The Doll

by Taylor Stevens

  One floor up, the door to the stairwell opened and the guard, who’d apparently followed Neeva out, leaned over. Seeing the two in a standoff, the woman trotted a half-flight down and peered around. “Neeva?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”

  The tone was friendly enough, but her facial expression and body language betrayed the protective animosity Munroe had felt since their arrival. Neeva turned to the guard, and Munroe, unwilling to endure the ludicrousness of the conversation, used the break in focus to keep going, two steps at a time.

  Neeva ignored the woman’s question and followed Munroe.

  On the ground floor, Munroe pushed through the door to the lobby, was halfway to the main entry when Neeva popped out behind her saying, “Michael, please let me come with you.”

  Munroe said, “Go back.”

  Neeva hurried to catch up. “I won’t,” she said—that same goddamn stubbornness and refusal to quit that had made the first half of the drive from Zagreb so much trouble.

  Munroe spun around. Nearly collided with the girl. “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any idea the risks I’ve taken to get you here? People have died for you and you finally have a chance to get out of this mess. Go. Go back. Be free. Live life.”

  Neeva crossed her arms. Said, “No.”

  “Get the hell back up those stairs or I’ll drag you in by your hair.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Neeva said, chin out and defiant. “Not with the consulate people up there, staring at you, secretly wondering if you had something to do with my kidnapping. You’re smarter than that.”

  “Fuck you,” Munroe said. “I’m done being responsible for your life.” She turned her back and stepped from the cool, silent interior of the lobby to the noise and life of the streets outside.

  Neeva did likewise, and the pounding inside Munroe’s chest up-ticked to a dizzying tempo. Noah had died and she’d risked Logan’s life to get Neeva to a place safe from the Doll Maker, safe so she could discharge all responsibility, cut loose from the puppet strings, and put an end to the madness.

  Insanity.

  Lumani was out there somewhere—not just Lumani. If he’d had anyone local, then he’d possibly pulled together reinforcements during their hours inside the consulate, would be waiting and watching for an opportunity, and here she was again, tracking device saying Come and get me, and Neeva exposed and out on the street in the open, as if the entire ordeal of the previous twenty-four hours, the death and the suffering, had been for nothing.

  Munroe stared at the empty space where the motorbike had been. Stolen or reclaimed, she’d never know. The back of her neck prickled with the unmistakable feeling of being watched. Her gaze shifted to the park across the street and from there to the nearby buildings. She strode away from the consulate, in the direction away from the coast. At the nearest cross street, Munroe took a sharp turn, and at the next street another, each directional change chosen at the last second, a form of mental coin toss, while her eyes ran a continuous scan along rooftops, balconies, windows, and streets for a sign of the shooter.

  Whatever her pace, Neeva kept up. Not at Munroe’s side, or even as a shadow at her elbow, but with the timed rhythm of a determined tracker, following a few feet behind, just beyond the edge of her peripheral vision. Munroe didn’t turn, never stopped to gauge how close she kept but could feel her, tugging at the threads of awareness.

  This was the path to madness, to death. Made no sense at all, served no purpose. Enraged her sense of justice and fairness. Made a mockery of the life expended and the choices made. They passed an empty apartment doorway, and Munroe turned and grabbed Neeva. Shoved her into the nook. Fisted the jacket at Neeva’s throat, and, teeth clenched, pushed her against the wall. “They will kill you,” Munroe said.

  Chin out, still defiant, Neeva said, “We all die”—a paraphrase of the words Munroe had quoted in the aftermath of the fight with Arben—“it’s really just a question of what deals the final blow.”

  “No,” Munroe said. She tightened her grip on Neeva’s clothing and pushed her harder against the wall so that her head knocked back. “You don’t fucking understand. They’re not just going to kill you. That man with the dog, the one in Monaco, he’s a psychopathic sadist. He’s going to carve you up in pieces and take his sweet time doing it—he’s not going to just kill you, he’s going to torture you for his own gratification, he’s going to get off on making you bleed and suffer. Do you get that?” Shoved again. Harder. Angrier. “Right now, me standing here, having this moronic conversation with you, ups the chance someone else is going to die exactly like that.”

