I hope you liked the last chapter. Suggestions always help!
...
One of the cabin lights was on, creating a dim glow in the seating area where Natalie Kabra sat next to Zai, her hand clasped over his clammy one. His chest had stopped heaving, he had stopped sweating, and his lips were still.
"...Zai?" Natalie asked after a moment. No response. She squeezed his hand lightly. His eyelids fluttered open, and he blinked.
"What happened?" Natalie asked. Zai blinked again, then looked down, seeing Natalie's hand over his. He pulled his hand away and turned away from Natalie.
"Nothing." he muttered hastily. "I'm fine-"
"-No." Natalie grabbed his arm, stopping him. "You're not fine. You were hyperventilating, sweating, and gasping."
Zai tried to shrug her hand off, but she gripped tighter and carried on.
"We're in this together; we don't really have a choice." She said, her voice becoming almost desperate. This behavior went against all of her training she had received up until that point, but she didn't care at the moment. Zai turned toward her, and her grip on his arm slackened.
"Because, we both have nobody else to trust right now." she finished, then bit her lip. Zai noticed a slight quiver in her chin, which, he concluded, was a huge indication of emotion on her part.
"Natalie-" he started, but she cut him off.
"I trust you, Zai!" she exclaimed, her voice pleading, her eyes wide. "So I'll tell you this: I'm scared. Everyone thinks we're dead, we have a Shadow Vesper agent on our trail, and we, two teenagers, are heading into their headquarters!" She stopped and took a deep breath. "I trust you...because I feel alone and have nobody else to trust. Don't you feel the same?"
Natalie stopped and let go of Zai's arm, exhausted after her rant. Zai didn't reply, he just turned and looked out the window.
Did what I just said affect him at all? Natalie wondered. Zai sat there so still, so quiet. She began to worry in her head that, maybe, she couldn't trust him.
Then, Zai turned back and looked at Natalie.
"It was a nightmare." he said sullenly.
...
Nellie raised her pierced eyebrows questioningly at Dan from across the dimly lit car. Outside, the bright lights of the city a stark contrast to the car's dark interior. Despite Dan's nagging, Nellie established that they would stay in the reinforced car a few blocks from the airport while they attempted to contact Elizabeth. They had been sitting there for the last twenty minutes, with no results.
Got anything? she mouthed. Dan looked up from the ground and shook his head, then shoved his phone into his pocket in frustration.
"Nothing." he scowled. "She must have broadcast a long wavelength signal from one of the Vesper satellites. It literally came from all over the world at once."
Nellie scowled in frustration. "There's no way we can access the Vespers' satellite from here. We'll have to call Matt."
"Go ahead." Dan sighed, emitting an air of frustration. Nellie raised an eyebrow at him and pulled out her comm device.
...
"Umm...Matt?" Amy twirled a strand of hair around her finger as they sped through the tangled streets of the Kamaladi sector. "Where exactly are we going?" She glanced at Matt in the mirror; his eyes were narrowed and his jaw tensed.
"The Patan Durbar square." he answered tersely. He jerked the wheel to the left, swerving violently bast a pickup truck stuffed with live poultry. "It may seem strange, but the Vespers have an underground base there."
"The bolder the move, the less suspicious." Ian quipped. "Clever."
"Well, not clever enough." Matt slammed the brake, throwing the passengers forward in their seats to allow a large family to cross. "We-
He was cut off by a loud buzzing from his pocket. He cursed softly and removed his communication like, flicking it on.
"Matt!" Nellie's voice blared over the speaker, with a clearness that made it seem like she was in the backseat.
"What?!" Matt yelled back equally as loud, throwing the car to the side of the road to narrowly miss a wayward cow.
"We have a problem!" Nellie shouted back. "We could only trace Elizabeth's call as far as one of the Vesper satellites-"
"Only?" Matt yelled again. Ian couldn't tell if they were yelling because of anger, stress, or difficulty hearing. Probably a combination of the three.
Ian could practically hear Nellie growl on her side of the connection. Matt's playing a dangerous game, he thought, irritating her like that.
"You try!" Nellie yelled. "Anyhow, we're going to meet up with you, so send me your destination's coordinates."
"Fine." Matt replied. He moved the device away from his ear for a split second, in which a piercing alarm sounded from it.
"What is that?" Amy shrieked, covering her ears. Matt's face darkened, and his eyes narrowed. He put the device up to his ear again, his eyes flicking impatiently.
"Nellie!" Matt shouted again. "You've got trouble!" Ian looked at Amy and raised his eyebrows, and she shook her head and shrug.
"Whaddaya mean?" Nellie's voice took on a tone of concern.
"You've got a tail!" Matt told her. "I was alerted when a car was withing twenty meters of the car for more that ten minutes. There's a suspicious vehicle on your tail Nellie. You've got to do something!"
"No duh!" Dan's voice came across this time. "Can you give us an idea of what it is we're trying to shake?"
"Red SUV." Matt told them. "The Vespers must know that I'm onto them, so they won't go subtle. Just try and avoid them and meet up with us. We'll wait somewhere for you; I'll send you the coordinates."
"Roger. Dan out."
Matt hung up and shook his head, smiling slightly.
It was just starting.
...
