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Chapter Five
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The orphanage in Da Nang had a long row of chicken cages between the back of the building and what the other children called The Big Wall. Given its name, it wasn't as big as Grady thought it should be, but tall enough. Winding through the area, a mass of wood and sandbags, mortared with mud and crude cement. Chunks of glass and brick stuck out of it in places, and half of it was stained black, like someone had tried to burn it down. It reached all the way around the compound and ran straight into the edge of their building, making everything feel like a prison. A barricade between them and the city on one side—a blockade to the footpath toward the Han River on the other.
It'd been built by the soldiers. Not so much as a defense, but a shield. An obstacle. The other children said the soldiers were going to knock it down when they left, but they never did. And though Grady hated the way the wall made him feel, the narrow space between it and the last cage became the perfect hiding space when Danh Huu was on a tear. Scaring everyone to silence. Angry. Brutal. Insisting the children needed discipline. More discipline.
When he found him, Danh Huu would stand on the other side of the chickens and rattle the cage. Shoving until the chickens were squawking and the hard surface behind Grady's back made him feel bruised from his head to his tailbone. But he wouldn't come out until he knew he wouldn't get hit. He would lace his fingers in the wire, close his eyes, and tell himself Beaudreaux was coming. He would tell himself that the other children were wrong when they said all the soldiers were gone.
There were explosions sometimes. Gunfire. Napalm. The war was still being fought. And if the war was being fought, the soldiers had to still be there.
"Grady."
The chickens were squawking now. Chattering back at Danh Huu. And Beaudreaux was there. Beaudreaux's voice. Cutting through the trap.
He'd finally come.
"Grady."
Grady opened his eyes, experiencing a moment of vertigo when he realized he wasn't standing behind the cage, but was somehow underneath it, flat on his back and staring upward. The sloped flooring was higher than it should have been. Farther away. Looking like planked cedar. Smelling like beer. "B?"
"That's it. Take it easy."
Beaudreaux's face swayed further into focus. Older than Grady remembered. Aged. And he had a mustache—that was new.
Reality flooded back in a wave, welling up to Grady's eyeballs and washing his skin with cold. The bar. Malloy. Rothman.
A siren in the distance.
The lingering shadow of Petrov and his cages.
Grady's lungs seized. He jerked his head back from Beaudreaux's hold, knocking the bruise at the base of his skull against the floor. None of the faces he could see staring down at him were Trang's, but he was there somewhere. Grady could feel him. "Let me up," he growled. Furrowing a breath, he tried to move, coming up blocked against Beaudreaux's hands.
"Just stay still," Beaudreaux told him. "Ambulance is on the way."
The siren grew louder.
The murmur of the strange voices from the patrons grated over his skin.
He tried to protest further, but his body panicked, locking his voice up tight. Rolling his head, his face came level with the lower rungs of the bar stools. Shutting out the noise and the voices, he took a breath and moved his hand. Gripping shaky fingers around the base of the nearest stool, he pulled, toppling it against B's back. It hit, not hard, just clumsily, and the reactive loosening of the grip on his shoulders was all that he needed. He wasted no time getting his legs under him, stumbling upward with a shove.
Immediately, the world tilted. He caught his hand on the surface of another stool to get his balance, readying himself to run, and in that twisted moment, locked eyes with Beaudreaux. Two feet or a chasm between them, it was already too much. Too much time separated. Too many regrets. And expecting B to show up and save him from every single thing that'd gone wrong in his life had always been naive.
After the merest of seconds, Beaudreaux moved and Grady reacted, knocking his fist down against the edge of the loaded tray he'd left poised on the bar, sending mugs of beer crashing between them. The shattering of glass boomed loudly in his ears, scraping across his nerves, but he ignored the sensation—ignored the look of betrayal on Beaudreaux's face—and just went, kept going, and didn't look back.
In the alley, he turned towards the main street instead of the direction of his bike like Beaudreaux would expect. When he hit the opening on the thoroughfare, the approaching ambulance was drawing attention in front of the bar and he darted away from it, counting air into his lungs and crossing the street without pause. He circled again immediately, turning off behind Mulligan's, resisting the urge to look behind him as he limp-jogged into the alley next to the used bookstore, trying to distance himself from the vague sound of Beaudreaux calling his name. Keeping his speed up, breathing through the grey in his vision, he turned the next corner, and ran right into Trang.
Trang was standing with his arms folded, shoulder to the wall, having tracked Grady from the opposite direction. He didn't even seem winded. Pose casual. Like he'd expected Grady to take this route.
The rain had stopped, leaving a cool-dank feeling in the air. The alley was soaked with it. The smell of wet asphalt. Slick steel. Rotting cardboard. It smelled like Petrov's cages. Like graphite and sawdust and people waiting to die.
"I didn't break any rules," Grady said carefully, stepping back cautiously, arms spread to his sides. "I already got you your list today, and Beaudreaux still doesn't know anything."
Trang rocked out of his lean and stepped closer. "Not yet, anyway."
"Come on," said Grady, stiffening his muscles against the protest through his torso. "You wanted this to happen. Pet…" He stopped and swallowed. Working to control the trembling in his voice, he stilled his lungs and made himself cough up the damn name. "Petrov said it himself—he wants Beaudreaux distracted. Beaudreaux can't investigate if he's distracted. I'm the biggest distraction he has. And he can't make the connection to Petrov if he's out looking for me."
Trang closed the gap slowly, fisting a gentle hand into Grady's shirt and yanking forward, breath warm on Grady's cheek. "Then he'd better not find you," he said. Releasing his shirt, he drew back with intent, knocking out Grady's knee with a short kick to his leg. Grady dropped to the pavement, clenching his eyes closed, the sensation of white lightning snapping through the pain. Trang twisted a hand in his hair, pulling his head up as he leaned down towards his ear. "Just remember, we are not finished with you yet. If the connection is made, we have nothing to lose. Do you understand?"
Grady nodded as best he could, hairs pulled tight off his scalp. Trang let go abruptly, running a kick into Grady's side. Grady folded, catching himself on his hands. Feeling gravel, rough on his palms. Dark shadows cinching around his vision. Every thought segmented and hazy.
Another kick came and the world flipped inside out.
By the time it corrected itself, Trang was gone, and Grady had no idea how much time he'd lost.
The once distant ambulance siren was silent and he could no longer hear any trace of Beaudreaux calling his name.
Breathing in on a shudder, he realized that he was shaking. Curling to his side, he drew his knees up, easing the strain through his core. Rolling the right side of his forehead against the asphalt, feeling it, cool and rough, against the press of his skin, he tried to consider his options. He tried to think of any place he could go where Beaudreaux would not look for him—any place where Petrov would not have people watching.
Eventually he crawled up to his knees, hunched over with his head and elbows in the dirt as he tried to find his center. When he lifted his face, warm liquid smattered across the back of his hand.
His nose was bleeding again.
Ignoring it, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe—just breathe—willing the dizzy sensation to go away.
In the distance, a car backfired and he flinched, fingernails digging into the asphalt. Seeing in his memory a woman with autumn eyes. Hearing in his bones the echo of Petrov's gun.
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tbc