Behind darkened glasses, I mentally search the map I saw in the back of the in-flight magazine. The Budapest court, once our next destination, is now last on the list somewhere below Afghanistan. Which leaves Bosnia to the south, Slovenia to the north, and Italy to the far west, given our lack of passports.

“Go north,” Luka says.

No one speaks. Ana sags against the corner of the backseat beside me, doped up on something Claudia gave her. Whatever it is, I wish I had some, too. I can’t stop shifting, my legs too restless, my skull pounding so hard I think I may be sick.

Luka lays his arm around me, but it doesn’t help. I am replaying my conversation with Nikola last night, my unfortunate exit from court. Wishing I could redo it, sneak out the back, that we had all left within the hour. I cannot erase the image of Nino beaten nearly beyond recognition. Between him and Ivan, I wonder if I will ever be free of guilt.

Hell must be like this.

So this is what it has come to, the search that first brought me here: all of us in a crowded Skoda on the run to nowhere.

This time there is no mention of the mafia, no talking around what we are in front of Luka, and Ana is too doped to notice.

“Audra,” Luka murmurs near my ear sometime later. Claudia and Ana are dozing, Piotrek fixed on the road, his gaze miles away. I lift my head, realize belatedly that I must have dozed, too.

“I think I know what goes with your key.”

29

We stop a couple hours later at a hostel in Graz, Austria, where Piotrek books us a six-bed dorm room under the name Franz Müller.

We promptly pull the shades, put Ana to bed. Sometime after the others have gone to sleep, Luka gets up, rummages through the pack Claudia loaned us, grabs the little pad and pencil off the desk, and gestures me into the bathroom.

Inside, he switches the lightbulb in the fixture with the purple one from Claudia’s flat.

“What are you doing?”

“Take off your shirt,” he says.

“Seriously?”

“Just do it.”

I tug the back of it over my head, and Luka swivels me away from the light.

“Can you see this?” he says. I glance back in the mirror.

“What is that?” There’s a line of six symbols glowing down my spine like some alien street sign. None of them are familiar, but something about the boxiness of the figures is.

“I just noticed these this morning.”

“You know every scar on my body and you’ve never seen these before?”

“It’s not like I’ve seen you under a black light till this week. Didn’t even notice them until this morning. Look. They’re sharp—can’t be that old.”