"Nellie?" Dan asked from the passengers' seat, fidgeting nervously. "Can we go any faster? I don't like the idea of being run over by those people."
"Run us over?" Nellie snorted. "Dude, this car is freaking monster! I'll be surprised if they can even burst our tires."
"Still, it seems like there's a pattern here." Dan mused. "We keep ending up running from them on the road...Back in Boston, Hong Kong, Paris, and now here."
"That makes-WHOA!" Nellie slammed the brake to the floor, instantly cementing the car to the ground. Dan groaned and pushed himself back into an upright position, trying to massage the ache in the back of his neck.
This can't be good...
Sure enough, one block in front of them was a huge, bloodred SUV, at least as big as the one Dan and Nellie were in, pointed straight toward them. Dan squinted at the windows, but they were pitch-black.
"Nellie..." Dan started slowly. The car sat there, still and menacing. Then, it's engine revved.
"Nellie! Turn around!" he yelled frantically. The large car had started to move toward them as if in slow-motion, oozing through the crowd.
"I'm trying! These streets are too tight!" Nellie gasped. She was inching forward, pivoting, inching forward again-all while honking madly at the movement-impeding crowd. The red SUV was only about ten yards away at that point.
"MOVE! MOVE!" Nellie rolled down her window and tried to get her point across. But no matter what she said, a few large carts and their pushers would not get off the streets. Nellie had to admire their bravery, though; standing up to a three-ton monster of metal. Unfortunately, however, Nellie could not see the cart-pushers tiny earbuds, through which they were receiving instructions from Patan Durbar square.
"We're not gonna make it!" Dan exclaimed. He flipped on his comm device, sending a hasty message to Amy-S.O.S.
"Brace yourself!" Nellie gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes as the car reached within five feet of them. Then, just when it was close enough to reach out and touch...it stopped.
"Whats it doing?" Dan asked, sounding even more nervous. But, contrary to both of their expectations, the SUV proceeded to reverse, melting backwards through the strangely now-crowd and around the corner, out of sight. Nellie let out a sigh of relief.
"What the heck was that?" Dan exploded. "Why did they back away?-not that I'm complaining. But why did they do that? We'd better get out of here, Nellie. Now."
"Right." Nellie collected herself-checked her nails-and gripped the steering wheel, revving the engine fiercely. "We've got some Vesper butt to kick."
...
The agent in the bloodred SUV grinned-this was much more fun than that desk job back in Kazakhstan. But the grin turned to a grimace when the agent thought of how the fun was cut short, by a message that had appeared on the car's messaging link:
We still need them alive. -M.
...
"It was about that night, wasn't it?" Natalie asked softly. Zai swallowed, and nodded, once. He was now breathing normally, and his face had regained it's cold passiveness.
"Can you tell me...what happened that-" Natalie stopped when she saw Zai's face darken. Talking to him is like trying to thread a needle, she thought. You don't thread it, it won't stay in the...hole. But if you thread it too hard or too softly, you also won't get results.
"I-I'm sorry." Natalie apologised, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have asked that-of course you wouldn't want to talk about it."
"No, it's fine." Zai surprised her by responding. "I'm actually pleased you asked-it finally gives me an excuse to tell someone."
Natalie's eyes widened slightly when she realized what Zai was saying. In a deliberate voice, he began to speak.
"My family had a fight..."
xxxxx...Ten minutes later...xxxxx
Zai closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.
"And then, there was an explosion, and I was thrown into the air." he said. "When I hit the ground, I passed out."
Natalie nodded attentively, waiting to hear the rest. After a second, the horrible truth hit her: There was no, And then my mother came running, or And then I woke up, screaming. That was the end. Zai blacked out, and when he woke up, everything he knew was gone. His home, his family...
"Zai...I'm so sorry...I had no idea."
"It's not your fault." Zai shook his head sadly. "You had no way of knowing."
"But I should have." Natalie shook her head. "Before I judged you. I should have known what happened to you."
Zai exhaled and looked at her. "It doesn't matter; now you do." Zai said, his voice sounding thick, but not sad. "Now you can judge me."
Natalie didn't answer. She placed her hand on top of his again, and squeezed, and he didn't pull away or tense up. This time, his hand didn't feel clammy, or sweaty. It was warm.
Zai sat back, drained after telling his story. Natalie was the first person he'd actually told; anyone else who knew was either part of the scheme or one of the people who'd peeled him off the ground after it happened. But now, to let out to someone, made Zai feel less...heavy. His heart felt lighter. He was sitting thousands of feet above the ground, feeling safe and trusted. He looked over at Natalie, sitting still beside him, her hand still on his.
Natalie. Zai didn't know what to do or think of her. She was becoming somebody he felt he wanted to trust. He'd never had anybody like that before. Suddenly, Zai felt sorry inside about all the hurtful things he'd said to her before. He didn't want to see her get hurt anymore.
Natalie was his partner now. But, wondered Zai, was it possible that his relationship with her was much more than that? Was Natalie becoming something that Zai had told himself that he would never, never for the rest of his life?
I apologize for the wait for this chapter, but I had to get the last part just right. But don't get your hopes up, all you emotional people. Things might not be as they seem. I've had some requests to post pictures of what Zai may look like, but I think I won't, because I don't want to ruin any images you've created for him for yourself. Well, your feedback is much appreciated!