Escape (29 page)

When they got close to the bridge, Ljubo stepped on the gas, shifting gears and pushing the rickety van to its limit. As the tires bumped up from the rocky dirt to the lip of the wooden bridge the van gave a jolt and there was a collective gasp of alarm.

“Okay. Okayokayokay,” Ljubo chanted a backup refrain to Draško's pleading prayers and Jaga's lullaby.

Tarik caught Luka's hand, pulled it down onto the seat between them, and held it tight.

Another jolt bounced the van so hard Luka lurched up from his seat. They were across. Jostling along over the rough dirt road on the other side. Still, everyone held their breath in silence. Even Draško's prayers and Jaga's singing had stopped. When they slipped into the deep shade of the gully and lost sight of the bridge, as if they were one organism, a collective cheer erupted, startling little Jovanka awake. Her huge brown eyes went wide in confused alarm, and then her chin dimpled and her mouth opened wide in a wail of protest. Jaga laughed, tears rolling down her face mirroring her daughter's, and soon the rest of them were laughing, too.

*

Long after dark, they kept moving. By the time they pulled off the road and made camp, the thin curve of moon was high up in the dark, star-glittered sky. While the others gathered wood, Luka trudged down to the little stream trickling under the brush, filled up all the bottles he could carry, and lugged them back to camp. He brought one to Jaga before setting out to help the others gather more wood. By the time he felt like he'd done at least his share, the others were already gathered around the fire, tucking into the rapidly dwindling provisions.

“Luka, here.” Tarik handed him the plate of food he'd made up for him – bread, beans, and a little bit of cured meat.

Tarik was already flanked on both sides, so Luka took his plate to an empty spot on the other side of the fire. Maybe Tarik hadn't saved him a spot next to him, because he didn't want to draw any more attention, after the way Luka had snuggled up against him while he'd napped on the van. Or maybe he just hadn't thought about it. Being close to Tarik, milking every bit of closeness he could from the little time they still had together was just about all Luka ever thought about, but for Tarik, maybe it was better like this, letting their brief bond dissolve a little, now, before the impending good-bye when they reached Alkbana.

With so little appetite, Luka had to force himself through the tedious chore of chewing and swallowing. Bread first, to settle his stomach. Then the rest. Tarik wasn't talking with the others. Gazing absently into the fire, he shoveled each spoonful of beans into his mouth with perfunctory disinterest.

“Didn't want to jump the gun and get folks hopes up, or have the lot of you fretting all afternoon, any more than we already were with the bridge to worry about.” Squat, bald
Anto
stood behind
Ljubo
, to the right of Tarik. “But we crossed the border about fifty kilometers back, and we should be in Vlorë before sundown tomorrow.”

Already? The spoonful of beans sank back into the salty brown puddle on Luka's plate. All around him, the others exclaimed and murmured their disbelief that the crossing they'd all been anticipating and dreading for days or months had slipped past unnoticed, the vast desert indifferent to cartographers and territorial claims of successive governments. Then the chatter tumbled into animated speculation about the city, what it would be like, where everyone was headed, how they were going to make their way to reunite with family, or hunt out lodging.

Something twisted and rolled deep down in Luka's gut. He dropped the plate to the dirt and loped off into the dark, willing himself to keep his food down until he'd slipped around the far side of an outcropping of rock. Cold and sweaty, he squatted down and waited for his guts to wring his dinner out of him, but the spasm didn't come. There was just the sudden shaking of his shoulders, the convulsive bellowing of his lungs, and tears running down his face.

“Luka?” Tarik's voice, just a whisper.

Luka stayed crouched down, back to the rock, looking through the blur of tears at the yellow dirt between his dust-covered boots.

“You sick?”

“I thought so. But I seem to be okay.” He'd tried and failed to strip the sob from his voice.

Tarik squatted down, cupped Luka's wet face in his hands, bowed his head to Luka's. “Luka.”

That tender touch, that gentle voice cut Luka apart and all his pain came rushing out in tears and sobs.