  Neeva pushed back. “No, you don’t understand,” she said. “I see what you don’t see.”

  Munroe dropped the backpack, kicked it down a step, lowered her voice, and said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I am not the stupid silver-spoon spoiled rich kid you think I am,” Neeva said, and she, too, lowered her voice, stopped pushing, and Munroe relaxed her grip. Neeva slipped down the wall slightly so that she stood straight again.

  “I know you don’t like me,” Neeva said. Her words were rushed whispers, as though she was afraid she wouldn’t have time to finish what she’d followed all this way to say. “You think I don’t understand what saving me cost you and that I’m throwing away a chance to live. I’m not stupid and ungrateful. You saved me, right? But people died because you saved me. I don’t know why they want me so bad, but I saw your face when you got that text. You don’t have to tell me, but I know. Someone else is dead or is going to die because of me. How many will it take?” Neeva paused; her voice caught and she looked up into Munroe’s face. “It’s not right—one life for all those others.”

  The image of Noah, like a mirage rising from the desert, his body on the ground, darkened holes in his forehead, danced in Munroe’s vision, and teeth clenched, she said, “It would have been really helpful if you would’ve reached that conclusion twenty fucking hours ago.”

  “I didn’t understand twenty hours ago,” Neeva said. “Didn’t get what was going on—didn’t see it until after we were inside the consulate and they started telling me some of the stuff they knew, and then that text came, and I saw your face and …” Neeva stopped. Pleaded. “How was I supposed to know?”

  Munroe bit back spite and anger and venom. Food to a starving man, she wanted what Neeva offered yet couldn’t take it. “You’ve fought too hard to just roll over now,” Munroe said. “You want to live.”

  Tears welled in Neeva’s eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “I want to live so bad—I want life more than anything else on earth.”

  “Then why are you doing this?” Munroe said. “I got you to safety.” Paused. Whispered, “I fucking got you to safety. Against everything I wanted, against everything I am. I gave up everything to get you there. And now you just throw it away?”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it cost you. I thought you were just like them—the people who stole me.”

  “You’d willingly turn yourself over to these people, this”—Munroe spat out the word—“animal?”

  Neeva’s cheeks flushed and she shook her head. “I-I … no. Not that. You’re plotting something. You’re going to get back at them, I know it. The men who took me, they still want me, so I thought maybe you could use me. Like as part of a trap or as a bargaining chip in your plan—like bait.”

  Munroe let go of Neeva’s jacket. “God, you are so naive,” she said. “You left the safety of the consulate for that? You are young and stupid and clueless, and I despise and adore you for it.”

  “Can you, though? Can you use me as bait and would it do any good?”

  Munroe checked the street in both directions. They’d already stayed still longer than was prudent; needed to keep moving. Munroe took Neeva’s biceps and turned her toward the sidewalk. “You know what happens to bait when you fish?”

  Neeva stared at her blankly.

  Munroe sighed and picked up the backpac
k. “This isn’t Hollywood, Neeva. This isn’t a movie set. In real life, the bait dies.”

  “But this is all so fucked up,” Neeva said. “That they can just steal women and sell them—they do whatever they want, take whatever they want, and nobody does anything to stop them. But I heard you. You’re planning. You’re actually going to do something about it. I know how dangerous these people are, and I hate them, and I have a chance to make a difference. I can help you.”

  Munroe stared at her for a moment, wasting precious seconds, trying to understand the underlying thought processes that had made Neeva follow her, trying to grasp what Neeva really wanted, but in the end she had no reply, so she walked on in silence while Neeva stayed beside her, legs working overtime to keep up with Munroe’s long stride.

