Page 84 of Dagger in the Sea

“Definitely.”

“You and I, on the other hand, have chosen to be here. To banish the madness of so-called civilisation from our minds and spirits.” Her playful voice had taken on a more serious tone.

Was that where we’d been the past couple of days? In a well-mannered, high-powered, enlightened, educated, cultured society?

“A man was killed last night,” she murmured.

And there was the giant troll tracking behind us all day long, his heavy footsteps, his thick smell. Neither of us had said a word about it. Neither dared. I didn’t want to see any signs of hate in her eyes, or disgust. I hadn’t. Not yet.

“And I killed him,” I said.

“You had no choice, and you almost killed yourself, Turo. And for what? For the sadistic whim of a madman?”

“It’s men like Berezin who rule the world, Adri.”

She stopped, her eyes leveling with mine. “I don’t know how long this will last, us being alone here in Andros.”

“Until they find us? Because I’m sure they’re looking.”

“I’m sure they are.” The wind whipped her hair around, and she swept it away from her face. “But there’s nowhere I’d rather be at this moment than right here with you. Nowhere on this earth.”

My heart ticked to a quicker rhythm at the firm tone of her conviction, her words. Was she running away from something other than the shooting? Or was it from someone? Maybe it was my exhaustion from the deluge of last night’s sewage waters, but I really didn’t fucking care. We were on this island, me and Adri, together.

A shimmer of sunlight created kinetic sparkles on the surface of the sea before us, like tiny, golden, magic fairies dancing on the water. Yeah, I wanted this exile with her, here, now.

“Me too,” I held her gaze. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Adri beamed that grin at me, part sly, part sexy, part girl having fun. All woman. The most beautiful woman.

The jeep waited behind us and she unlocked it. “Let’s get on with our exile, shall we?”

24

Turo

Adri shiftedgears like a seasoned race car driver. Her jaw tense, eyes riveted to the road, hair flying. My Formula 1 Lady Godiva.

Ah, if only she were naked.

The Land Rover skillfully ate up the twisting, winding roads we climbed in this thorny mountain scape once we left Batsí. I glanced down past the edge of the road and my stomach shoved up my throat. The edge of the road was truly the edge to the immediate sheer drop of a cliff. Everywhere cliffs. But there were rewards. With every twist and turn of the road a glorious sweep of blue flashed in the distance, glinting in the sunlight like a fantasy promised land. A prize revealing itself bit by bit. A treasure to wait for.

“And where are we going?” I asked over the roar of the engine, the brunt of the wind.

She glanced at me and smiled.

“Eyes on the road, Lovely.”

She let out a dark laugh. She was enjoying my angst. “Don’t worry, Turo. My father taught me to drive and he was a top rally race car driver in his youth.”

“Great. I’m not sure rally and cliff roads jive though.”

She laughed again. “I’m taking you to a very special beach.”

“That sounds so very benign. Yet this is the furthest thing from it.”

“These are the Cyclades islands. For the most part, they are barren mountain rock. The roads that do exist are cut from that rock. Villages were tucked away in these high, remote spots to make things difficult for all the pirates who came hunting for treasures.”

“Pirates, really?”

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