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The tension in the air was so sharp, it could be cut with a knife’s edge. Hyienna did occasionally allow a scene in his mind to play out, to think of what would happen if he told Solomon that he wanted no part of this haphazard scheme... and every time he tried to imagine Solomon’s reaction, it never ended well for him.
“Surely you’ve noticed it too, Hyienna.”
Hyienna was snapped out of his daydream by Solomon’s irate voice.
“What?”
“Nathaniel’s little habits. He’s got to be the most pretentious bastard I’ve ever met. He thinks because he’s a writer that he can look down on the rest of us. Flashing his money and fancy words around like a claim to Formentera. He likes to make out he’s ‘one of the people.”
Hyienna cleared his throat. “At the risk of sounding pedantic, you’re not exactly a local boy yourself.”
“I never claimed to be” replied Solomon. “I’ve got no problem with telling people where I come from, and I certainly don’t feel the need to parade it around the way Nathaniel does.”
“I’ve got to ask, Solomon, in the interest of general sanity; what has Nathaniel ever done to you?”
Solomon didn’t seem able to comprehend the question. So Hyienna continued. “OK, he may have been a bit full of himself and likes to throw his money around, but there is a difference between a guy who is just a pain in the ass and a guy who is out to screw you over.”
“It’s not about what he does to me,” said Solomon. “It’s about what he does to the people around him. You ever heard of a remora fish?”
Hyienna raised an eyebrow. “Do I strike you as a marine biologist?”
“Thought as much. Well, a remora fish is known as a parasitic fish. The only way it can survive is by latching to a bigger fish and feeding off of it.”
“You mean like a parasite?”
“Exactly! That is how I feel about Nathaniel. He is feeding off other people in order to survive. No man, ever gets to where they are without climbing over the backs of everyone else.”
“This is all about Sarah, isn’t it?” asked Hyienna. “You just don’t want to see her with anybody else other than you.”
“Hyienna, she’s your cousin. You and she are bound by family, as will you and me once the wedding is underway. If I came to you with irrefutable proof that Nathaniel would be the worst thing to ever happen to Sarah, would you honestly tell me to go screw myself? Or would you start trying to work out how to keep her safe? And of course, there’s the fact that she’s having my child. I never had a dad who taught me right from wrong, showed me how to make a trade or how to love. I had to learn the hard way. I had to make my own mistakes and pray they didn’t cost me in the long run. If Sarah is going to keep this baby, then I want to make sure that I am there for my child.”
Hyienna could not doubt the passion and sentiment in Solomon’s voice, but he knew Solomon well enough to know that he was not about using honest feelings to do dishonest work. Everything he said was an excuse to justify his crusade against Nathaniel.
“All right” said Hyienna, trying to force back the uncertainty in his words, not truly believing them, but feel that Solomon could be better manipulated if he heard what he wanted to hear. “I’ll help you. But I need you to give me a few details.”
Solomon shook his head. “Sorry, Hyienna, I’m not sure how much I can tell you-”
“You’ve ambushed me, asked me to help you bring down a man who has done no harm to me as of yet. I think I’m entitled to a better explanation than no explanation.”
Solomon sighed. “You drive a hard bargain, Hyienna. OK... we’re going to see Seth.”
Hyienna sat upright in his seat. “You’re joking.” He remembered the fleeting glimpses he had been lucky – or unlucky – to catch of the imposing man, a man who radiated brutality and had no issue with unleashing it on anybody who had wronged him. “Why the hell would Seth get involved in this mess?”
“Seth is a man in high places. He knows every single facet of Barcelona’s underbelly, every dirty little secret floating in the air, nothing escapes his notice. Most people pass him off as a thug. And admittedly, I made the same mistake. But I’m telling you, Seth is a man who knows how to play his cards. He knows the value of information, and more importantly, how to weaponize it.”
“Hyienna scoffed. “I knew you and Seth were close, but do you really think he is the one to get you out of this?”
“It helps to have friends in high places,” said Solomon.
“And what are you giving him in return? Seth is a great many things, but a charity case? No, he’d never stick his neck out like this if he didn’t think he was getting anything in return.”
“At the moment, he’s not asking for anything. He’s doing this for me with the understanding that I’ll get round to scratching his back one day.”
