Chapter 15

“What are you doing?” Leo hissed, making me jump.

I minimized the window even though he had already seen it. “I just needed a distraction for a minute,” I answered quickly.

He searched my face for a moment. “Did anything look familiar?” he whispered.

“Yesterday was my birthday. They had a vigil or something,” I reported emotionlessly trying to throw him off my trail.

“But you don’t remember anything else?”

I shook my head.

“I’ll get you a tablet so you can look more later.” He had logged out of his computer and taken up the mouse of my computer now that I had scooted away. “Right now, we need you to be familiar with the database list.”

“Can I just get it from a cell phone?” I sighed.

He looked at me again, hand still resting on the mouse. I could almost see the thoughts moving through his head; calculating. “I might be able to make that work. You need a new phone anyway.”

“Can we get out of here then? I’m going to lose my mind of boredom.”

He smiled with a small quiet laugh blown through his nose. “I guess we can go get you a phone and I can figure out how to get you in the system from there. I heard the moon is out tonight.”

“It’s nearly midnight. How are we going to buy a cell phone now?” I whispered so I didn’t sound stupid to everyone else.

He logged me out of the computer and stood, taking my hand. My eyes still questioned what he was doing but he looked back at me confidently. I was supposed to trust him and find out the answer to my question.

We left The Nest and walked a while through the night to what looked like a warehouse on the edge of town. There were no lights in the parking lot but at least twenty cars were neatly parked by the front door; if you could call it that. To me it looked like a hole in the top of a tin can that was flipped on its side and half buried in the ground.

“Are you going to tell me what this place is or do I have to guess?” I grumbled as we approached the opening.

“This is the black market. This is where Warren really makes money.”

“He seems pretty complex. Is there a story I should know?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s get the phone and I’ll tell you later. Just follow along with me and try not to stare.”

“Why?” I wondered when he took my arm.

“People are a little different here and they don’t react very well if you stare,” he replied, being as vague as he possibly could.

“Leo,” I whined, stopping among the line of cars, “just tell me what’s going on.”

He turned to look at me. “Do you trust me?”

“You’re not exactly making it easy to trust you,” I grumbled.

“If you don’t trust me, none of this is going to work, Raven,” he reasoned, reaching up to touch my cheek.

I batted his hand away and stepped back from him. “I understand, but…” I trailed off thinking back to what I saw and how terrified it made me feel.

“It wasn’t me in whatever you saw, Raven. I would never do that to you and I think you know that.” He came toward me slowly, blocking an easy escape. “I’m in love with you, Raven, and you said the same thing to me just a few days ago. I get that things are a little different now but I need you to trust me.”

Slowly, he came closer to me until we were toe to toe. Then he just stood there, looking at me. I looked at him for a long moment, trying to come up with my next move. He waited for a response patiently. Something inside of me gradually remembered him the longer we stood there so close together. There were no specific memories yet but a sort of muscle memory to the love I had for him. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to love him. Everything else was just getting in the way. So what was my move? What should I do?

In a split second I smashed my lips to his as if I had to surprise him with the kiss but I could feel him smile. He knew that I would give in.
The moment our lips touched I was pretty sure that something exploded for dramatic effect. Whether it actually did or not, I have no idea because I was watching us kiss hundreds of times over in flashes of images moving nearly too fast to follow.

I was in love with him and I remembered loving him.

His hands had moved up my arms slowly to my face, holding it gently as if I were made of china. When I pulled away slowly, his hands lingered then pulled me back for another kiss. I leaned into him a little too much on the third kiss and he stumbled backward into another car, making the alarm go off. Like children, we began to giggle as we jogged away from the car toward the market entrance. He didn’t ask me if I trusted him again, we just carried on into the throng of bodies moving into and coming out of the market.

There was an organized sort of chaos inside the tin can. Traffic had a flow to it which we followed tentatively even though we moved down the middle of the aisle. I kept my head pointed forward but my eyes darted from booth to booth and person to person.

To my right were Glock, Beretta, AK, and Smith and Wesson, among others like RPG, Grenade Launcher, and Bazooka. Silver, gold, and chrome glinted between sleek black, wood, and army green. Crates of ammunition coiled and loose stood guard at the entrance to some booths, hinting at the treasures held within.

To my left, screeches and squawks joined growls and barks. There was a cacophony of cries rising above the voices of those in the crowded aisles. Feathers of every color fanned and fidgeted, pushing white down feathers through the air around the metal cages. Below them, gleaming eyes watched the crowd, pacing to and fro, daring someone to open the door and set them free. Other shapes huddled in corners or voiced their unhappy opinion about the space they occupied.

Where the cages left off, stands were selling animals of a different breed, dressed up in colors rivaling those of the birds. The expressions on their over-painted faces said that they were professionals while further down it was clear that they were new to the trade. Some of those needed the invisible cage of drugs that made them stare off with glassy eyes.

Across from them, a plywood wall had been erected and painted black to conceal whatever lay within. The only indication that it was a booth was a single opening where a black fabric curtain hung, moving gently with the air from the passing crowd. This was where Leo pulled me out of the flow and through the fabric in one quick movement.

I opened my mouth to ask what we were doing in this booth but seeing Leo’s smile, I shut it again and trusted him to know what he was doing. My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, allowing me to follow Leo around a corner easily before the glow of a computer screen lit the space.
“Whose phone am I tracking today?” questioned a mousy figure with coke-bottle thick glasses hunched behind a desk where the computer sat.
“She needs a new phone. The last one met a wall,” Leo answered.

I made a show of rolling my eyes but didn’t comment. Judging by the way the man hid behind the desk, I wasn’t nice to him in the past.
With a sigh, he stood and went to a cabinet where he unlocked the door with his thumbprint. He then plucked out a brand new phone in a gleaming white box from the top shelf before returning to the desk. “I suppose you’ll want it cloned as well.”

“If you could please,” Leo chimed, snaking his arm around my waist and pulling me in for a kiss.

“You’re both lucky I’m on Warren’s payroll or I might charge you double for this. What is this, the third time in six months?

“You’re lucky she takes her temper out on the phone.” Leo smiled though it was a fairly open threat.

The mousey man clicked away at a keyboard hidden in the desk and after half an hour, with me antsy as hell, he put the phone back in the box and slid it across the desk. “Try to hold on to this one. With Orin needing phones for his new guys, my stock is running low.”

“I didn’t know you were shipping to Russia now.”

“He came to pick up a batch a couple days ago. Warren ordered them for him. I have to finish more for him by the end of the month.”

Leo made a face before taking the phone. He nodded thanks to the man then turned on his heel and caught me around the waist again to lead me out of the booth, then out of the tin can. Or almost out, anyway, because we were stopped in the entrance by a pair of bulging tree trunks.