VBT – At Shutter Speed

AT SHUTTER SPEED by Rebecca Burrell,

Women’s Fiction,

353 pp.,

$10.71 (Paperback)

$4.99 (Kindle)

 

Title: AT SHUTTER SPEED

Author: Rebecca Burrell

Publisher: Cranesbill Press

Pages: 381

Genre: Women’s Fiction







In the click of a shutter, #Resistance becomes more than just a hashtag.Pass the bar exam. Convince someone—anyone—in the Egyptian government

to admit they’ve imprisoned your husband. Don’t lose your mind. For

fledgling human rights attorney Leah Cahill, the past six months have

been a trial by fire, ever since Matty, a respected but troubled war

photojournalist, disappeared during a crackdown in Cairo.

Leah, the daughter of a civil rights icon, grew up wanting to change

the world; Matty was the one who showed her she could. Though frustrated

by the US government’s new fondness for dictators, she persists, until a

leaked email reveals a crumbling democracy far closer to home.

Risking her own freedom, she gains proof Matty’s being detained at a

U.S. ‘black site’, stemming from his work covering the refugee crisis in

Syria. Armed with his photo archives, Leah plunges into their past

together, a love story spanning three continents. She uncovers secrets

involving Matty’s missionary childhood, her own refugee caseload, and

the only story the deeply principled reporter ever agreed to bury. It’s

what got him captured—and what might still get him killed. With Leah’s

last chance to save him slipping away, Matty’s biggest secret may be one

he’s willing to die to protect.

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Chapter One
Crackups and Crackdowns
Cairo, Egypt

In  a split second, Matty can tell you a story.
With a click of

the shutter, he captures a life—beginning, middle, or end. His photos tell

tales, expose truths, open worlds. If journalism is a dying profession, I’ve

been watching it kill my husband for years. But at the same time, it’s keeping

us alive.
A sea of

humanity undulates through Tahrir Square, respiring with simmering fervor.

Sirens have been blaring since evening prayers, punctuated by dull explosions

from police-fired smoke bombs. Casualties, mostly students, litter the streets.

Their luckier peers are staunching head wounds with T-shirts and flushing each

other’s eyes with Maalox cocktails. Hissing canisters snake through the gardens

near the Egyptian Museum. Masked protestors hurl them back. Death to the

dictator, death to the regime!
The

museum’s been closed for ages. No one in the immediate vicinity gives a damn

about antiquities, so I’ve got a front row seat in the Grand Saloon between a

statue of Amenhotep and an arched window facing the square. The air tastes

flinty, like gunpowder. Pinpricks of fire are creeping down my throat from the

gas. In theory, I’m studying, but you can’t exactly study in the middle of a

crackdown.
“Dear me,

Leah.” A bespectacled face pops up beside Amenhotep—the curator, Yusef Hafez.

In his cream linen suit, with a perma-smell of aged vanilla and musk, he’s

something of an antiquity himself. “He hasn’t returned?”
“Soon, I’m

sure,” I say. Though I’m not. Matty is somewhere in the chaos outside. Which

means he has his eye to the lens, so he’ll be the last to notice when the

police don their masks for another round. It means he’ll come home coughing,

clothes reeking of smoke, on a rush that’ll keep him from sleeping for weeks.

Weeks he’ll spend restless, wandering from room to room because he keeps

imagining the smell of tear gas. Where he’ll lose ten pounds because he’ll

forget to eat. Where he’ll catch one whiff of a Lucky Strike or diesel fumes

and it’ll be as if someone opened a window to some long ago and far away hell.

It means being locked in a constant state of vigilance, watching for signs, so

I can run to the icebox for the frozen orange I keep in there, because

sometimes, something cold and fragrant can bring him back before it gets worse.
It means

he’ll be unfocused and get lost doing simple things, then pick fights with me

over stupid crap because it’s easier than letting me help. But then he’ll

finish the story and—poof— he’ll be himself again, the guy who holds me close

and promises me that someday, the world will be what we both desperately want

it to be. It’s our thing. We’re broke and spend our lives dodging bullets or

sleeping under the stars, and time was, I wouldn’t have traded it for the

world. He’s the adrenaline junkie. These days, I just hang on at the fringe.
It wasn’t

always this way—I spent my twenties as a humanitarian aid worker in Sudan and

Uganda. The short version is that I got spooked, left the field, and went running