“And you really want that kind of debt hanging over you, Solomon?” Hyienna briefly became aware of the irony of the statement, considering he had reached out to the Stream for information on Nathaniel without truly considering what he would need to give in return.
As if he had read his thoughts, Solomon said, “We’re almost there, Hyienna, so I suggest you get your ass off that high fence and decide whose side you’re on. If you’re n0t handing me the nails to Nathaniel’s coffin, you’ll getting caught in the crossfire with him. I mean, being honest; what do you really know about this guy? He’s not some secret brother, he’s family. I wouldn’t even go as far as to call you friends. So, what is it about him that makes you want to risk everything you have for him?”
Hyienna couldn’t truly answer him. He barely knew Nathaniel and knew that the carefully cultivated peace he had carved for himself in Formentera was in danger of being disrupted. But he still felt that to betray Nathaniel was to sacrifice his own soul. “Depending on what Seth has for us” said Hyienna slowly. “Are you going to kill him?”
“Not if I can help it” said Solomon, the casual manner of which told Hyienna that he had at least considered it. “No, what we’ll do is risky, but nowhere near as risky as leaving Nathaniel to sow his own seeds in Formentera. In an ideal world, Nathaniel would pack his bags and head for different pastures. No one else needs to get hurt.”
But Hyienna knew that Nathaniel’s feelings for Sarah ran too deeply for him to just give her up without a fight. “And if Nathaniel won’t cut and run?”
Solomon met his eyes with fierce determination. “Then he’ll wish he had never set foot in Formentera.”
The car pulled up outside a small café. Hyienna recognized the venue as one of the first places he had visited when he had arrived in Formentera. But he didn’t feel the same warm sense of warm welcome. If anything, the air seemed to take on an icy chill as he drew nearer.
And there was Seth, sitting in a seat, stirring a spoon in a cup of coffee.
“A word of advice” said Solomon just before they exited the car. “Let me do the talking. No offence, but when you shoot off your mouth, it tends to do more harm than good. This kind of conversation needs someone who won’t fly off the handle at a moment’s notice.”
“And you think you fit the mould?” asked Hyienna.
But Solomon didn’t hear the comment, too wrapped up in greeting Seth. As they walked over to the table, Hyienna caught sight of the knuckles of Seth’s right hand.
They were bruised and bloodied.
For all they knew, Seth could have just beaten a man to death and was now sitting here casually drinking coffee as though nothing had happened. Hyienna did not want to get mixed up with a man for who casual violence was as natural as breathing. But he was already in far too deep to back out now.
“Seth” said Solomon. Hyienna watched as the two exchanged a soul brother handshake and giving the slightest of nods, as though they were conscious that their body language would give anything away to Hyienna.
“Thank you for coming,” said Seth.
“So, what have you got for me?” asked Solomon.
But Seth held up a meaty hand. “First thing’s first; I believe you have something for me.”
Solomon nodded and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a wadded envelope. Seth took the envelope, scanned the contents with a bored expression, before tucking it away in his coat. Hyienna once again caught glimpse of the Hammer of God tattoo on his forearm.
“So... what have you got for me?” asked Solomon again.
“Well, I did a little bit of digging, and despite your man’s claims about being a writer, he’s not published anything of note. An aspiring Fitzgerald, he is not.”
“So, how is he able to afford all that fancy shit?” asked Solomon. “Is he a bootlegger? A gun runner?”
“No” said Seth, smiling thinly. “Nathaniel doesn’t seem to have his fingers in those particular pies. If he did, I imagine they wouldn’t take too kindly to him flaunting his cash around like that. But I did find something else. I was tracking down some of his purchases and the cash he uses seems to be above board, but... he had to do a fair trading beforehand.”
“Trading?” asked Solomon. “For what?”
Seth took something out of his pocket and slid it across the table to Solomon.
It was a raw-cut ruby, unlike anything Solomon or Hyienna had ever seen before. Solomon’s eyes lit up at the unprecedented wealth represented by this ruby.
“I... I can’t say I’m familiar with this kind of currency.”
“Nor should you be,” said Seth. “It is a currency used by an underground trade. How much would you say that ruby is worth? At a guess?”
“Ten?” asked Solomon. Seth shook his head, enjoying the suspension of disbelief.
“Fifty?” asked Hyienna.
