Dark Vengeance by Kristi Belcamino (libby ebook reader .txt) 📗

the mechanic had mentioned. It was a crude map. It showed the main street and a street that ran parallel to it. Other lines indicated side streets. A car marked the mechanic’s garage. One street was winding and at the end of it was a drawing of a house with an X on it.

Boom. I tore the paper into shreds and then scattered them to the wind. I didn’t like to litter, but I couldn’t take the chance that anything would lead back to the mechanic and his family.

Back at the beach, the waves were empty. I walked back up to the road and slowly walked past the huts. Everyone had all the doors and windows open to catch the breeze. The way the huts were laid out, they had large front doors facing the ocean and windows facing the road. I walked in the sand in front of the huts, looking inside.

People were crashed on large futons spread out on the floors in the first two huts I passed. In the third, a guy was sitting on the edge of his futon eating something out of a bowl. He met my eyes and kept chewing. In the fourth hut, I found Makeda.

She was leaning against the back wall and had a notebook in her lap and a pen in her hand.

I paused in the doorway. She saw me, put the book down, and stood up.

She was wearing baggy khakis and a tank top. Her dreads were coiled in a bun on the top of her head and she had on wire-rimmed glasses.

Stepping over a figure under a blanket on her futon, she came to the door and said in a low voice, “Let’s take a walk.”

We headed down to the water where the crashing waves drowned out our voices.

“I’m going to X’s tonight.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“For me or you?”

Makeda squinted her eyes, facing the sea. “Both.”

“What about Rose? Is it too dangerous for her, too?”

“If he has her, it’s too late.”

“What do you mean?” We’d both been staring out at the water, but now I turned toward her.

“The last girl he kidnapped, Joan, ended up mentally disabled. She wanders the streets of Padang begging for money. She’s eighteen.”

I squared my shoulders. It couldn’t be too late. It was impossible.

“Then I need to make sure that doesn’t happen to Rose,” I said. “I don’t understand why you all act so afraid of this one guy. It’s just one guy, right?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Explain anyway.”

She sat on the sand, stretching her legs out before her so the water lapped at her bare feet. I sat beside her, but pulled my knees up to my chest so my boots wouldn’t get wet.

“We all have something to hide,” she said, shooting me a sideways glance. “Every single one of us is here hiding from something.”

“That’s obvious.”

She gave me a glance to see if I was being snarky. I wasn’t.

“When he first arrived a few years ago, we all came back to our huts one night and found sealed envelopes. They were dossiers on each one of us. For many of us, they proved that he could destroy the lives we had created here with one phone call. The few people who actually weren’t here for that reason, found surveillance photos of their loved ones back home. There was a note scribbled on the back of each envelope. It said, ‘You mind your business and I’ll mind mine.’”

I thought about that. He had unprecedented access to information that only someone with hacker skills would have. Very interesting. It was a lead. Not only was one of my closest friends, Danny, a skilled hacker, but Eva was an expert and I wasn’t too bad myself.

“I heard he’s fucked up people who’ve poked around.”

Makeda looked at me in surprise, her green eyes blinking. “Whoever told you that is either very brave or very stupid.”

“I trust you. You’re the only one I’m talking to about this. That person is safe.”

“Good,” she said. “If you show up at his house, there is a chance he’s just going to come through here and set all our houses on fire and then blow up our world in other ways. He knows you are staying down here, so this is the first place he’s going to look—and destroy.”

I stood and brushed the sand off. “Not if I kill him first.”

“Good luck with that.”

She also stood and headed back to her hut. I waited staring out at the sea. I’d have to be smart about it. I’d have one shot. And one shot only.

I went back to my hut and crawled onto Rose’s futon, pulling her thin blanket up over me. I fell into an uneasy sleep. Right before I drifted off, I realized that in order to save Rose I would jeopardize at least a dozen other people. That didn’t sit well with me.

But I also knew I didn’t have any other choice.

It would be on me. Lives would be on the line.

If I fucked up, it would be all my fault.

9

When I woke, it was dark.

Despite the mechanic’s warning not to go tonight, I had to.

I couldn’t risk whatever happened to that homeless girl in Padang happening to Rose. Makeda hadn’t explained what had caused the girl, Joan, to lose her way—whether it was excessive drug use or a head injury or what, but none of that was acceptable.

I checked my phone. There were no calls from the vet. I turned it off and stuck it in my jacket pocket. The last thing I needed was it ringing or vibrating when I was sneaking into X’s house.

I’d pulled the bike inside the hut when I went to bed. Now, I wheeled it out to the sand and then to the road. The light of a bonfire flickered down the beach. Good. I was glad people were down at the beach still instead of in their huts where they might see me pass.

I waited until I’d wheeled the bike down the main road