  Whether or not she wanted Neeva along was irrelevant now. She didn’t have the time or the inclination to return her to the consulate, and she couldn’t leave her to wander back on her own just so Lumani could pick her up en route. “We’ll have to get you a hat,” Munroe said, “and some different clothes.” Once more she lowered her voice to a whisper. “And I can’t promise to keep you safe. I have other priorities now.”

  “This was my decision,” Neeva whispered back. “I’ll be responsible for me.” She hesitated. “But you’ll do the best you can, right?”

  “Yeah,” Munroe said. “The best I can to keep you safe, but you’re better off scared.”

  “Of course I’m scared.”

  “Good. At least you’re not entirely insane. Odds are ten to one we’ll both be fish food by the end of tomorrow.”

  Munroe checked over her shoulder. Along both sides of the street. Crossed it. Neeva said, “Well, you wouldn’t be doing whatever it is you’re doing if you didn’t think you’d succeed.”

  Munroe stopped midstep, stood just long enough to stare hard at Neeva. “You’re wrong,” she said, then continued walking again.

  “I’m doing this because I don’t have a choice. Even if everything had gone the way it was supposed to, even if I had delivered you like they wanted, the people I love would never be safe as long as I’m alive. If I traded you now, they’d still kill me—so I’m dead either way.”

  Munroe hunted for transportation along the side streets of Nice. Here the pedestrian traffic was lighter and those who took note of their passing fewer, but even off the main streets and busy walkways, the occasional passerby turned to stare at Neeva and her odd getup, which worked as much as a distraction from her face, and as such a disguise, as it did a beacon.

  Neeva, seemingly oblivious as to the liability she was to Munroe, continued on, head up and shoulders back. Irritated by the girl’s ignorance, Munroe nudged her. “Keep your chin down, eyes to the sidewalk,” she said, “Unless you’re trying to be recognized and stopped.”

  Neeva dropped her head, and Munroe skirted her around yet another corner to another street, keeping the trail as random and unpredictable as possible so that Lumani would be forced to follow and couldn’t, even with reinforcements, set an ambush.

  Down one more block, around a corner, and finally, on a narrow street with cars parked only on one side, their tires up against the curb to leave a single lane for two-way traffic, Munroe found what she wanted: a vehicle plain enough to garner little attention, new enough to be considered reliable, old enough to still be hotwired.

  And it was unlocked.

  Through the window, Munroe checked the fuel gauge. Three-quarters of a tank. She pulled the roll of tape from the backpack, ripped off a strip with her teeth, and tossed the tape and the pack at Neeva. “Get in the back,” Munroe said. “Keep an eye out—let me know if anyone curious or angry heads this way.”

  “We’re going to steal a car out in the open?”

  Munroe opened the front passenger door and pointed with a head motion. “Consulate’s about a kilometer that way. Just start walking. Pretty Boy will be by shortly to give you a lift.”

  Neeva climbed into the back.

  Munroe checked the emergency brake and set the car in neutral. Lay across the floorboards and, head beneath the steering wheel, removed the plastic cover beneath the mechanism, searched for the wires that would take her home, and said, “This makes you an accomplice—no longer an innocent victim. The people in the consulate saw you walk out and follow me on your own, without coercion.”

  “Why do you keep trying to scare me off?” Neeva said. “I understand the consequences.”

  Munroe pulled at the wires. “Just checking,” she said, “making sure you know there’s a path between death and freedom, and it might not be a happy place, either.”

  Neeva huffed in reply, and with the piece of tape stuck to her forehead, Munroe used her nails and teeth to pinch and strip. She’d have been faster with more experience, but it’d been a while since she and Logan, still young and stupid, had played anarchists with other people’s cars.

  The ignition caught. Munroe taped the exposed wires and scooted out from beneath the seat and got behind the wheel. Leaned over to shut the passenger door, then put the car in gear. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t need to stop between here and Milan, might not have to go through this process again, and with the border only forty minutes away along the highway—a route they could take now that Munroe was certain Neeva wouldn’t be banging on windows and screaming for help from passing cars and tollbooth operators—odds were good that they’d be in Italy before the car was reported stolen.

