by Libby Sparks
She laughs.
“Decided suddenly that you’re being conned, have you? Don’t be ridiculous. Come on.”
She turns and carries on walking, but when he doesn’t follow, she stops, her back still to him when she sighs.
“All right,” she says, turning around, “what do you want? You’ve been quite happy to follow me until now.”
He shrugs and sits down. He doesn’t know how to ask all the questions that have been running through his mind since they met, but she’s managed to figure out what he’s trying to say so far. He’ll let her work for the rest.
Their eyes lock and they stare at each other in silence for a while. Then she gives in, throws her bag down, and sits on it.
“You’re not stupid, are you? It looks like you’ve figured out there’s more to leaving Paris than your far-fetched plans.”
He nods.
“Well, where do I start? Might as well tell you everything, if that’s what it will take to get you to move. I needed you to come with me because it’s dangerous for a woman to travel alone. You may be silent, but you’re tall and once upon a time you were big.”
He squints.
“Claire has gone to Rouen. I spoke to her before she left.”
Remy’s eyes widen. He didn’t realize that Justine knew Claire. He thought that she had just seen her around.
“I was coming off work one evening when I heard talk on the streets that the brothers were after fresh blood. I didn’t really take note of it because they’re always after some poor fool who went to the wrong person, but when I heard that it was a girl I stopped and listened. The brothers had done a job somewhere along the river a couple of nights before, and it came out that when they left, one of them saw the girl there and took a liking to her.”
Remy closed his eyes, his heart sinking into his stomach as he remembered the night and how Claire had been in the last place on earth she belonged.
“I asked around and eventually found out who the girl was, but one of the brothers had already approached her. Luckily he’d done it in public so a scare was all she got. The brothers live by a set of their own rules, but they still won’t make anything public.
“I found her soon after, and it turned out that the job they did was her brother and she’d just lost her mother as well. The poor girl was in a terrible state.
“I stayed with her that night, making sure she was okay, but when I left the next morning, news reached me that the brothers were going after her at sunset, so I went home, got her some money because she had none, and sent her to Rouen where one of my cousins lives. He has always been of great help to anyone who mentions my name, and I am sure that for now she will be safe there.”
Remy looks into the distance with her words mulling around in his mind as he takes it all in. He feels a warm rush of gratitude towards Justine.
It still doesn’t explain why she needs him, so he looks at her again, waiting for her to carry on.
She smiles a little when she sees he won’t give up, and then continues.
“Claire got away safe. I took her to the edge of town and put her on a train before it was dark, and I think she made it there, although I haven’t heard word from her or my cousin.
“The problem was that now she was gone, and the brothers started hunting her down. When days passed and they couldn’t find her, they found me. One of them had seen me leave her apartment the morning after I stayed with her. They are after me now, sure that I know where she is, and my life is in danger.”
Remy understands. It makes sense that she would leave, too. And he would be able to help if she ran into trouble. He feels a new affinity for Justine, for everything she’d done for his Claire; risking her life. He smiled and reached over to squeeze her hand in thanks, but withdrew it. Something didn’t make sense. A lot of things didn’t make sense, actually.
At the Champ de Mars, she said she had protection. Why then did she have to leave now? He understands full well that her life is in danger for crossing les frères but how did she know about all their plans? The brothers don’t share information with anyone. They don’t have allies, or friends outside their dark circle, and no one ever knows who they will hit next, or what their agenda is.
He looks at her, seriously, and she stares back at him with her green eyes, big and bright in the light of the rising sun. Then she looks down and starts fiddling.
“I know; it doesn’t make sense. The brothers are a closed group. The fact of it is that by helping Claire I didn’t bring danger upon myself just because I interfered with their plans. I brought danger upon myself because I have committed betrayal.”
Remy frowns.
“You see, I know the brothers. Most of them, really well. I don’t agree with what they do, and I choose not to know, if I can. But the brothers that were at the site that night, at the tower where lives were taken, those are my family.”
Remy blinks, blood draining from his face.
Justine looks up sorrowfully at Remy and locks eyes with him. “My father is one of les frères.”
