Day 196 - The Other Road

 The Other Road

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

“What about the other girls?” The question echoed in Vik’s mind.

I’m getting you out of town. You’ll be safe. I can’t think about that right now. There’s only one of me. I can’t fight them all.

He had no satisfactory answer. Not one that would convince Fiona or assuage his guilt. All of his answers were true, there was only one of him and there was only so much he could do. Rikard wasn’t much of a fighter and he had their mother to think about. But those were excuses.

“I’m taking you to the edge of town.”

“And what am I supposed to do then?”

I don’t know! Live? Be free?

Vik didn’t have answers for her. He knew the life of a prostitute was no life. He knew life on the run was no life either. Trapped in a foreign country, no friends, no family, no way out, the odds were that she’d be back at it within weeks, here or somewhere else. Not that he would be responsible, he told himself. Not that he had some other life to offer her.

I’m doing what I can.

“Can I call someone?”

“There is no one.”

“I… I wish I had a better answer.”

Fiona looked out the window. She had started to cry.

“Joon?”

“She was taken back. She might be working.”

“Or dead.”

Or worse.

“Yeah. Or dead.”

“We had a plan. And you ruined it.”

“That wasn’t a plan. You run; they would hunt you down.”

“And this is better?”

“Things have changed. For the worse. You don’t want to go back. You want to get out of town. Go anywhere but here.”

“Your brother was a better man. At least he felt sorry for us. You just feel disdain.”

No one had compared him to his adopted brother is such stark terms. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t think many others would agree with her. But right now, in these past days, Fiona might be right. That stung. He never thought he could be hurt by someone like her.

What about the other girls? Her question dug deep.

“There’s no way for me to help them. Tomorrow morning a war is going to begin and this city will be ripped apart.”

They had been driving for hours. Sunrise would be just before six. If he turned around now, he could get back to the restaurant, have an hour or two at most to try to make a plan with Rikard.

What about the other girls? The voice grew louder. More clear.

“What would you have me do?” He said it out loud but he might have well have been asking his long dead mother, or some spirit he barely believed in anymore.

“You do whatever you want,” Fiona answered. “Not that you’re going to care about any of us. We’re just street trash to you.”

An hour to get Fiona out of town. Two hours back to the restaurant. And then what? He and Rikard make a last stand against Arch? Or join him? Who would know or care if they did right thing? Nothing they could do would matter one way or the other. The gangs were too powerful. There was no right thing. There was only survival. Arch, The Dragons, running – all of it would mean death. If there was only death then the only option was choosing how. None of that made Vik feel any better.

And the other women? They were dead already, Vik told himself. Dead or worse. Dead or worse. That’s what he’d be.

Two hours later, the first cracks of light were shifting the dull grey sky. Fiona was asleep in the backseat and Vik was headed towards Rikard and his mother. He hadn’t yet figured out a plan, but he was one step closer to doing something about it.