Tarik's hands slid down, caressing Luka's back in slow circles. “Tell me what's wrong.”

Maybe this was it, the very last time they'd be alone together. The last time they'd be able to look, and talk, and touch without pretending and hiding, and because he couldn't rein himself in, it was going to be all about him crying, instead of a tender, dignified good-bye. But knowing that, reasoning with himself didn't ease the pain in his chest, and he still couldn't make himself stop sobbing.

“Please, Luka.”

Luka wiped his face on his flannel sleeve, took a deep breath, and forced himself to raise his head and meet Tarik's eyes. It shamed him, watching Tarik's searching gaze crack apart as he saw the suffering in Luka's tear-flooded eyes. “I didn't mean for you to see me like this.”

“What's happened? Did someone say something? Do something to you?”

“No.” Luka wiped his cheeks with both hands. “I'm just being stupid. Go back to the fire. I just need a couple minutes to shake it off.”

“You won't tell me what it is?”

Tarik searching his face for the answer, it felt almost cruel leaving him clueless. But honesty would be sadistic. Confessing his pathetic dread of their imminent separation would be as unfair as locking an anchor around Tarik's ankle, forcing him to drag it around with him as he struggled to start his new life in a new country with his new son.

Second by second, Tarik looked as heartbroken as Luka felt. “I know we haven't been... friends for very long. But I wish you could trust me, anyway.”

“I do.” God, please, don't let him think that. Tarik, the only person who'd ever earned his trust. “I'm just... scared.”

Some of the pain in Tarik's eyes seemed to melt away, and his voice was soft and steady. “We've come through so much, come so far. We're even over the border. What's to be scared of, now?”

Luka shrugged. “Starting over, I guess.” He angrily rubbed away the fresh tears, frustrated to the point of screaming that he couldn't stop his pathetic weeping.

Tarik bent his mouth into a faint smile. “I'm nervous, too. I have no idea what the city will be like, or how hard it will be to get work, or even what Senka's parents are going to be like. But it can't be worse than being marched to the front with a hundred rifles at your back, can it? When we get to Tarina and get settled at the house, we'll figure it out. I promise.”

Tarik's words burrowed into Luka's brain, scrambling his thoughts into a senseless muddle.

“Or...” Tarik turned away, suddenly breathing harder, his gentle caress abruptly stilling on Luka's shoulders. When he finally met Luka's eyes again, Tarik's face was pale and masked. Only his hazel eyes were lit up and shimmering. “I just assumed. I didn't even ask you, did I? It's okay, Luka. If you don't want to stay with me, if you need to be on your own...”

“You're going to be with your baby. With his mother's family. You already have a whole life, there, waiting for you.”

Tarik let out a long sigh that was almost a sob. “I have to go to my son. I need to be a father to him, even though I've never seen him, even though Senka and I weren't so close.”

“I know.”

“And I have no idea how Mr. and Mrs. Ateljević will take to me showing up with an extra stranger for them to house, but please, Luka, come with me. If we don't like living with them, we'll get our own place as soon as we've earned some money.” Was that what Tarik wanted? Or was he only saying it, now, because he felt sorry for Luka?

“You've helped me enough, Tarik. Getting me here. You don't have to keep taking care of me.”

Tarik's stoic mask melted, revealing an expression of wounded shame. “Oh, Luka.” He kissed the crown of his head, then met his eyes again. “You didn't know I wanted you to come with me? To stay with me?”

Luka shrugged.

“They're strangers to me. Even Daris. I know I'll love him, once I hold him in my arms, but for now, nothing connects us but DNA and a couple reckless nights of fun with a friend. Not even a really close friend. But you, Luka... We've known each other such a short time. I don't know what this is, or what it will be, but I feel more connected to you than I ever have, with anyone. So please, come with me.”

The air seemed to go solid in Luka's lungs. Elation swelled up so huge in his veins and chest, it was almost panic, almost pain. It couldn't be true. Couldn't be real.