“That ruby on its own is worth one thousand euros. Apparently, the group that traffic in these rubies believe that possession of these rubies gives them a frontline to God or some religious bullshit.”
“I’m guessing you’re not a believer?” asked Hyienna.
“I’m a simple man” Seth said. “I only believe what is right before my eyes. And they have yet to deceive me. I am happy to swim within these waters, but I refrain from the deep dive altogether.”
Solomon clasped his hand greedily around the ruby, as though he had just stumbled across a great fortune. “And how many of these does Nathaniel have?”
“It’s hard to say for certain,” said Seth. “He seems to have dipped into that fund and traded them in for euros over a number of years. And the kind of people that he traded with aren’t exactly the kind that keep receipts if you take my meaning. He’s done very well to not leave a paper trail behind. You’ve got to admire how careful he has been.”
“’Admire’ is not the term I would use” said Solomon, his hatred for Nathaniel too settled in to be shifted at all.
“What can you tell us about this group?” asked Hyienna.
“Word on the grapevine is very hard to snag” said Seth grimly. “But they’re very well-connected. They take kids from birth, kids who maybe haven’t been dealt the best hand in life and they go about selling them on.”
“Who to?” asked Solomon.
“Anyone who is willing pay top dollar. My guess is that Nathaniel is one of those kids who was sold to a load of traders.”
“Well, that’s surely not his fault” said Hyienna, hoping that Solomon would see Nathaniel in a more sympathetic light.
But Solomon was more focused on other matters. “What can you tell us about this group?”
Seth winced. “That information has been a little harder to come by. People seem to remain tight-lipped about them. They seem to be small in numbers, operating like a family unit. They never stay in the same place for very long, always moving on to find new prey. It’s how they have been able to remain undetected for as long as they have.”
“Well, there’s got to be someone who knows something” insisted Solomon, who was used to having an explanation for everything in life.
“Oh, yes, probably,” said Seth. “If you want to set off on a fact-finding mission, why don’t you check out the numerous unmarked graves scattered around Barcelona; see where that gets you. What I know for certain is that there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have never heard of this group. And those who piss themselves in constant fear.”
“You don’t seem to have done too bad for yourself” said Solomon, not appreciating the potential danger.
But Hyienna could see the shift in Seth’s mood to something resembling dread.
“I made sure I got the information from a distance and that my enquiries came at the end of a chain so far from the source that it couldn’t be traced back to me, complete deniability.”
“And if they take umbrage with you poking your nose into their business?” asked Hyienna.
Seth shifted uneasily in his seat, as though becoming increasingly aware how out of his depth he was. “Then I’m going to have to find myself some new couriers sharpish.” He leaned in closer.
“Do you have anything like a name for this group?” asked Solomon.
“Apparently, they are called the Moirae.”
Hyienna had to fight like hell to not show his discomfort. He thought about all the information he had accumulated from Nathaniel and the Stream. He had never been much of a clairvoyant, but he could instantly see the trouble Solomon and Seth were inviting their way. Bringing down an otherworldly curse on them.
Hyienna couldn’t help, but chuckle to himself about how all of this had been brought about by a relationship squabble.
“I will be honest,” said Seth. “When you first contacted me for this job, Solomon, I figured it was a waste of time. All this trouble for a woman. But I played ball. I figured the worst I would have to do is rough up the man and get him to stay away from Sarah. But hearing about this group... and if even half of the things that are said about them true... then this becomes a very different matter altogether.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that all of our lives may be in danger.”
“Why me?” asked Solomon. “I don’t even know these crazy bastards.”
“You’ve been poking your nose into their business, therefore making it yours,” said Seth. “And that’s how they are going to see it.”
“Well...” stammered Solomon. “Maybe I should talk to them. I can handle it-”
“For God’s sake, Solomon” said Seth exasperatedly. “You’re not negotiating a scuba-diving trip! You don’t ‘handle’ the Moirae! You just keep out of their way and pray that you go a lifetime without having to go anywhere near them.”
“I haven’t done anything to them!” exclaimed Solomon. “Why should I pay the price because Nathaniel did a runner on them?”
“The Moirae are going to want their pound of flesh” explained Seth. “And if they can’t get Nathaniel, they’ll get the next best thing.”
“Like Sarah” said Hyienna breathlessly.
