Beyond

We had been following her for at least twenty minutes now, with no signs of anyone noticing, let alone the girl. She seemed ordinary enough – young, slight build, nondescript features. Best of all she was alone and heading in the opposite direction of the normal day's end crowd, meaning she was from the slum district, making this even easier. Stealing from a girl who most likely had nothing began to set me on edge, but I brushed the thought aside.

I quickly dodged behind a pile of trash when she stopped a moment in the mouth of an alleyway. I peered around the junk as she turned between the buildings. Signaling to my partner, we quickly moved in. Adrenaline kicked in as I made a swipe for her bag, making my body move in slow motion. I struggled to register what was happening as my mind had gone hazy.

“Hey! No, give that back! Help! Somebody help!”

The sounds of feet shuffling and fists hitting flesh filled my ears as I tucked the bag in my jacket and began to run, scuffing my knee on the pavement as I lurched forward. The sound of a heavy pair of boots beat the pavement behind me, but nothing else. We had safely managed to get away with the bag.

We ran for what felt like hours, diving in and out of alleyways, hiding under the rail system supports as the carts chugged by, carrying supplies further into the city’s main hub. Our breathing slowed as we ducked into an abandoned warehouse, my throat raw from the effort.

“That girl sure packed a wallop for being so small,” he said as he rubbed his jaw.

“Sorry, Victor, next time I’ll pick an easier target for you.” I began fumbling through her bag, feeling around to find a phone. Darkness had begun to settle over the outer ring of the city and any too-bright light source was risky in these parts.

“Why’d we have to steal from her?”

“You know why,” I whispered. “If we don’t make the checkpoint with Romanos to make sure we’re on track to get him his money, we’re as good as dead,” I muttered mostly to myself. Louder, “We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for your sister.”

Victor gave one curt nod as my hand finally settled on what felt like a phone. I pulled it out, its soft glow illuminating the inside of the bag and just enough of the space that I could see Victor’s eyes bulge. I saw it at the same time he did. I quickly snapped the bag shut, dropping the phone. It skidded across the warehouse floor, out of sight in the growing darkness. “Shit,” I breathed.

I held the bag close as I crawled along the floor searching for our only source of light, our only way of making contact with Romanos. Victor’s boots scuffed along the concrete. I wanted to yell at him to be quiet but held my tongue. A short moment later he exclaimed, “Found it!” and immediately clamped his hand over his mouth in the dim light of the phone. I darted toward him, forcing us to both crouch, and listened to the darkness around us. The only sounds were our shallow breaths. Gripping Victor’s shirt sleeve, I carefully guided us toward the wall, guarding our backs from anything that may have heard him.

We sat in silence a few moments longer. “I think we need to check the bag again,” he whispered. He turned his body toward me, our shoulders touching and turned the phone on again.

I looked inside the bag and closed my eyes. This couldn’t be right. There was no way it was going to be this easy. I opened my eyes again and sure enough, bundles of hundred-dollar bills were still neatly rolled inside. “It….it’s 20k, Rose. It’s enough to cover Romanos’ charge.”

I reached out and touched the bundles, making doubly sure they wouldn’t vanish before our eyes. A quick count and sure enough…it was twenty thousand dollars. “How did she…?”

“Who cares, we have the money!” Our foreheads touched as we breathed a sigh of laughter. “We have the money, Rose,” he whispered softly as he stroked my cheek. I quickly pulled away then, wiping at my own face, not realizing I had shed a few tears. Victor quickly looked down at the bag between us, but not before I saw the hurt there. Served him right.

I moved the bundles of money to a small bag I kept at my waist, intending to ditch the stolen bag before we moved on to our next checkpoint. After transferring all the cash, the bag still had some weight to it. “Let me see the phone.” Victor passed it to me, and I used the light to search the rest of the bag. A couple of rocks, scraps of paper, and a phone charger, which I pocketed just in case. No wallet or ID’s which seemed odd, but I didn’t dwell on the thought because something else had caught my eye – a small black moleskin notebook.

I was about to open it when Victor interrupted. “It’s time,” he whispered and pointed to the phone.

I stared at the phone's clock for a brief second, my breath catching, and nodded. I dialed the number I, unfortunately, knew by heart.

…

Victor’s soft snores drifted toward me as the morning sun began peeking over the horizon. The cold metal door frame dug between my shoulder blades as I lazily took in our surroundings now that I could see them. As I looked around, the corner of the black moleskin peaked out from under the girl’s bag, catching my eye. I glanced over my shoulder, before grabbing it greedily. Victor was still asleep, and it would still be at least an hour before we packed up to head to the next checkpoint.