for law school. Now I stay behind while he takes crazy risks. I should be out

there too, but when one’s husband has been killing himself to put one through

law school, one has no excuse for failing the bar exam. At least not twice.
“It was

kind of you to let us stay here,” I say to Yusef, blinking as the dots swim on

my practice test. Hours ago, as the clashes intensified, the government

declared all foreign journalists ‘purveyors of fake news’, the new favorite

epithet of authoritarian regimes everywhere. After they yanked our hotel

permit, Yusef, an old friend of Matty’s, offered us a spare room in the

basement.
Jowls

turned down, he strokes the bristles of his beard. “You may need to make other

arrangements. The museum is at risk. The Night Hotel has been set ablaze.”
Outside, a

flickering orange glow lights the square. I tuck my study guide behind me, then

stand on pins-and-needles legs for a better look. Even the palm trees are in

flames. There goes the best fourteen-dollar-a-night hotel in Cairo. “When did

that happen?”
“Some time

ago.”
Students

dance in front of the burning building, bare seconds before being swept away by

police water cannons. “They could put it out if they wanted,” I say. “Guess

it’s more fun to squirt protestors.”
“This is Egypt.”

Frustration courses through Yusef’s voice. “We say ‘God will take care of it’.

Then we do nothing.”
The last

time we’d been in Cairo was during the 2011 revolution, and so much has

changed. Shop windows once filled with honeyed cakes and risqué clothes are

burned and boarded. Once, students danced on the rooftops, because where else

would you go when the world tipped on its head? Now, if you dare go outside,

you watch the rooftops for the glint of a sniper rifle sight. Revolution isn’t

binary, it isn’t an endpoint, it’s a fluid state of mind, and Egypt’s has been

dark for years.
“Maybe

that’s what the people outside are trying to change.”
It’s not

that I think arson is a good way to solve problems, but I grew up with a giant

of the civil rights era telling my bedtime stories. What’s happening outside

goes beyond buildings and things. Matty’s photos of sheet-wrapped corpses prove

it.
Yusef

clings to the crimson ropes around the colossus, contemplating his world, the

hieroglyphs of Isis, the soaring majesty of Horus, the gold in Tut’s death

mask. “Egypt’s greatest treasure is her history. In their anger, youth forget

such things. They forget the past contains the answers.”
To me,

it’s simple. These clashes are rooted in three things: power, money, and sex,

which are pretty much all that people ever fight about anyhow. The men in power

have all the money, and this being Egypt, they’re damned determined to control

the sex, too. No one under thirty has a job, which means they can’t get

married, which means they can’t get laid. So instead, shit gets lit on fire.
Someone—a

teenage girl—slams the window, crazing the glass. A dozen cops in riot gear

give chase, shields and batons raised. We will be free, she screams at

them in Arabic, scampering into the crowd. The police start beating everyone

near her.
I toss the

world of contracts and torts aside. The way I should’ve done four years and a

shit-ton of money ago. “That’s it.”
Yusef eyes

his mummies. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” I

wrap a scarf around my face, then make sure the long skirt I’m wearing covers

my ankles. ‘Out’ is where people need help. ‘Out’ is where the old Leah would

be. “I’m not doing any good sitting here.”
“Your

husband will not like if you leave.”
Too

damn bad. I snap a pair

of swimming goggles on my forehead. Yusef’s been hovering all night. I figure

Matty asked him to babysit, which is ironic for any number of reasons.

“Probably not.”
Maybe I

look like a bug-eyed Calamity Jane, but my dad, the Honorable Dale Atkins,

Esq., would be ashamed if his daughter sat on her ass while thugs in riot gear

form ranks across Tahrir Square.
While I’m

doing the one-foot hop with my sneaker, my phone dings. Twice.
Stay put Leah
And get away from the goddamn window
I peer

outside. A line of armored vehicles stretches to the cornice at the Nile end of

the square. Matty is perched on the wall of the lotus pond, wearing faded jeans

and a flak vest, a checkered scarf over his mouth and nose. With his

wheat-colored hair and dishwater-grey eyes, he’s the kind of guy who stands out

in any crowd, but it’s really damn obvious here.
It’s

different for me—my Mom’s French and my Dad’s roots are Igbo, which makes

guessing my race some weird game show for strangers, who seem to think I’m

either Mediterranean, Hispanic, or ‘wow, for a white girl, you can really tan’.

