“Then we’d best get moving,” Regine says.
They sneak down the sidewalk, keeping a careful eye out, following Regine as she turns up one street and then another.
“Blink-blink,” Tomasz says, watching Seth’s neck as they go. “Blink-blink.”
“Yeah, because that won’t get annoying,” Regine says.
“Trying to see if there is a pattern,” Tomasz says.
“Is there?” Seth asks.
“Yes. Blink-blink, blink-blink. But what it means is a question for someone else, I think.”
Regine stays ahead of them, leading the way, never quite letting them catch up.
“She is angry with you,” Tomasz says to Seth.
“She’s been angry every second since I met her,” Seth replies.
“No, I mean from before. We are calming now, so she is remembering it. She did not want you to disappear from us. She said it was your right to do what you wanted, but I could tell. She did not want you to go.” He turns to Seth. “I did not want you to go either. I, too, am angry with you.”
“I’m sorry,” Seth says. “But I had to see. I had to know.” He looks down at Tomasz. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“And there is the thank you,” Tomasz says with a surprising burst of frustration. “At very long last.”
“How did you find me?”
“I knew something was wrong.” Tomasz frowns at Regine’s back. “She was acting funny, all out with the cows.”
“‘Out with the cows’?”
“Also growing a little tired of making fun of how I speak,” Tomasz says under his breath, then more loudly, “Perhaps I have misunderstood. What is the word? Distracted. She was distracted.”
Seth drags something up from his whirling memory. “Away with the fairies?”
“Yes! That is it. She was away with the fairies.”
“Very similar to being out with the cows.”
“And still you make fun,” Tomasz complains, “after I am saving your life. Again. So tell me, please, your intricate knowledge of Polish references. Yes, that would be most amusing. Long, long talk now about how much you know about Polish language and the words Polish people use to describe how they feel in picturesque language.”
“Where did you learn English? The 1950s?”
“STORY OF RESCUE,” Tomasz practically shouts. “Regine was distracted. I figure out why. I say we come to save you. She says no, that is not what you want. I say, Who cares what Mr. Seth wants, Mr. Seth does not know proper danger he is in. I say we take shotgun and we go.” He looks at Regine again. “To this last, there was resistance.”
“For good reason,” Regine says, not turning around. “You could have died.”
“And yet here I am,” Tomasz says. “I am sorry that I know more about guns than you, but I do.”
“Not enough to keep it from blowing up in your hands.”
“But enough to stop the Driver from chasing us!” Tomasz holds up his wrapped hands in frustration. “Why is Tomasz never given credit? Why is he never thanked properly for his good ideas? I have saved you now twice from the thing that would kill us, but oh, no, I am still little joke Tommy with his bad English and his crazy hair and his too much enthusiasm.”
They stop, amazed a bit at his anger.
“Jeesh,” Regine says. “Someone needs a nap.”
Tomasz’s eyes blaze, and he hurls a long trail of furious Polish sentences at them.
“I said I was sorry,” Seth says. “Tomasz –”
“You do not understand!” Tomasz yells. “I am lonely, too! You think you are older and you are wiser and you feel things more deeply. You are not! I feel these things, too! If I lose you or you, then I am alone again, and I will not have this! I will not.”
He’s crying now, but they can see that he’s annoyed at himself for it, so they don’t try to comfort him.
“Tommy –” Regine starts.
“It is Tomasz!” he spits.
“You said it was okay for me to call you Tommy.”
“Only when I am liking you.” He wipes his eyes and mutters to himself. “You know nothing of Tomasz. Nothing.”
“We know you were struck by lightning,” Seth says.
Tomasz looks up to him, his eyes full of something Seth can’t quite read. Disbelief, for one, looking for teasing in what Seth says, but also fear. And pain. As if he was remembering being struck by lightning all over again.
“I’m not teasing you,” Seth says. “I understand loneliness. Boy, do I ever.”
“Do you?” Tomasz asks, almost as a challenge.
“Yeah,” Seth says. “Really, really.”
He reaches up to put a hand of truce on Tomasz’s back, and as Tomasz ducks into it, Seth’s fingers brush the spot on the base of Tomasz’s skull –
Which lights up suddenly under his touch –
And the world vanishes.
54
The room is cramped and dark. There are other people here, he can’t tell how many, but it’s crowded, bodies pressed into bodies, so close he can smell their sour breath and body odor. And their fear.
Their voices are hushed but speaking frantically. He can’t understand what they’re saying –
But yes, he can understand them. They’re not speaking English, but he can understand every word.
“Something’s gone wrong,” a woman’s voice says nearby. “They’re going to kill us.”
“They will be paid,” says another woman sternly, trying to calm the first woman but still plainly afraid herself. “The money will come. That’s all they want. The money will come –”
“Even if it comes, it won’t matter,” says the first woman, as other voices around her rise in the same worry. “They’re going to kill us! They’re going to –”
“Shut your mouth!” roars a new voice, one right behind his head, one owned by the woman whose arms are around him, holding him tight. “Shut your mouth or I will shut it for you.”
The first woman stops at the fury in this new voice. She begins a long, loud weeping, hardly better than the words before.
“Don’t you listen to her, my little puddle,” the voice behind him says into his ear. “Everything has gone according to plan, and there is nothing to be afraid of. This is a little delay. Only that. We will be starting our new life soon. And what a time that will be.”