“Stay with me. Unless...” Tarik swallowed and seemed to brace himself. “Unless you'd rather go on, on your own.”

“No, Tarik.” Those two words dragged a sob behind them. Luka felt the impulse to grasp Tarik's arms, to cling to him, as if someone were about to grab him by the ankles and drag him and Tarik apart. Trying to breathe through the flood of adrenaline suddenly shaking him, Luka said, “Of course I want to stay with you.”

Still looking like his heart was breaking, Tarik cupped Luka's face in his hands. “Good.” Press of warm lips. Not a deep kiss, but urgent. Almost rough. “God, I'm sorry Luka.”

“For what?”

“It hurt so bad, just now, thinking you were leaving me. And I'm such a blind ass, all this time I let you think I was leaving you. And every time I saw you looking afraid and miserable, I assumed you were just scared about the crossing. It never even occurred to me you might imagine I wouldn't want you to stay with me.”

It had hurt Luka so much, thinking that. But it had never surprised him. That's how it worked. People took care of you for a little while, and maybe they even loved you a little. But then changes always happened. You went from being Mama and Papa's sweet little boy, and turned into a teenager they were vaguely afraid of, even though you were good and worked hard and didn't talk back or get into trouble the way so many of the village kids did almost as soon as they were turned loose without adult supervision. Then, you worked dutifully and diligently for years for the grouchy stranger your parents sent you away to live with, and years later he sent you off with a cold, hurried handshake to die in a senseless war. Tarik letting him go, too, had seemed like the inevitable next separation.

Tarik brought his mouth to Luka's. This time, his kiss was tender, gentle. When he ended that sweet, lingering press of their lips, Tarik's eyes were red and wet, making his hazel irises seem a vivid green. “You're the one, Luka. My one. I've been wanting you, longing for you, fantasizing you my whole life, ever since I was five, or four—my earliest memories—dreaming up a best friend, the one I wanted to tell all my secrets to, the one I wanted to understand so well, you wouldn't have to say anything and I'd know how to make you happy, how to protect you. The one I thought of when I fantasized fucking, before I even really knew what sex was. I didn't know if you were a boy or a girl. I didn't know what the person I was looking for looked like. But when I see you, when I touch you, when I hear your voice, my whole body, my soul knows, it's you, Luka.”

It couldn't be real, happiness so big and heavy it was crushing all the air out of his chest. There was nothing he could say. He couldn't even think. There was only a mindless need to be close, to be joined together. Still crouching, legs woven together, Luka pressed himself close against Tarik, wrapped his arms around him, kissed him, pleading for a real, deep kiss this time, opening and yielding himself completely.

A dry scuff. The clatter of scattered stones. By the time Luka was on his feet, Tarik was caging him behind him with one arm, so Luka barely managed to glimpse
Ljubo
standing a meter away, leveling a hard look at Tarik.

“So. This is where the two of you disappeared to.”

Still corralling Luka behind him with one arm, Tarik's free hand settled on the handle of his knife, reminding Luka he had one, too. He grasped the handle in his sweaty grip.

“Luka was feeling sick. We'll head back to camp in a minute.” It shocked Luka, how calm Tarik's voice was. Was Luka the only one shaking?

“Sick, eh? I guess in Bokana, they have remedies they don't talk about where I come from.”
Ljubo
grinned, and with his thumb Tarik flicked the strap off the hilt of his knife, but then held it steady in its sheath. “At least his talking problem seems fixed, now.”

“Whatever you think you saw, or think you heard, it's no business of yours.” Tarik's voice was less even, now. “A few more hours in the van, and we all go our own way.”

“Go on holding onto your knives, boys, if it makes you feel safe. But you've got nothing to fear with me. I'm not one for hating anybody for their accent, or for caring who anyone's messing around with, so long as it isn't my wife. And I'm sure as hell not the village gossip.” He turned and walked off a few paces, then called back over his shoulder, “I'll let the camp know the mute kid's barfing up his dinner, and big brother's holding his hair back, so they don't organize a search party.”