The good news is that at this time of year, I can pass for a local in Cairo.

The bad news is that the secret police are out in force, so nobody’s safe out

there tonight.
I dial

Matty’s mobile, to remind him to cover his head, but then shots start popping

and he hits the deck. The crowd scatters. He scrambles away, and I hang up,

fast.
Banging my

temple with the phone, I watch him scurry into an alley behind the museum. My

mobile rings a few seconds later.
“Hey,

babe.” His breathing is labored. “How’s the studying?”
“Are you

okay?”
“Far as

you know.”
A wiggle

of relief hits my belly. “Butthead. I’m coming out.”
The crowd

sounds go quiet. “Leah, it’s bad. There’s nothing you can do.” He sounds

defeated, which is never a good sign.
 “Is anyone with you?”
“Reuters

has a couple stringers out here. Or maybe they’re AP. Not sure they know

either.”
“Not what

I meant.” Matty’s parents were missionaries who dragged him from one

godforsaken hotspot to the next, and it messed him up pretty good. What I care

about is whether he’s working with someone who knows him. Knows what his mind

can do to him when things are ‘bad’. Which they have been. For months, ever

since he got injured on his last job in Syria. On the outside, he’s still

healing, but something worse is eating him from the inside, something he won’t

talk about. Which isn’t exactly unusual, but it’s never been this bad for so

long. We’re doing our best to smile through the pain and pretend everything is

getting better. It’s killing me that it’s not.
In the

background, I hear a wolf whistle. “Cahill, is that your wife? Man, I had no

idea she had tits like that.”
Matty

swears. “Christ, Sal.”
Saleh is

Yusef’s son, a producer for CNN’s Africa desk, and I can guess what he’s

looking at. A normal guy would carry a wedding photo. Maybe a vacation snap.

Something that involves, say, clothes, but this is a photo of me that Matty

took the first night we made love. Like…right after, and he’s been

schlepping it around ever since.
He comes

back on the line. “Sorry.”
“Since

when are you showing that to people?”
“I wasn’t,

Leah, I just…needed to see it, okay?” His voice sounds distant. Sad.
 “Matty, come home. You can have the real

thing.”
He

exhales. “God, you have no idea. As soon as things calm down, I’m yours.”
“Hope

that’s a promise.”
“It is.”

He coughs, away from the receiver. “How’s your stomach? Did that tea I brought

help?”
It’s a

loaded question. The water in Egypt never agrees with me, and as far as he

knows, that’s all it is. The two pregnancy tests I took before we came agreed,

and then there’s the get-it-while-you-still-can-because-fuck-the-patriarchy IUD

I had put in after the election. None of which does a damn thing to explain why

I can’t even remember the last time I had a period. Or make me feel any less

jumbled up inside.
“Yeah,

better,” I finally say.
“Liar.” He

pauses. “How about I scrounge up some of that honey candy you like?”
All I need

is him. Screw that. I need him to be him—the guy who lets me help when

he’s messed up, not the one who shuts me out and keeps secrets, who feels like

he’s one bad day from giving up. Because from the minute we landed, my body has

been doing its damnedest to convince me those stupid pregnancy tests were

wrong. “I’m okay.”
Water jets

sweep the crowd. The line of black uniforms holds. Fresh volleys of smoke burst

forth. “Hey listen,” he says, “rumor has it the government is shutting down the

internet. Can you get to my website?”
Matty,

who’s a freelance journalist these days, likes to joke that he got kicked out

of the Fourth Estate and into a trailer park. We met at an Iraq War protest,

and even then, the news orgs were refusing to print some of the photos he

took—too controversial, or they didn’t fit the narrative somebody wanted to

spin. His blog is his voice, in all its raw, unfiltered glory.
“It’s been

loading like a ninety-year-old turtle with a piano on its back,” I say, waking

the tablet beside me. Truth told, I’ve been paying more attention to that than

my review books.
Mizaru’s

Window, reads the site’s

header. The letters twine around a graphic of the Three Wise Monkeys—See No

Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, a copy of one tattooed on his arm. All I

know is it was some kind of farewell screw-you to his dad.
“Check

your flights while you’re at it,” he says.
Originally,

they were ‘our’ flights, but one of us is in the middle of documenting a war

and the other has the bar exam in four days. “They’re looking for observers

down in Suez. The military says eleven dead, but Amnesty thinks it’s higher.

