Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

further inland, off to the place where they had left Zymon Gorksi’s plane on the private airstrip. I can’t go there, she told herself, calling upon the faces of both her mother and father for the reason to ignore the woods and thoughts of safety. I can’t go back to Zymon now.

She turned instead to look on Bryant again and the backdrop of Salt behind him. The waves whipped with chop, crashing over and again upon the shore, each new rolling front as powerful as the next. I’m not running anymore, she buoyed herself with the mantra, looking beyond the waves to the place where the abandoned oil platform had once existed before the Sancul ripped all asunder. And I’ve already faced monsters as frightening as Henry.

The mere thought of her former owner threatened to topple the argument she had built in her mind. Henry Boucher’s voice remained with her always. I will find you, Chidi . . .

No, Henry. Chidi’s jaw clenched in fending off all memories of him. This time, I’ll find you.

She strengthened the notion and her position when looking to Bryant again, knowing he shared the same resolve to never again look over his shoulder with the thought of phantom footsteps hunting him from behind. Bryant and I will both find you, Henry. Chidi told herself, her shoulders squaring at the idea. Then, I won’t have to hear your voice ever again.

Bryant’s head cocked to the side. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh?” Chidi asked.

“You,” he said. “You’re thinking on something. Can tell just by the way you’re walking.”

“Oh.” Chidi’s cheeks warmed at his mention. “No . . . I was just . . . well, I was thinking on what you were saying.”

“And?”

“And what?” Chidi asked.

“What did you figure?” Bryant replied.

Chidi shrugged. “I-I don’t know. Just thinking is all.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what I think, partner. I think Miss Bourgeois up there has a gift, all right. And that’s for figuring out what matters most to a person and selling them on the idea of it.”

Chidi looked up at him with questions in her eyes.

Bryant continued. “I seen the same sorts of acts from two-bit hustlers and swindlers before. You can find them lurking around on street corners in any of them major cities we left behind. The kind of person that gets you to pause for a second, for any number of reasons. Curiosity. Pity. Don’t really matter, so long as they get you to stop. When you do, they pick up on something to tell you about yourself that a stranger oughta have no way of knowing, but they see it in you all the same. A lot of folks look at those street performing types like beggars or worse.” He snorted. “Thing is, I’ve found most of them are smarter than the ones walking on by and the ones what stop to drop a bit of pity coin in whatever cup, hat, or otherwise that the performer laid out.”

Chidi judged the tone of his voice. “You don’t approve . . .”

“Didn’t say that,” Bryant replied. “God knows there’s all kinds of ways to earn money in this hard ol’ world. I reckon being smart enough to pick out the suckers in a crowd and getting them to pay you for something they already know about themselves, or else wanna believe anyway, well, that’s just about the same as any other kinda job I ever come across. Least the performers tell their customers some kind a story and make them stop to think for a second. And they are working, make no mistake. Not just begging.”

“I’ve begged before,” said Chidi quietly, quickening her gait as if she could outrun the memories of such times with Henry.

Bryant scoffed. “Well, so have I, Chidi. Maybe not out on the streets, but we’ve all begged for something in this life, whether we wanna admit to it or not. The trouble I have is that Miss Bourgeois up there reminds me of some of those other swindling types. The ones who have such a gift for reading people that they take it to a whole other level. Make it personal. They pick up on all them hopes and dreams, then use all that against their marks to get what they want instead.”

Chidi’s skin tingled at his words. “What do you think Marisa wants? How does she benefit from us going with her?”

“I don’t know,” said Bryant. “And that’s the part bugging me most. ‘Cause everyone wants something, Chidi, and nothing in this world comes for free. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise, you need to start asking what they’re really selling.” He looked away from her, back up toward Marisa again. “She’s got something in mind for us though, sure enough. Might just be she makes good on all that she promised us too. Mark my words though, partner, I got an awful itch that I can’t scratch right now. And it’s telling me that finding Miss Marisa Bourgeois waiting on us to show up down in the Knoll is like getting that late bill in the mail you’re afraid to open . . . and all ‘cause you know that you can’t afford to pay up what’s owed.”

“We don’t owe her,” Chidi stumbled for some sort of defense against his line of thinking. “If anything, she owes us for helping her escape from the Knoll before the Sancul came to drown everyone else down there.”

Bryant barked a laugh. “Yeah? Well, if you believe that we just stumbled across Marisa down there and helped to free her after everything you and I have both seen, Chidi, then I got a whole bundle of tricks myself to sell you on.” He snorted. “No, I don’t believe for a second we just stumbled across, or even helped her at all, partner. I think Marisa does see things . . .”

Chidi trembled at the conviction in his voice. More than a thimble’s worth of fear too.

Bryant went on. “I don’t know how Marisa