Page 41 of Burdens
“Yeah, sorry,” he whispered. He shook his head and moved to fasten his seat belt just as the plane accelerated on the runway, taking off. His head then drifted to the side like it did when he sat down earlier, his hand moving back to where he had it before.
My next words slipped out before he could resume his patterned sequence.
“What’s your name?”
My question seemed to have taken him by surprise by the way his attention snapped back to me, his eyes wide. He let out a deep sigh and said, “No one’s asked me that in a long time. They called me Number 7, but my name is Gabriel.”
He’d just confirmed what I’d suspected all along.
He was one of Zakaria’s courier workers. The Alaouis were known to use young men and women—anyone they could put their hands on or who owed them money—as a mule to smuggle their drugs across the Mediterranean. They used other ways to get their drugs across international borders, but this was their main method.
It was highly cost-effective for them and the easiest to stay below the radar. No matter the human cost.
It made me sick to even think of because I knew that if the mule couldn’t swallow the drugs, they implanted them surgically, without anesthetic.
There were many questions I could ask him about Alaoui that would help me gain an advantage, but something deep down told me to give this kid a break from it all. Even if it was just for an hour.
Instead, I gave him a curt nod. “I’m Ines.”
Something about him made me keep going, so I pushed the water bottle and one of the sponge cakes closer to him. “Eat. It isn’t much, but that’s all I could find.”
I would try and get him real food when we landed, but it would be much harder since I couldn’t show any care toward him. He was supposed to be a prisoner, not a stranded that I’d benevolently taken in.
He reached for the hood over his head and slid it off, sticking his hands into the jacket’s pockets. He titled his head to one side, examining me. “Why are you being nice?”
I arched a brow and fought the unexpected urge to laugh. I’d been called many things over the last few years, but nice had never made it even close to the list. “I’m far from being nice. Eat or don’t, but I won’t carry you when you pass out.”
He considered what I’d just said for a moment before reaching for the water and unscrewing the cap. “This isn’t drugged, right?”
“I have better things to do than lace a water bottle.”
Satisfied with my response, he started gulping the water, like he’d been stranded on a deserted island for days and this was the first water he’d come across.
“Hey, slow down before you throw everything up,” I warned him.
He brought the half-emptied water bottle down, placed it on the wooden surface, and grabbed the sweet. “I haven’t had thesesince I was kid,” he said, a hint of melancholic nostalgia in his voice.
An unexpected sorrow washed over me at his tone. Who I used to be might have become foreign to me, but one thing I’d promised myself was to never let Ines become heartless past a point where she’d treat victims the same way as the ones who’d taken them.
I’d killed a lot of people over the last five years, but they’d never been innocent. I didn’t know Gabriel’s story, but something in my gut told me he’d been put in this situation involuntarily out of necessity and not because he was guilty of a heinous act.
I didn’t say anything and watched him closely as he ate the sponge cake, taking small sips of water in between bites. My eyes roamed over his features, really taking him in for the first time.
Aside from the weighted history he seemed to carry over his shoulder and the beating he’d just had, he wasn’t bad-looking. Although matted, I could tell that his dark hair was shorter on the sides and slightly longer at the top, but not by much. The cut above his left brow had stopped bleeding, a few trails of dried blood running down from his cut to his temple and disappearing into his hair.
His left eye was swollen shut, bruises in various stages of healing covering his under eye. There was a shallow cut on his lip and another set of bruises on the left side of his face.
Zakaria had left no expense in whatever lesson he was teaching him. I’d known of Zakaria’s brutality and if Gabriel’s face and ginger movements were any indication, I could only imagine the canvas of bruises and welts on his skin hidden underneath the clothes he was wearing.
He downed the remnants of his water bottle and the hint of tattoos peeked underneath the fabric that had slid slightly with the movement, but before I could decipher what the words at thebottom of what seemed like a larger tattoo were, he dropped the bottle onto the table and reached for the other one.
He must have just realized I’d been observing him this whole time because he stopped himself short, his fingers hanging midway. “Sorry,” he apologized, taking his hand back.
“It’s fine,” I told him, my tone coming out softer than I’d heard it in a long time. Most likely because I knew that once we landed, I would have to put him into a cell and treat him like anyone else. He’d once again become a prisoner, just at the hands of someone else. So, at that, I offered, “There’s a shower in the bathroom at the back of the plane. We land in less than an hour, so if you want to use it, I’d do it now. There’s no change of clothes, but I suggest you keep the same ones you’re wearing now.”
He stared at me for a moment before speaking, “What’s the catch?”
Something about his question caught me slightly off guard. I’d expected him to jump at the opportunity, but instead, he’d questioned everything I’d offered him so far. “Where I’m taking you isn’t nice, so you might as well enjoy the last few moments of liberty you have,” I said truthfully, not wanting to waste my time lying.