“Exactly.”
“Well, we’ve got to protect her” said Solomon desperately. “We’ve got to find a way to keep her safe. We’ll run. We’ll hide somewhere, somewhere they can’t see us. I have a passport; we can just leave the country.”
“You take that approach; you’ll be living on borrowed time” said Seth. “They’ll find you eventually. Sure, you may be able to buy a few more years of peace for yourself, but that will just make it all the worse when they finally find you.”
“Then, we’ll take the fight to them!” said Solomon. “We can kill them! You can take them all down.”
Seth held up his hands. “Whoa” he said. “I think you’re confusing me for a martyr. I am not going up against these people. I mean, I like you, Solomon, but I like my own skin even more.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?” asked Solomon.
“The only thing we have any power to do; give them what they want.”
Hyienna once again wished he could be anywhere, but here. “Please tell me this isn’t going where I think it’s going.”
But Seth confirmed his worst fears. “We’re going to have to give them Nathaniel.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“If you have a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”
Unable to muster anything else to say, Hyienna tried to appeal to what little morality Seth might have. “If we do this, it’s murder!”
“I think not,” said Seth. “As far as I’m aware, they won’t want Nathaniel dead. He’s the jewel in their sordid crown. They wouldn’t want to waste something like that. So, technically it’s not murder. Just... a fate he’d rather not have any part of.”
“Is there nothing else we can do?” asked Solomon, who at least had the decency to be taken aback by the plan.
“Not unless you want to offer up yourself or your woman as an offering,” said Seth. “For what it’s worth, it’s not the course of action I would have taken, but it’s the only one available to us.”
“You’re forgetting something” said Hyienna. “Nathaniel won’t go to those people. He’s already spent half his lifetime running from them.”
“I never said that he would go willingly,” said Seth. “We’re going to need someone to get close to him, close enough to trap him. And sadly, I’m not exactly Mr Approachable.”
“And he already hates my guts as much as I hate his,” said Solomon. “So that’s me out of the running.”
Hyienna suddenly realized that both sets of eyes were on him. And even though they said nothing more, he knew exactly what was expected of him. “Goddamn it” he muttered. “You want me to be fucking bait?!”
“You don’t put it in the best of lights,” said Seth. “But more or less, yes.”
Hyienna looked to Solomon accusingly. “Is that why you dragged me down here, Solomon? To be your goddamn point man?!”
Solomon held up his hands, affronted. “Hey, I had no idea what Seth would be putting on the table.”
“But you’ll willingly go along with this?”
“Nathaniel’s fate was decided long before we came into his life, Hyienna” said Solomon, who was now taking care to promote Hyienna’s name correctly. Whether that was as a show of respect or simply because he wanted to get Hyienna on his side, it was hard to tell. “We don’t have a choice. If I could see a way around this without anyone getting hurt, believe me, I would take it. But I can’t.”
“Bullshit” said Hyienna loudly, prompting a few of the café patrons to turn and look in his direction. “You’ve never liked Nathaniel; you’ve made that obvious enough and you’ll happily throw him to the wolves if it means you’ll have Sarah all to yourself.”
“Keep your voice down” said Seth in a hushed voice. “It’s bad enough we’ve been dragged into this mess. You really want to put all these other people at risk too?”
“I’m not doing it” said Hyienna, shaking his head. “You’re asking me to betray a friend.”
“And does Nathaniel think like you?” asked Seth pointedly. “He has lied to you, endangered yourself and your cousin. Hate to break it to you, but those are not signs of friendships. Those of the signs of a man who knows how to use people to get what he wants. If Sarah wasn’t your cousin, if you were just some wandering soul, he bumped past in the street... do you really think he’d have gone to so much trouble to bring you into his circle?”
Hyienna didn’t respond to that because he himself had always considered the possibility that he was just a means to an end for Nathaniel, a steppingstone towards the one who had captured his heart. They might never have crossed paths if not for Sarah.
Seth continued. “You’re just a means to an end to him. Let’s say, speaking hypothetically, the situations were reversed, and it was you that needed to settle a blood debt. Can you honestly tell me, hand on heart, that he would move heaven and earth to keep you safe? That he wouldn’t just offer you up just to save his own skin?”
