Page 77 of Stolen Princess

She too replies immediately.

A: Four. You’re not that far from it. You don’t need six.

Me: Five hours. Not a minute before.

Sven has Lars’s location set, and it won’t take long before word about the unknown body spreads. I can’t bring the phone with us. It’s too risky. I reset the phone to factory mode so it’s untraceable as his, then wipe it down completely so there’ll be no prints and wrap it in a towel. Then I get changed, pack up my shit, and return to her room. She’s ready to go, and we don’t waste time.

I grab the bloody towels she used to clean herself up along with her bloody clothes. I don’t have a way of disposing of them now, so we’ll have to figure that out.

I need to talk to her more about her mother. About what’s happening. And I need whatever information she has, both from memories and anything she knows about her mother.

She takes my hand, her bag on her shoulder, and we stay close as we head downstairs. At this early hour, the lobby is quiet, and the person at the desk is sitting in a chair engrossed in a paperback.

We don’t check out. Both of our rooms are paid through the festival, and that could work in our favor when they come looking for us. We make it outside without being stopped, and I take her around the block to where I parked the car. I shake out the towel with Lars’s phone into a random bush and keep going.

“We’ll stop for food on the road.”

“What are you hiding from me?”

I hold in my grin. How can she tell that? “What makes you think I’m hiding something?”

“Because you weren’t this jumpy until you went back to your room. Is it”—she looks around—“the man from last night?”

“Part of it.” We reach the car down a residential street. I hit the button to unlock it, and we climb in.

“We could go to the police,” she says, and I throw her a look. “I know. But we could tell them it was self-defense. That he followed and threatened me, and you stepped in and saved me. We’d give them one of your aliases.”

“You know that can’t happen, right? It wouldn’t take much until they figured out who I am—my face is fucking everywhere, even if it looks different—and they’d figure out that I worked with him. I’ll go to jail.” I start the car but turn to her. “Are you having second thoughts? Do you not want to stay with me through the festival?” I work to keep my expression neutral, but the thought hurts more than it should for only knowing her for four days. “I wouldn’t blame you. Being with me puts you at risk. If you want to go to the police, I won’t do anything to stop you. Just give me a few hours’ head start and don’t give them my real name.”

I get a head tilt. “I don’t want to turn you in. I want to stay with you. It was only a thought. I don’t know. It was a dumb thing to say. You’re right. We can’t go to the police. I just don’t know what happens to me after the festival. It almost seems like a frivolous and trite dream given everything that’s happening now. Given who, well, who I could be.”

I grip the back of her neck. “I don’t think it’s frivolous or trite. I think if you have a dream you can make a reality, you should. That’s not something most of us get. After that, we’ll have more to talk about.”

She swallows. “Okay. Let’s go.”

I pull away from the curb and take us out of town. The spot I’m thinking of is tough to get to and therefore more remote than others. We’ll have to camp out and will need supplies for that to happen, but that feels safer than testing out another hotel. I’m running out of personas anyway.

The festival will be tricky. Her mother and Sven, when he catches up to what I’ve done, will be looking for her there. They’ll know immediately that Desta didn’t slit Lars’s throat. They’ll know it was me. So any bullshit we tell them that we’re apart won’t fly.

As if reading my thoughts, she says, “I’m going to text my mother and tell her that a man tried to attack me, and I killed him. I’m going to tell her that he told me she sent him to kill me.”

I blink at the road ahead, thinking that through. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I don’t want her to know you’re with me.”

“Why?” I press.

“It’s safer for you. I’m in this no matter what. But you don’t have to be.”

“Except I texted both of them as Lars this morning.”

Her breath shakes. “So… my mother really did send him for me?”

Shit. “Yes. She did. He was supposed to take you up to a meeting point about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from here all the way up by Switzerland. Do you know any reason she’d be that far north?”

She shakes her head. “No. I never knew where she went. She wasn’t going to have him kill me?”

“Doesn’t seem that way.”