Chapter #31The Weight of Commitment by: Nostrum   Mireya felt uneasy as she made her trip to Brazil. Perhaps it was the constant connections placing her in the mercy of the air traffic controllers, leaving her unaware of the condition of the equipment she had managed to smuggle through a courier service—the weapons she deemed necessary to deal with her bounty. Perhaps it was the words of Dr. Gustavo, arguing that a solo mission could be catastrophic—his claim of "last words of someone condemned to death" shook her, with her commitment to fulfilling her mother’s last mission driving her forward. Or, perhaps, it was the guilt she felt by telling nothing to Jeff. Six months, even in an age of long-distance video calls, felt like an eternity, particularly as their relationship had only recently begun to mature.
She stuck to the plan—reconnaissance, study, execution. She knew her bounty very well; a fast creature, faster than the ettin that had almost taken her life, but one that behaved like most lizards. She knew of the creature’s thick hide, for which she'd procured darts with improved piercing qualities—the kind that could pierce through a rhino’s tough hide with a sufficiently potent weapon, the layers of most police force body armor, or even an inch-thick layer of steel. Such ammunition was considered illegal in virtually every country, but for bounty hunters like her, sellers were easily accessible. She also packed stronger heat, in case lethal force was necessary.
She carried none of those things on her, save for one—a potent tranquilizer devised by Dr. Gustavo himself after years of studying the anatomy and biochemistry of the creature through Mireya's deals. Though it wasn’t field-tested, she trusted the doctor’s concoction—for, despite his attachment to rigorous scientific procedures, Dr. Gustavo was known to dabble in the old art of alchemy ("the only true magical science", so he claimed as a joke once). Hidden as insulin vials alongside a falsified type-II diabetes diagnostic, Mireya had at least the most important tool in her arsenal with herself—if her package became lost, she could potentially improvise, but she couldn’t replicate the doctor’s work.
Her fears subsided once she arrived at Belo Horizonte, the state capital of Minas Gerais. Though a planned modern city in one of the most developed regions of Brazil—itself one of the most developed countries of Latin America—the architecture and structure of the city was hauntingly familiar. Mireya wasn’t versed in Portuguese, but the similarity between her native Spanish and the local’s language, and some phrases she had memorized—bom dia, desculpe-me and obrigada being the ones she repeated the most—she could move her way through the city and find a way to her ending location: the municipality of Paracatu.
A day of legwork confirmed her suspicions. Locals spoke of a mine, operated by a foreign corporation known only as International Zinc. Mireya found suspicious that the company, a subsidiary of a larger corporation, had interests in a mine that contained only small quantities of manganese and silicon, when the region was known for its gold and silver mines. It was only recently that the miners reported the appearance of a strange creature—a boiúna, as the locals called it—striking at some of the workers, who died roughly a day afterwards with no known antidote. The longest survivor—one Mauro da Silva, a local in a small tavern that Mireya visited during her investigation—had been survived long enough to be hurried a hospital in São Paulo, only to be declared dead shortly after arrival. (Though few could confirm the place, a stray mention of "the actress that played Maria Mendonça" alerted her that the late miner was taken to the hospital owned by Maria Cardozo.)
It was only a scant few hours before midnight, after grabbing the bag sent to the location Ricardo mentioned and booking a room at a small hotel in Paracatu proper, that Mireya felt the need to call Jeff. After a few mistakes due to time zones, Mireya had grown accustomed to call Jeff before his usual sleep time. She estimated that, given the time difference between Montana and Minas Gerais—four hours— she would still catch him during daytime.
She tried calling him, but to her surprise, Jeff didn’t answer. His voicemail message—a strangely formal and confident message, so much unlike himself—picked up immediately. "Hi, this is Jeff. I’m not available at this moment. Please leave a message after the tone."
She hung up, and had to try two more times before giving up and leaving a message. "Jeff, it's me. I need to talk to you."
"I need to talk to you too, Yiya."
The phone almost flew from her hand, for the voice came not from the receiver, but the room behind her. She whirled. Jeff was leaning against the wall beside her bed, arms folded, with a stony expression.
This trick he had, of being able to hide in plain sight, was a familiar one to her. She could be looking at him one moment and then, after glancing away, look back to find the room seemingly empty.
And now here he was. It was like calling the devil. Suddenly, as though in answer to his name, he had appeared.
He was wearing his glasses, and had pulled his long, sleek hair back in a ponytail. He was dressed casually in an oversized button-up shirt, jeans and sneakers, and carrying only a light backpack and a duffel bag. His smartphone rested in a belt holder, a Bluetooth speaker on his left ear giving him the look of a successful engineer or businessman on vacation. His tone belied his sense of jealousy and betrayal.
And as though answering her unspoken accusation, he said, "Of course I had to follow you."
"I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you anything before I left," Mireya said. "That's why I was calling you, to tell you—"
"That you were hunting for the basilisk, right?"
Mireya reddened. "Who told you? Dr. Gus?"
"I had a hunch," he replied coolly. Despite that, Mireya knew the culprit—she had covered her tracks carefully, and she only had two suspects.
"It was Dr. Gus, right?"
"Mireya!" Jeff’s alarmed tone stirred her. "You shouldn’t have come alone. I know you’ve been trying to capture that...thing since it killed your mom!"
She threw her hands in the air, frustrated. "I just don’t want to risk having you—"
"How about you?" Jeff stepped forward and caught her hand, a gesture that nearly made her swoon. "You think you’re the only one that can do it? Listen—"
He dropped the duffel bag aside and from it pulled a small metallic sphere covered with runes. "I’ve been working on a few things to help you."
"Jeff!" Mireya tore into tears. "I told you already! Don’t try to get into this!"
"I have to." Jeff dropped the sphere on the bed to Jeff both of Mireya’s hands in his. "This is very important to you, and because we’re a couple, it’s also important to me. I’d love to have you at my side when we finally face Professor Blackwell."
"Will! You have to let that grudge go."
"Like you're letting go of your grudge against the basilisk?" he retorted. "And it’s not a grudge. Blackwell is dangerous. I'm not just trying to close that chapter of my life. I'm trying to prevent others from suffering as well. And I want you to be there when we do that, the same way I want to be with you when you finally honor your mother’s last quest."
He rubbed his thumb on her cheek. "We’ll do this together. We’ll capture this basilisk, deliver it to Dr. Gus, and then we’ll go find Blackwell and the Summa once and for all. And when that happens, we’ll have the professor reveal where he left Mom, and we’re gonna find a way to revert Dad to normal, and you’re gonna finally meet my parents."
Mireya couldn't help smiling. "That’s so sweet of you."
"Yiya. I promised your dad, I’m gonna keep you safe. I’m gonna do everything to keep you safe. Just trust in me. Don’t leave me in the dark."
"I’m sorry if I did." Mireya felt like a lovestruck teenager revealing her feelings to her crush. "I just didn’t wanna put you at risk. You’re the only Sulva in the organization; you’re as rare as..."
Though her words failed her, the message came through.
"I won’t interfere unless necessary," Jeff said, "but I still want to be close to you. We’re gonna do this together."
Jeff sealed the compromise with a single, passionate kiss. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
| Members who added to this interactive
story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Get MORE!
Shop Memberships
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