Maybe we should—”
“No.”
“I could

fly out tomor—”
“I’m not

going to be the reason you miss that damn test again.”
Okay, so I

didn’t exactly fail the bar the first time. Long story. This time, I have a job

waiting for me in DC, which I have to take if we have any hope of paying

back my loans. It’s immigration law instead of human rights, which means diving

into a system I know nothing about, which I’m only doing because the way things

are going at home, it feels as if I have to. Except taking it means an office

instead of the front lines, which comes with the guilty reminder of the moment

I walked away. When we started out, Matty and I were a team, and deep down, I’m

scared to admit those days are gone forever. But something has to change.
Yesterday,

before we left to come here, I found him naked on the beach by my parents’

house—in February, no less—throwing sheaves of story notes and photos onto a

campfire he’d started. High as a kite to boot. Once he’d sobered up, I told him

that unless he got his act together, he wasn’t coming with me to DC. In

hindsight, getting on a plane with him to Cairo wasn’t the best way to convince

him I’m serious about leaving, but I was terrified of what might happen if I

didn’t. If there’s a baby involved, I can’t bear to think what it means.
Maybe my

stomach…thing…is just stress. People who accidentally get pregnant don’t have

to take the bar, or soul-sucking law jobs. They get to dress up their baby

girls in frilly outfits and drink Starbucks all day, don’t they?
Right

Leah. Keep telling yourself that.
“I got a

one-ninety-one on my practice Bar today,” I say. “Finished in under two hours.

With a twenty-minute Angry Birds break.”
“Funny

that your staunch opposition to the death penalty stops with cartoon pigs.”
“The evil

green porkers deserve it.” And like he’s any different. “You realize two

hundred is perfect?”
“I heard

you,” he replies. “I’m sure the Egyptian military will be impressed if they

decide to detain you for a few weeks.”
Or

Borders and Customs. Sighing,

I click refresh. “You realize I’m going to make a shitty lawyer if I can’t even

negotiate with you.”
“You only

suck at negotiating when you’re wrong.”
The cursor

keeps spinning. “They must’ve pulled the plug.”
He curses.

“The US producer must be having a fit. He wanted a live feed ready as soon as

Jake Tapper finished feeding some White House Nazi his own nutsack.”
“Which

one?”
“I can’t

keep them straight. The dude who looks like his mother fucked a lightbulb.”
That’s

my Matty. “I bet Jake

Tapper would tell me to stay.”
“Don’t get

me in the middle of your unholy crush on JT.” His voice grows muffled. “Hey

listen, let me go take care of some things, then I’ll come find you.”
“Will you

be long?”
“I’m

staring at a nekkid picture of my gorgeous wife. Part of me is.”
“I happen

to like that part. Try not to get it shot off.”
Even the

happiest couples have secrets. When we met, I saw him as this exotic world

traveler—born in Brazil, he spoke five languages. He grew up in places like

Mozambique and Iraq; I’m an attorney’s daughter from P-town, Massachusetts,

who’d dreamed of seeing the things he’d seen, and yet to realize they’d nearly

killed him. He says he fell in love with me because I proved to him the world

could change. I fell in love with him because he showed me what had to.
Billows of

sweet, noxious smoke cloud the air as I slip out of the rear service door,

needing to see for myself that he’s okay. The goggles and my scarf protect me,

though I can’t stay out long. His silhouette is visible through the haze. Head

tilted a little to the left, elbow raised, camera ready. I’d know it anywhere.
I’ve