Hyienna wanted to say ‘yes’, that Nathaniel had a sense of honour that would prevent him from sacrificing anything else. But how well did he really know Nathaniel? He knew that Nathaniel had done many shady things to survive. Things that conflicted with his own principles. And when Nathaniel had made that heartfelt confession the other day, Hyienna felt as though it was coming from a different man.
Was each persona that Nathaniel offered up one that was best suited to serving his purposes and getting what he wanted out of people? Did he even know the real Nathaniel? What if everything he had seen up to this point had been a performance?
But Hyienna would not abandon his morals just yet.
“You said you would help me” insisted Solomon. “This is me, asking for your help now. I don’t expect you to do it for me. And I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to turn me away. But I am begging you, for your cousin’s sake, let us be free of this burden.”
“OK” said Hyienna, trying to play out the scenario in his head. “Let’s say, speaking hypothetically, I help you turn Nathaniel in, what happens then?”
“It’s simple,” said Seth. “I will go back to doing what I do best. You can continue building the life you wanted to build on Formentera. And Sarah and Solomon can enjoy a future that isn’t weighed down by the past.”
“And you can both live with yourselves?” asked Hyienna. “You can live with sending an innocent man to his demise?”
“Climb down off your high horse” said Seth derisively. “I have done far worser things than this in my lifetime and I haven’t lost a single night’s sleep over any of them. I doubt I’ll lose any sleep over this. Believe it or not, this is not the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“And you, Solomon?”
Now Solomon was squirming in his seat, aware of how far out of his depth he was. “I won’t be happy about having to do it. And I won’t take any pleasure in doing it. But... yes, I think I can live with it.”
“And what about Sarah?” asked Hyienna. “Are you willing to break her heart?”
“Sarah is an adventurous woman” said Solomon hesitantly, as though he was trying to commit himself as much as Hyienna. “Nathaniel is not the first infatuation she has ever had and probably won’t be the last.”
“God forbid you both take up monogamy” said Hyienna derisively.
“It takes all sorts to make a world” said Solomon defensively. “She will get over Nathaniel, in time.”
“You really don’t know my cousin, do you?” asked Hyienna. “She has held a torch for Nathaniel for years. He was the reason she had wanted to come down to Formentera in the first place!”
“Bullshit. She came down here because she wanted us to start a new life together.”
“You’re living in a dream, Solomon. You were never the destination. You were the pit-stop.” And then, before he could consider the wisdom of the statement, Hyienna said, “You really think that’s going to be possible when she’s having Nathaniel’s baby?”
Solomon’s entire body went rigid. “What?”
The smart thing to do would be to back down, not let Solomon get himself hyped up. But Hyienna was psyched, too far provoked by the sheer immorality seated before him. “When Sarah gives birth, and she is looking at a constant reminder of Nathaniel, do you really think she’ll have time for you?”
The words hit Solomon with more force than any other punch. “That... that’s not possible. That’s my child.”
“Sarah and Nathaniel have been seeing each other for a while now? Did you honestly believe that their ‘infatuation’ would go no further than that?” Noticing Solomon’s shock, Hyienna said, “My God, you actually did. You actually felt that even when Nathaniel was seducing her, you honestly expected her to maintain a flame for you?”
“No, Sarah’s not pregnant with Nathaniel’s child” said Solomon insistently. “She would have told me.”
“Having a philanderer for a boyfriend doesn’t do much for confidence” said Hyienna, not sure how much of what he was saying was retribution for Solomon’s previously poor treatment of him. “She was expected to turn a blind eye whenever you went out to play ‘hide the sausage’, but if you had known the full extent of Sarah and Nathaniel’s affections, you would have considered her defiled forever. And let’s be honest, Solomon. You never wanted a kid. You just saw that child as something you held ownership over. And your interest now is just about Nathaniel taking away what you consider yours. When you wanted Sarah to get rid of that baby. You didn’t want a child cramping your style.”
Hyienna didn’t care for the unmeasured cruelty in his words. Solomon had likely gone his entire adult life without having to face the consequences of his actions, never seen the destruction he had left in his wake. But now he was forcing him to look upon it.
He had expected Solomon to either hit him or deny it. But he hadn’t. He had simply sat there and taken it in stunned silence.
Because deep down, he knew it to be the truth.
