Love, Lies & Red Eyes | ONC 2023 (Complete)

Chapter Seven | Arturo

I do not understand any of the strange gadgets in Lidia's house. I've tried to entertain myself and procure sustenance and nothing is working. The few books that are on the shelf in the living room are all about someone called Pablo Helman and his many contributions to the world of film and television special effects.

I don't really know how special effects work, but it sounds interesting. Or at least, that is what I will tell Lidia when she asks if I enjoyed her books.

I keep myself busy with everything I can think of. But it doesn't take long before I'm watching the clock.

The seconds tick by with agonizing slowness and my muscles ache with the desire to chase after her. It's been hours since she left and, while she told me it could take this long or longer, I'm starting to get very worried.

Every terrible scenario is running through my head. Has she been captured? Has something happened to her? Has the mess from my world finally spilled over into this one?

If it weren't for the promise I'd made her this morning I would have been there already, to make sure she was safe.

The contingency plans she made are running through my head on a loop and I wish I could say I believe they would work. But if she has fallen into any trouble at the hands of my former colleague, I will burn his world to the ground. Consequences be damned.

I can't put my chances with her ahead of her safety. I won't.

Of course, she doesn't need to know any of that. Because her plans are for if she is delayed getting out of there or if she suspects something is wrong, not for if... well she never even thought of her demise as a potential outcome. But I know it is. I know it.

And I dread it.

The seconds tick past like hours, slow and thick and never ending. The air grows denser than the center of the rainforest after a summer storm.

My breathing slows almost to a stop when the time she should arrive ticks past.

I'm desperate to move and anxious to have to. Leaving feels like admitting something I don't want to entertain. Leaving also doesn't give me the opportunity for the revenge that burns hot in my chest, begging to be exacted.

I wait longer than she says I should, hoping she'll return and forcing myself to remain calm.

An hour after her supposed 'latest possible return time', I finally accept she isn't returning, pick up the small bag she packed for me and the larger one she packed for herself and hide my eyes behind a large pair of sunglasses. Then, I squeeze my abnormally large body out her living room window, taking the outdoor ladder down from the apartment to the alleyway and slinking away into the afternoon sun.

I clutch the map she made me in my oversized hands, but I have no need for it. My instincts for directions and the four times she made me repeat them back to her mean I have no chance of getting lost. I swing a left at the market and find the man selling mangoes with a red sign advertising his daughter's macrame services.

I drop Lidia's pre-written note into the basket on his table and ask him to pack four mangoes in one of his daughter's lovely baskets for me. He picks up the note and does exactly what Lidia says he would.

In no time at all I'm following his daughter down a narrow alleyway, through the door of a nondescript building, down some stairs, and through a winding path of dark, damp tunnels.

My grip on our bags grows stronger as the anxiety increases, and just as I'm about to turn back and take things into my own hands, we emerge into the low light of a small house. A quick glance through the sheer curtains reveals the small residence to be one of many in a sea of identical houses, all with the curtains drawn.