  Munroe checked for traffic and pulled onto the road. To Neeva she said, “If you throw that bag all the way to the back, you can come up front.”

  Neeva tossed the backpack behind the rear bench and squeezed between the two front seats, jacket and doll dress tangling as she dragged herself forward. “I really think new clothes would be a good idea,” she said, then settled and buckled in. “Why do you keep avoiding the backpack?”

  Munroe checked the rearview. Lumani was out there, she knew it, knew he knew she knew, and his continued invisibility added to the pressure inside her head. She turned onto a main street and followed instinct toward signage, and the signage toward the highway. Glanced at Neeva and found the girl staring, waiting for something.

  “What?”

  “The backpack—why do you avoid it?”

  “The phone has a tracker and a bug in it. I pulled the battery, but just in case.”

  Neeva’s forehead creased, and the same girl, who while dodging killers and kidnappers would, if given half a chance, have pranced down the streets of Nice with her head held high, glared at Munroe accusingly, as if she’d been betrayed. “Why do you still have it?” she said.

  “Now you’re an expert, too?”

  Neeva crossed her arms and stared at her lap.

  Munroe said, “It’s the only way I have to communicate with them—I have a few things to sort out before I can get rid of it. Listen, you chose to come along, uninvited, so if you’re going to stick around, you need to zip it and let me lead. If you question me every step of the way, I’ll give you back just to get rid of you. I need quiet right now.”

  “I was just asking,” Neeva said.

  “And you’re still annoying me,” Munroe said. “I’m not your friend. Just because I saved your life doesn’t make me a nice person. I didn’t do it for you, I did it for my own reasons—just like what you’re doing here isn’t for me but for yours. So since we’re stuck with the phone for now, the plan is to move fast, stay a step ahead, and avoid saying anything that allows them an advantage. Get it?”

  Neeva nodded. “Not stupid,” she said, and despite herself, Munroe smiled.

  “Good,” she said. “And when we do get a real phone, you need to call your parents.”

  “And tell them what?”

  “For starters, that you weren’t re-kidnapped, because it’d certainly make my life a hell of a lot easier if my face isn’t on every other television, right next to yours. And since you won’t be on the flight they booked, they probably deserve to know the reasons
why.”

  Neeva sighed. “It’s not going to be a pleasant conversation.”

  “Welcome to the world of difficult choices. You’re doing a brave thing, Neeva, but it only counts if the ones you love know you’re doing it of your own free will.”

  THE HIGHWAY OUT of Nice took them along the coast farther inland than the regional roads, a scenic straight shot into Italy that bypassed border control, cut through tunnels, skipped towns, and made a mockery of the wasted time it had taken to drive the opposite direction.

  Munroe stuck to the highway only until they diverted past Genoa, and the beauty and grandeur of the coast and the mountains and the tunnels phased into a bland industrial flatness. She used Arben’s money to pay the toll and exit the highway. Smaller roads meant slower going, but they also meant that Lumani, in whatever powerful vehicle he drove, wouldn’t be able to overtake them on speed alone.

  Neeva broke the silence. “What happened to the scarface guy?” she said.

  Munroe glanced sideways but didn’t answer.

  “At the consulate you said the pretty boy was still out here,” Neeva said. “And you said he and him as if there was only ever one. So what happened to the other? Did he follow us into the garage?”

  “There are some subjects better left alone,” Munroe said.

  Neeva stared at her hands. “I’m in this of my own free will, so I kinda earned the right to know.”

  “He’s dead,” Munroe said, and Neeva nodded, satisfied.

  THEY APPROACHED MILAN from the south, following signs toward the city center until they were thoroughly into a mix of civilization and Munroe’s focus changed to locating the metro. She continued through a residential area of apartment blocks and dead-ended at Famagosta, a station with not much more to it than a large bus exchange and several parking garages. Took the car up a ramp. Found an empty spot, switched off the ignition, and abandoned the vehicle.