Hyienna continued his verbal assault. “And when you actually think about it, Solomon. Do you really think you could have been a father to that child? After the bang-up job you had done with Yasmina?”
Now Solomon looked up. “What?” he asked.
“Yeah, I know about Yasmina. How that little fling resulted in a baby. A baby that was since lost. And when she came to you and tried to tell you, you tried to brush it off, dismissed it has her trying to get you in her pants.”
“That wasn’t true” protested Solomon desperately.
Hyienna thought back to Yasmina, the night she had appeared at the Green Lizard seeking refuge after the incident with the rucksack.
She had been in the process of cleaning his room when she had happened upon the rucksack. Hyienna had chided himself with how carelessly he had placed it. Anyone could have come in and seen it.
But even if Yasmina hadn’t, she would have still been drawn to the tinnitus sound emanating from the partially-open wardrobe door, where Hyienna had hastily stashed it, too preoccupied for what to wear for his date with Kate, an indecisiveness that seemed to stalk him all the time. The only thing that seemed to keep him grounded was the anchor in his pocket, the only thing in his life able to offer him a modicum of stability and calm.
By the time Hyienna had found Yasmina and happened upon her discovery, she was already quite high when he found her, thus her defences had been lowered. She wouldn’t never have confessed those secrets to someone she had barely known, but in that moment, the pain had become too much for her and she needed to share it with somebody lest she go mad. So, she had told Hyienna all about the child. How she had hesitated to tell Solomon. Had decided against terminating and raise the baby as best she could. She had even found herself mapping out her child’s life. “He’s not going to settle in life” Yasmina had said. “He’s going to be someone who matters, a doctor or a lawyer. Someone who helps people. I had opportunities to make something of myself. But I never did anything.” And then she had lost the baby in tragic circumstances. And the pieces had clicked together for Hyienna.
Inside, his mind explored those memories. But outside, his verbal assault on Solomon continued. “Who else was Yasmina going to sleep with, huh? They weren’t exactly lining up. You were the only person who fit the profile. Solomon. And Yasmina was actually foolish enough to believe that you would settle down with her. But you didn’t. And I think that deep down, she knew that too. That’s why she didn’t tell you about her pregnancy. That was why she felt as though she needed to suffer in silence while you go gallivanting around Barcelona with no goddamn idea that you’d just lost her child. You ever wonder why she smokes so much weed? Because that’s the only way she can cope with the loss. Who knows, maybe if you had been willing to step up, your baby might still be here-”
That had been the final straw. Solomon roared with anger and grabbed Hyienna by the throat, slamming him into the ground, much to the shock of the onlookers. He raised back his fist, clearly intending to bring it down on Hyienna’s face...
...but he didn’t. As Hyienna looked up, he could see Solomon’s eyes brimming with tears, finally confronted with the horrific truth and unable to hide it. And Hyienna knew that he had found it; the open wound that would never be healed.
Seth rose from his seat and placed a hand on Solomon’s shoulder. “Not here, Solomon. We have business to attend to, and I would prefer not to carry it out before the eyes of prying citizens.”
Solomon hauled Hyienna to his feet and dragged him over to the car, shoving him into the backseat before clambering into the driver’s side. Seth inserted himself into the passenger seat. Hyienna barely had time to gather his bearings before the car pulled out of its parking spot and drove away.
“Where are we going?” asked Hyienna worriedly. Solomon didn’t answer, his eyes focused on the road ahead.
“We’re going to find Nathaniel,” said Seth. “We’re going to scour the entire island if we have to. And when we do, you’re going to help us bring him in whether you want to or not.”
“You can’t do this!” protested Hyienna. “You can’t-”
Seth turned around in his seat revealing a bladed weapon. “I’m not used to people telling me what I can’t do. You want to be a brave man and start trying?”
Hyienna kept his mouth closed.
“Goodman,” said Seth. “I like you, Hyienna. You’ve got a fire in you that isn’t easily quelled. I don’t want to have to dump you in with Nathaniel. But I will, if I need to. Now, first thing’s first. Is there anything you can tell us that might make finding Nathaniel a lot easier.”
Hyienna tried to think of something that would throw them off the trail. He didn’t think he could escape from these two. Solomon was clearly a man on a mission, and he wouldn’t stop until he found Nathaniel or die trying.
