Page 29 of The Lost Guardian

Brooke glared, but Ali didn’t relent.

“Fine, but I’m still texting you mine, and Santi’s info, too,” Brooke grumbled.

“I left my phone in my apartment,” Santiago reminded her, watching as she ground her teeth.

“Remind him to sleep,” she told Ali. “He goes all brainiac and forgets sometimes. Don’t split up in Peru; he has absolutely no sense of direction. And he gets loopy when he’s overtired. Make sure—”

“What am I, his babysitter?” Ali frowned.

Brooke matched her with a scowl of her own, then turned back to Santi. “Just…just be careful, okay?”

Santi wrapped his arms around her, and she squeezed all the air from his lungs, as per usual. Then she pushed him away, batting at her eyes.

“I’m serious. Be safe,” she told him.

Back in the car, Santiago watched Brooke under the neon lights until she was just a smudge on the windowpane, then gone completely. He would have preferred to wait until her ride arrived, but as Ali kept reminding him, they had no time.

“Do you have to email your job?” Ali asked him suddenly. “Or call someone to let them know you won’t be around for a while?” she continued. “Like a girlfriend?”

Something fluttered in Santiago’s belly.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said quickly. A bit too quickly.

“Oh, so that’s not the reason you stood me up?” she asked, but he could see the grin pulling at her lips.

Santiago examined her more closely. She was so different from the woman who had spoken to him about Inti only hours before. With a horrified jolt, he realized that she had put on an act. A perfectly curated character of someone she thought he would be interested in. The most mortifying part of it all was that she had been right.

He already missed the delighted glint in her eye as she discussed ancient Incan civilization with him. What had seemed like genuine questions, her interest in the exhibit, her interest in him, it had all been fabricated.

She doesn’t even wear glasses, he thought.

He turned away.

Ali was correct, however, in that he should probably notify his job. As long as he still wanted a job to return to when all of this was over.

Santiago sighed and brought up his work email.

“What do I even say?” he mumbled.

“Just tell them the truth,” Ali surprised him by answering.

Santiago turned halfway around in his seat to look incredulously at her.

“Not the whole truth,” she amended. “Just that you had some family stuff come up and you have to go deal with it. You’re not sure when you’ll be back but will be taking time off for at least the next week, and will be in touch.”

“Wait, wait,” Santiago said, typing furiously on his phone. “Say all that again.”

I would rather digitize every sculpture and vessel in the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian wing combined than ever write another work email again, he thought once he sent it. Then he noticed a new message in his inbox.

The subject read: Manco Rios Remains.

Santiago went cold, but he forced himself to open it. He barely processed the words, vaguely understanding that his grandfather’s ashes were with a professor at Lima University. That was helpful, albeit painful, information.

He had already accepted that his grandfather was dead. But the word “remains” just made it so official. His chest felt tight. Santi shut his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“We’re almost there,” Ali said absent-mindedly. The colorfully lit pylons outside of LAX came up in the distance.

All evening, he’d moved as if he were underwater, everything slower and murkier than usual. His mother’s confirmation about his father’s involvement with the Guardianes had made the events of the last few hours feel real, but it wasn’t until this moment that he was actually hit with the implications of what it all meant.