Adrenaline

25

We took the train to Amsterdam, fifty-six kilometers away, and I watched the flatland of Holland unpeel before my gaze. I was back in Europe, where I had been happiest with Lucy, and imprisoned by the Company. I thought of the dead intruder and his own ticket to Amsterdam.

I leaned back against the train seat. I’d traded one chain, from Howell, to another from Mila. I watched the brief stretch of Holland pan out in silence. I’d had months to sit and think about what I’d do if I got the chance to find Lucy, and here it was, and my skin felt like lit matches lay under it. The possible truths-that Lucy and our baby were dead, or that Lucy had betrayed me-loomed large, the monsters I didn’t want to see and yet had to see.

Fine. I was going to find the man with the scar, force him to tell me where my wife and child were. Then I was going to be the last thing he ever saw on this earth.