But even if he managed to find Nathaniel, packed him off to the Moirae, settled his debt with them, life would never be the same again. Hyienna had opened his eyes and made sure that they could never be closed. Solomon would never be able to enjoy a comfortable life with Sarah. He would always look at her and see Nathaniel. And he would be forever reminded of his sins regarding Yasmina. Hyienna wasn’t sure whether this qualified as a victory. On reflection, he had wanted to get back at Solomon for some time, but he didn’t relish the idea of breaking a man.
Hyienna’s mind quickly flashed to the rucksack that he had failed to discard. He remembered the elderly woman who had given it to him, and whom he had been unable to return it to.
He wondered what would happen if they turned up at the lighthouse with the rucksack in tow? Would the woman be willing to hear out the demands of two men, one of which so driven by vengeance that reason had long since abandoned him?
It was a risky maneuverer but considering that the alternative was handing Hyienna over on a silver platter, he needed to divert their attention.
“I... I think I have something that can help us track down Nathaniel.”
Seth glanced at Solomon. “Sounds like music to my ears. Start singing.”
“I was given a rucksack, something that we can use to find Nathaniel. It contains... a message.”
Seth looked to Solomon. “Is he pulling our leg? If we’re going to be meeting up with these people, I hope to have more to offer than a rucksack.”
“We can use it to our advantage, return it to its rightful source.” But in his heart of hearts, Hyienna knew that this was contradicting every instinct he had built up over the rucksack. He felt as though he had been tasked to deliver a message by a higher power. Hyienna had never been a superstitious man, but he felt as though fate had put the rucksack in his path so he could carry out a specific task... and now he was about to contradict fate to save a friend.
“And where is this rucksack?” asked Seth.
“It’s at Yasmina’s inn” said Hyienna.
“You’d better not be lying to us, Hyienna” warned Seth before turning to Solomon. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little detour.”
Solomon looked as though he was going to be sick. Given what he had just learned, the last thing he wanted to do was face Yaz.
But he felt as though his life was now on a collision course from which there was no return.
He drove towards the Green Lizard and Hyienna climbed out of the car, starting for the Green Lizard before Seth grabbed him roughly on the shoulder.
“Now, now” he said softly. “We don’t want you doing a little disappearing act on us now, do we? I’m coming with you, just to make sure that this thing is the real deal.”
Hyienna marched into the Green Lizard with Seth right behind him. Yaz looked up from a magazine as he walked past them. “Hyienna?” she asked, moving forward, before immediately shrinking back at Seth’s presence. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve... just got to pick up a few things before I head out for the day” said Hyienna, hoping it was a convincing lie as his life depended on it. “You wouldn’t happen to have that rucksack I found, would you?”
Surprised by the peculiar request, Yasmina nonetheless said, “Sure, I put it in your room.”
“Thank you” said Hyienna. “Just going to go upstairs and get it.”
“Why is he coming with you?” asked Yaz nervously.
“I’m giving him some money to drive us around” said Hyienna.
Yaz nodded. “OK.”
As they disappeared up the stairs, Seth whispered, “So that’s your cover? That I’m your chauffeur?”
Hyienna whispered back, “Well, somehow, it sounded a lot better than saying you’re threatening me at knifepoint.”
****
ONCE THEY WERE GONE, Yasmina turned her attention to another person standing in the doorway.
It was Solomon.
“What do you want?” asked Yaz, immediately feeling the sting of rejection from that night when she had tried to tell hm the truth.
“The other night” he said, carefully choosing his words. “When we spoke... and you told me about your baby...”
“Our baby” insisted Yasmina.
“You were telling the truth, weren’t you?” asked Solomon, knowing that the words he spoke would be the last time he ever felt any comfort in his life, the last time anything would ever be OK.
“Course I was telling the truth!” said Yasmina. “Last time I checked, weed doesn’t make me hallucinate.”
“What was he like?” asked Solomon, daring himself to move closer, while knowing he had no right to do so.
“What does it matter now?” asked Yasmina. She had never seen Solomon like this; a complete shell of himself, his once-unbreakable bravado shattered.
“Please” pleaded Solomon, and Yasmina could see his eyes were red from crying. “I need to know what he was like.”
Yasmina sighed, reopening the wound that would never heal. “His name was Samuel” she said wistfully. “He was a beautiful little baby. I had never thought much about having kids, but I knew that the moment I lay eyes on him, I was meant to be a mother.