I delicately ran my fingers along each of the notebook’s fraying edges, traced the worn indentations where someone else’s fingers had once caressed its leather cover. The notebook seemed far too old to have only been in the girl’s possession. Oh, notebook, what things have you seen, I wondered. I flipped to the first page; it nearly crumbled in between my fingers it was so worn. I carefully turned a few more pages. Each one was filled margin to margin with writing of all different scripts. Some, I noticed, were in another language unfamiliar to my own. Strange.

I began to read the parts that I could make out. “Volo the war to end.”

“Volo to find my pocket watch.”

“Volo for my mother’s suffering to end.”

“Volo the fabric at the store to go on sale.”

“Volo for more food in the cupboards.”

I didn’t know what language volo was, but I wasn’t dumb. This was a book of wishes. Odd that the girl would have this…I quickly flipped to the last page with writing. There! About a third of the way down – “Volo twenty thousand dollars,” in swirling writing. I sucked in a breath. What could she have needed the money for? But I knew. There was only one reason someone in the slum district would need that kind of cash.

My heart began to race as I thought of the possibilities, at the amount of power I held in my hands if this book actually granted wishes. I quickly reached for the girl’s bag, my hands skimming across its velvet lining. There had to be a pen in here somewhere. I was about to dump the whole thing when my hand finally grasped what felt like a pen cap. I breathed a sigh of relief. I could end Victor and I’s suffering for good.

“Hey, shouldn’t we get going.? We’ve got a long way before the final checkpoint.”

I snapped the book shut. I hadn’t noticed that his snoring had stopped. How long had he been awake? He was right though. We needed to get moving. I nodded quickly and tucked the book and pen into my jacket before stuffing the girl’s bag in the drain of the floor before we set out.

…

The scorching sun shone in the middle of the sky. The mirages bouncing off the concrete as we traveled deeper into the outer ring made my already anxious body even dizzier. We were heading to the edge of the city, nearly a full day’s trek from where we had started. The outskirts of this ring were mostly industrial; nobody traveled out here unless they were on a job – which was few and far between these days since protection from the Beyond had become slim to none. It was rumored that Romanos did his business out here because it was easier to dispose of the bodies of those who crossed him. Rarely anyone would come looking for a body because of the danger. I shook the thought from my head. We had the money; we were getting out of this alive. I’d make sure of it.

The hours trudged by, but finally, the remains of the outer wall started coming into view. Our destination was just up ahead.

“We should stop here.”

Victor nodded and began unstrapping his bag as he ducked under the eave of the building I was pointing at. We tucked ourselves into a small alcove wedged between two of the buildings. This gave us a perfect view of our rendezvous spot. As we settled in, I briefly gave Victor’s hand a squeeze, knowing very well that this could be the end for us if things did not go exactly right. Despite everything that had happened between us, he was still my best friend after all.

His body jerked as if struck by lightning as his face sunk into a stony mask. I whipped my head around, searching the dark. Two tiny pinpoints of light eventually transformed into a large, armored SUV as it pulled into the stone archway of a building a hundred or so feet away. Three men got out, illuminated by the glow of the taillights, but I only needed to recognize one to know that these were the men we were meeting. Romanos rested an arm against the side of the SUV, a cigarette between his teeth. I figured he’d leave this work to his men, so he’d stay nice and safe, tucked into his fancy high rise in the innermost ring. Odd. One of the men pulled out a phone and a few seconds later ours beeped. My hands shook as I pulled it out, already knowing what the message would say.

I leaned on Victor as we both slowly stood up and adjusted our bags, ready to close the distance between us and fate. As soon as we stepped into the road a loud screech flooded our ears. Panic seized me as the screeching grew louder. A shadow flashed across the SUV, covering the men that were standing there. The sound of metal scraping against stone echoed off the buildings and reverberated down my spine. Shots rang out and the sounds of men shouting between each echo finally got my feet moving beneath me. If we didn’t move now we wouldn’t have another chance. Slapping my hand into Victor’s we sprinted down a nearby alleyway, the sound of stifled screams following us as we went.

We ran until the adrenaline finally left our bodies, too tired to keep going. We continued to push ourselves anyway, trying to put as much distance as we could between us and whatever horror remained at the rendezvous.

“We can rest here,” Victor announced, pulling me up a fire escape. My burning throat and lungs thanked him for the suggestion. As a laid down and rested my head on Victor’s shoulder, I pulled out the book and read what was written there one last time – “Volo for Romanos to never exploit the suffering again.”