The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (beach read .TXT) 📕

Ben nodded to the voice at his shoulder. “I got that part right. I have a way out.” A patch of woods with a creek running through it separated the pharmacy strip mall from Highway 1 and Ben’s motel. The creek, part of the area’s drainage, ran for miles. He could hide there for a while. He just had to get over the six-foot fence behind the grocery.

The dumpster helped. Ben climbed up and took the fence with a single up-and-over heave. He favored his bad knee on the landing, and wound up turning his ankle on the other leg.

Perfect. He limped into the woods. At least there were no new sirens.

No sirens doesn’t mean no police. Cops are sneaky. Spot one cruiser and expect three more. Look left, kid, toward the street.

Ben caught a glimpse of white and blue through the trees. A police cruiser ghosted along the road next to the woods. Slow. Searching. Why did Hale always have to be right?

His hand grazed the injector in his pocket—Tess’s kick. She’d said the burst of energy could last up to five minutes. After that, depending on the progression of his disease, he might never move again. He pulled his hand away. Not yet.

A steady slope brought him down to the creek. Ice clung to the larger rocks, but most of the drainage ran free. Ben steered clear of the water, keeping to the trees along the bank as long as possible, then splashed through a moss-covered culvert beneath a cross street. The cold sliced into his shins.

South of the culvert, the creek cut a deepening path to the Potomac. When Ben tried to climb the steep bank, he fell in the mud. A well-placed stone found his damaged knee. He slid down into the water, holding it, stifling an angry cry. “Aagh!”

Are you crying now? Go ahead. Get caught. Give up.

“No. I need to see the Director. I need to finish this.”

You sure? Look up. There they are.

Ben spotted another cruiser on the road above. He retreated into the culvert and sat down in the cold wet and the muck to wait out the cops.

Hours later, he stumbled through his motel room door, kicked it closed behind him, and collapsed on the bed, grabbing a bottle of ibuprofen off the nightstand. He swallowed four pills and let the open bottle roll onto the comforter behind him. The voice in his head—Hale’s voice—ordered him to peel off his soaked clothes and nurse his knee and ankle. Ben laughed at the voice and closed his eyes.

He didn’t open them again until morning.

Not morning. The light slipping in through the crack in the curtain was all wrong. He’d slept until the afternoon—almost evening.

“Gotta move. Things to do.” Ben had to say it out loud to convince himself.

Sitting up proved too difficult. He rolled off the edge of the bed instead, leaving a muddy depression behind. The ankle held, a little sore, but the moment he tried to put weight on his other leg, he gasped. The swelling on his knee looked like someone had stuffed a tennis ball under his jeans. A wrap might help stabilize the joint. He tossed down more ibuprofen and looked around. “Where’d I put the duct tape?”

Ben found the tape on the bathroom sink, but in the brighter light, he noticed the grime in his fingernails and the mud caked on his hoodie and jeans. Disease or not, he didn’t want to see the Director that way.

“Better shower first.”

Ben pulled the hoodie and T-shirt over his head in a single gingerly move, and the shriveled, spotted thing staring back at him from the mirror sucked away whatever heat remained in his blood.

66

Día de Muertos. The creature in the mirror reminded Ben of a Day of the Dead costume. Dark veins crept up his neck and the right side of his face to blacken the skin at the corner of his mouth and beneath his eye. The blotches on his chest and right arm had swollen into bulging knots. The oldest, on his abdomen, had broken the skin and crusted over with pus.

Ben grabbed the toilet’s rim and retched.

Both mind and body wanted to expel this dark spirit. A half-digested egg white protein bar splashed down, surrounded by yellow bile and red swirls of blood.

Blood. The same decay he saw on the outside had eaten into the lining of his stomach. Had it set to work on his organs too? He needed to be careful. His blood contained deadly pathogens. Ben poured bleach into the bowl.

Stumbling into the bedroom, he ripped open his backpack and fished around inside. “Come on. Where are you?” He turned the bag upside down and shook it. Tools, first aid supplies, and homemade explosives wrapped in cellophane spilled out. With one more shake, Tess’s cocktail injector dropped onto the carpet, the last one. Ben sat back on his haunches, and rammed it into his bare arm.

He felt the medicine go in, but nothing else—no relief. The monster inside had grown too daunting and too armored for Tess’s pea-shooter weapon. He still had the kick injector in his pocket. He banished the thought of using it from of his mind. Twenty-four hours, give or take. He only had to survive one more day.

The shower helped. At the very least, the steam hid the ugly creature in the mirror. Without the dark details, Ben could see a semblance of the spy still in there—still pressing on. He dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, slammed down another four ibuprofen, and let his eyes close once more, unsure if they’d ever open again.

Hey, wake up.

Ben groaned.

Clara. Smiling. Blue hair falling to one side as she rolled onto her shoulder under the boat tarp and readied a playful finger to flick his nose. I said wake up, silly.

“I’m . . . I’m awake. Why did you let me sleep?”

I didn’t let you do anything. You are the one in charge, remember? Now