“Even from a young age, he was more aware than any infant I know. Most babies are normally scrawling messes. But Samuel? He seemed to be aware of the entire world around him.”
“How so?” asked Solomon, feeling the need to lean against a desk.
“I can’t explain it, but whenever I looked down at that little face, I could see all the love and care I’d given him staring back at me. And when I took him to places, he would always remember them, pointing to trees or people. He would take in everything around him.”
She found herself thinking about those moments when she was pushing him around in his pram, little Samuel squawking happily at his surroundings, feeding him baby food in the form of an aeroplane...
...and not for the first time, she found herself thinking about the kind of life she would have wanted him to have, tried to imagine him growing older, getting to a point where she would be the one who had to chase him for attention. She thought about him leaving education to go into a job that made him happy, before one day finding a woman to complete his life, at which point they’d be starting a family. And Yasmina would be made a proud grandmother.
Solomon found himself trailing down the same flood of memories, inserting himself into Yasmina’s daydream. He tried to imagine himself in the role of a father. He had thought of himself as a great many things, a ladies-man, a diver, but the idea of being a father felt like an ill-fit to his persona. But as he imagined himself giving a child the parenting he had never received, he realized that it was a side of him that he’d never known had been there.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” asked Solomon breathlessly, bringing Yasmina crashing down to reality.
“You’re joking, right? You would have seen Samuel as some kind of marriage trap.”
Solomon’s first instinct was to deny it, but deep down, he knew he was exactly the type of man who wouldn’t welcome a child into his life.
“How did it happen?” he asked, daring. “What happened to him?”
Yasmina felt her stomach turn as she relived the moment her son vanished from the face of the earth. “Honestly, I have no idea. One minute he was there in his crib, the next... he was gone.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!” shouted Yasmina, exasperated. “I’ve spent ten years trying to work out how it happened! There was nobody around the apartment within a ten-mile radius that night. It was as if he had completely disappeared from the world altogether... and he had.”
Solomon thought on what he had learned only hours ago from Seth, about this clandestine group who profited off the backs of children, who seemed... more than human. “Do you think... there’s a chance that Samuel is still alive?”
“Don’t” said Yasmina sharply, turning away from him. “I spent many years holding out the hope that one day, I would see my baby again. But he’s dead.”
“Surely, we can find him-”
“No. I’m not going to help you with your fantasy of playing the doting dad. Why do you even care now? What does it matter to you?”
Solomon wanted to tell her about the Moirae, how they operated, how they dealt in gifted children. But to tell Yasmina would be to put her in harm’s way.
As Solomon’s mind raced, he realized that he was on a one-way collision course with the people who had unknowingly robbed him of his child. Solomon gasped as he took in this newfound fate.
Steadying himself for Yasmina’s sake, he asked himself, “If you could find the people who took Samuel...” The name pained him like a knife to the gut. “...If I could put you in a room with the people who took him, what would you say?”
“Solomon, I’m not indulging your hypothetical crap-”
“I need to know what you would say to them!” pleaded Solomon, laying his soul bare for her to see. “Please!”
Yasmina sighed. “If they were here. I’d ask them why... why they felt the need to separate a child from his mother. What a baby could have possibly done to deserve such cruelty. Why most of us were left to grieve so that a few could profit? But I don’t think I’d ever get an answer. And even if they did, I’m sure they’d explain it away.”
Solomon bowed his head. “I’m so sorry, Yasmina. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed me to be.” He wondered to himself; if he had been a better man, if he had been a man worthy of parenthood, if Yasmina had felt brave enough to come to him, would the tragedy have been averted? Would Samuel be alive today?
The weight of it all was too much for Solomon to bear. Suddenly, Hyienna and Seth came walking down the steps, bag in hand. “We’re all set,” said Seth. He turned to Yasmina respectfully, kissing her on the hand. “A pleasure to see you, my dear. As always.”
Yasmina watched as Hyienna walked out of the door with her rucksack... containing the final link she had with her son.
And then Solomon turned and followed without another word.
Now that they had a rucksack, all that remained was to find Nathaniel and then they would be set to confront the Moirae.
The question was what would Solomon do when confronted with his child’s abductors?