The Smoke And Flowers by R.A Bea

Author:R.A Bea [Bea, R.A]
Language: eng
Format: epub

28

SUNDAY 8:00 P.M

NEEMA

“I keep thinking about that night,” Neema said, staring out into the street below. “He was sitting right there.” They were back at the bed & breakfast. Across the street, fizzled pops of light warped across the windows of Priscilla’s Aspirations.

“Alec?” Kaia asked. She wandered the length of the room, touching Neema’s things. She picked up a lipstick, twisting it up until the pinky brown nude peeked out of the gold shell. “Nice.”

“Yes. Alec.”

“Why are you so invested in this?”

It was a good question. One that Neema had asked herself over and over. Would she have cared if she hadn’t spoken to Alec directly? Would any of this have mattered? She wasn’t sure if she knew the answer herself yet, but there was something about having a face and a voice to pin behind the otherwise vacant tragedy of ‘local boy is wrongfully murdered,’ that had her chasing after any semblance of justice she could find. If he was alive maybe she just wanted to see the look on his face after he realized he’d been rescued. Maybe she wanted to see that look replicated again and again in every victim she came across.

Neema let the curtain fall back into place. “He was sitting there in the rain, and I believed him.” She turned, leaning back against the windowsill. “But I’m not sure I believe that Ivan is still alive.”

“I’ve heard stories of children being found alive years after their disappearance.”

Neema tipped her head back against the window, massaging the stiffness out of her neck. “Those cases are few and far between.”

“If he was dead, his body would have turned up by now.”

Kaia had a point, but in a town like Breka it didn’t seem possible that a child could be kept hidden for weeks on end. Or perhaps it was Neema’s own cynicism clouding her judgment again. The root of it however was this: she couldn’t bear the thought of thinking he was alive, only to be proved wrong later.

“I’d like to be wrong,” Neema murmured. “But I keep circling back to why. Why was Ivan taken? Why was Alec running his delivery route? Why didn’t Ivan’s mother report the disappearance sooner?”

Kaia took a seat on the bed, idly twisting her rings around her fingers. “If it were that simple, we would have found him already. For now, the best we can do is to go off what we do know.”

Neema nodded. “Ms. Henderson. Ms. Leyan, and Mr. Zhang were on Ivan’s route. The route that Alec took these past two weeks before—”

“Before everything fell apart,” Kaia said.

“Yes. All three confirmed that Alec came alone.” Neema skimmed over the notes she’d written. “The Maiden said Ivan was last seen at your father’s.”

Kaia lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He was supposed to pick up an order one day to deliver to the warehouse, but he never showed.”

Neema didn’t trust the Maiden and her twisted magic. Admitting there was some truth to what she said, would also mean admitting that magic had given her that ability.

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