his head at himself. Ten years ago when he joined the Faceless Men, he never would have guessed that one day he'd be ordering fast food for a child.
"So," Arya started, scooting into the backseat as Jaqen began pulling through to the pick-up window, "what am I supposed to do now?"
He glanced up into the rearview mirror. "A girl does nothing now except eat her meal. A man will do the rest."
Minutes later when they reconnected with the highway, Arya with a cheeseburger wrapper crumpled in her lap and a full stomach, she asked, "Why do you talk in third person? We learned about that in class, you know. I just talk with 'I' or 'me' and stuff."
Jaqen laughed once but did not reply.
"Do not be alarmed, little one, but I do believe that blue car behind us has tailed this vehicle since we left the drive-thru."
Jaqen glanced into the driver's side mirror and ever so gently pressed down on the gas pedal further, gradually gaining speed along the highway. If anyone else were watching his white Cadillac, the change of speed would appear unnoticeable. He maneuvered around a semi-truck on his left to prepare an exit onto a smaller road. Sure enough, the dark BMW a few cars back set their blinker to the left.
"Ah, they certainly are following us," Jaqen confirmed. His voice sounded amused to Arya, though she couldn't understand why he wasn't worried.
"D'ya think they're the same guys who saw me leaving the warehouse?" She tried to act brave, she really did. But that familiar sense of anxiety began to settle in Arya's stomach, rattling around like pennies in Jon's tin Band-Aid box.
It wasn't as if she meant to eavesdrop on the conversation at the warehouse! How could she have possibly known that it was filled with such dangerous men? Nonetheless, she realized that if Jaqen hadn't scooped her up at the time he had, she probably would be bubbling in a big pot of Arya stew. Or something equally uncomfortable.
"Do not fret. I will soon lose them," her driver reassured.
Despite the comfort his accented words offered, Arya still found herself chewing on her lower lip as she always did when nervous. She strained against her seatbelt and looked out the window, nose squished against the glass, attempting to find their pursuer.
Suddenly, with a jerk of the steering wheel, Jaqen cut a quick right turn onto a back road. Arya bonked her forehead on the car window. But even through her disorientation, she still recognized the familiar sound of a gun being fired—that frightening cracking noise then the echo and static which shadows it.
"They're shooting at us!" Panic laced her voice. Before, she always acted brave and strong and independent and, yeah, a little stubborn too, but no one had ever fired a gun straight at her. Now, Arya leaned forward in her seat so she felt a bit more protected. A precaution. The first shot had missed Jaqen's car, but not a single thread in her mind doubted that the next bullet would meet its mark.
Jaqen pressed down further on the accelerator and began steering the car in back-and-forth motions. An icy mask of calmness covered his face as if men fired shots at his vehicle every Saturday, though inside, he mentally kicked himself for even allowing his Cadillac to be seen leaving the warehouse. Usually he would change cars if he suspected anyone noticed him. It wasn't the girl's fault, but he felt more distracted with her around.
"Unbuckle yourself and crouch between the two seats," Jaqen told his little passenger evenly.
She immediately obeyed. Arya wedged herself in the space between the backseat and the front, still ducking her head in dread. Now so close to the car floor in that curled up position, she could feel every bump from the uneven back road and every angry thrum of the engine. She couldn't see what was going on outside. She didn't want to see.
Another round of shots pop, pop, popped into the air followed by a sickening crunch. She heard Jaqen mutter something under his breath—she assumed it to be a curse—in another language.
"Did a bullet hit our car?" Arya squeaked out, daring to raise her head up a bit so she could watch her driver's reaction.
Instead of responding, Jaqen said, "Girl, quickly, climb up to the front," in a torrent of syllables.
Fear is a cold whisper tracing needles down one's spine, and she had never experienced true fear before. Even when that icy Bolton man noticed her in the window of the warehouse, she wasn't really all that scared. Arya didn't understand then. Now she understood. If the men with guns caught her now, she knew death would slink along behind them like a disease clinging to everything full of life.
Arya didn't want to climb to the front of the car because she felt relatively secure between the seats, though she scampered up and over the central console to the passenger chair anyways.
"Hold the steering wheel. Now," Jaqen commanded.
Her eyes widened in questioning.
Pop, pop, bang.
She stretched over to take the steering wheel in her small hands, trying to focus on the road stretching before and not the gunshots nor the tire squeals. Everything was moving too fast for Arya. One moment Jaqen reached down to grab an unseen object on the floorboard, and the next he was leaning out of his window with a gun in hand. Wind whipped into the car through the open window.
"Jaqen, there's a turn up ahead!" Arya shouted desperately over the now rapid succession of firing bullets. "What do I do?!"
He ducked back inside of the car to reload his weapon, saying above the noise of the wind, "Simply turn." Jaqen once again leaned out of the window.
Whoever the gunman was in the blue BMW, Jaqen pitied their poor marksmanship. The Red God takes what is his, he thought to himself as he pressed the trigger. His bullet spiraled into the enemy vehicle, weaving a spider web of broken glass across the windshield, and hit its aim straight into the forehead of the opposing gunman—a fast and relatively painless death. Just as Jaqen was about to finish off the driver in the same fashion, the force of a sharp, sudden turn pulled him back into his seat.
"Sorry!" Arya tried to straighten out the steering wheel after clearing the right-turn, but driving with such short arms was more difficult than her mother ever made it seem.
"No matter," he responded. Then Jaqen reached out and fired a final bullet at the driver of the BMW's hea. Once both of Jaqen's pursuers were incapacitated, he took back the wheel from Arya and pulled off the road slowly, gun still in hand.
Once her shock wore down, adrenaline coursed through Arya's system in rivulets of newfound energy. "That. Was. AWESOME!" She punched the air in front of her as Jaqen put his Cadillac in park.
He tersely said, "A girl would be wise to remain in the car."
Before Arya could respond, he opened the driver-side door with his left hand and stepped onto the street. In his right hand Jaqen gripped the gun. The door slammed closed behind him, and Arya slunk down further into the seat, suddenly shivering again out of trepidation. Realization crept into the crevices of her being: Jaqen had just shot two men. And probably killed them both. Granted, they were probably hired by Roose Bolton or someone equally as terrifying in order to silence Arya, but still. This was the first time she had actually been involved with… She could barely even think the word. Murder.
"It's all my fault," she kept whispering over and over. "I should've left that warehouse when I realized something bad was going on. I should've let Dad talk with those men around the table like he probably does every week."
Arya chewed on her bottom lip with a sudden surge of violent regret. She wanted to scream. Or cry. Or both. Instead she raised up her chin a bit and took in a great gulp of air. And for a while, Arya was able to avoid crying, but the fear resurfaced when Jaqen climbed back into the driver's seat, streaked with inky red slashes across the front of his shirt.