always loved watching him work, getting to look through his photos at the end

of a day. Matty has this desperate search for humanity, but he sees it in things

that are fleeting and hard to find. He lives in the infinitesimal space between

the best and worst of human nature, and some days, the camera is all that keeps

it from crashing down on him. Even in the worst situations, he manages to find

some shred of hope. Dignity. But it’s rare to see him this at peace while he’s

doing it, and I can’t help but wonder what’s changed.
Near the

American University, students hold vigil beside a stone church which is set up

as a makeshift field hospital. Mourners gather around a lifeless body,

surrounded by others who form a solidarity wall, protecting them from the riot

troops. Matty moves to an alcove by the front gate, transfixed by something on

his camera LCD.
All he

wants is one photo that changes the world. Nobody but journalists and history

buffs remember who took the Kim Phuc photo, the naked girl running from her

napalmed village, but it altered the course of the war. Nobody remembers who

got the shot of the guy staring down the tanks in Tiananmen Square, but the

world still wonders what happened to him. It took a while before I understood

why Matty lets life take so much from him. He rejected the life his parents

led, but parts stuck with him nonetheless. The need to see justice done, to

give a voice to the voiceless. He keeps searching for that one seismic photo

because it’s the only way he’ll ever figure out how to live with himself.
A woman

with a dark, shiny braid comes over to Matty. Thirtyish, she’s dressed in a

loose olive pants and a black tunic, with a rose print scarf over her hair, an

Assyrian-style cross around her neck, and a downcast expression on her face. A

few words pass between them. He opens the memory slot on his camera and gives

her the card, which she reluctantly accepts. After that, he draws her into an

embrace, planting a tender kiss on her forehead.
Just like

that, I can’t breathe.
 At the same moment, she glances across the

square to where I’m standing, and a flicker of recognition lights her eyes.

Matty notices me then too, and freezes. I catch a musky smell, a man’s smell,

and I realize someone is standing behind me.
Before I

can even turn, the man slides into the crowd. Western clothes. Dark, flowing

hair, and a pair of silver sunglasses perched on his head, though I can’t see

his face. He circles the mourners like a great cat guarding a kill. Or stalking

the next.
His

expression flits between bemusement and rage, the latter directed at the woman

with Matty, who’s now kneeling in prayer inside the circle. “Come out, whore,”

he taunts. “Do you think I can’t see you?”
Her gaze

lifts. The fear is gone, replaced with anger and grief. She shifts off her

knees and exits the circle, towards a young father and son standing at the

gate. The boy, ragged and rail-thin, holds out a shaggy brown mongoose, which

hops onto her shoulder.
The father

steps protectively in front of his son. “Leave us in peace. We have beaten you.

You lost.” His accent is Syrian, not Egyptian, which likely explains the

haunted look on his kid’s face. “You have no power over us now. Or this woman.”
With a

bemused smirk, the jerk flicks ash from his cigarette. “This is the thanks I

get? Perhaps I should not be surprised.” He flashes a knife. “Offer her a place

to sleep and she’ll fuck you too.”
The

mourners break up in a chorus of peace-be-with-yous and as-Salamu Alaykums.

The jerk shoves the father aside, then lunges for the woman. A pop-pop- pop comes

from the rooftops. The crowd screams and scatters. And then my idiot husband

goes and tackles the jerk.
Matty

barely dodges the knife on the first swing. On the second, the mongoose leaps,

sinking its teeth into the man’s neck. The knife clatters to the pavement, and

the mongoose prances away, chittering triumphantly.
The woman

grabs the boy by the hand and runs down an alley. The jerk gut-punches Matty,

shoving him off. Inaudible words pass between them. Matty gapes at me,

white-faced and startled. Grinning, the jerk flips his knife, then stalks off

after the others.
Matty is

slow to get up, clutching his ribs, which got broken six months ago during an

airstrike in Syria. I run over and help him out of the line of fire. “You’re

hurt.”
He’s got

this lost, anguished expression on his face, sweat mixed with ash, greasy black

smudges running from temple to chin. “She’s just someone I know, Leah—that

guy…”
Mixed with

the pain, there’s guilt, and I’m not sure I want to know where it came from, so

I replace the lens cap. “It’s fine, you can tell me later.”
The crowd

swells as we make for the safety of the museum. Smoke and flames leap through

the roof of the building across the alley. “I told you to stay put,” he

grouses, as a tank rumbles past.
“You know

me better than that.” I stab Yusef’s spare key into the service entrance door.

“What were you thinking, going after that guy?”
“I was

having another goddamn flashback, okay?” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Can we not

talk about it?”
Something

hits me hard, deep in the stomach. We’ve spent half our marriage dealing with

his flashbacks. It’s not why he did it.
“Fine,” I

say, struggling to figure out what he’s not telling me. Which seems to be how I

spend most of my time these days. “Then let’s talk about her.”
He peels

the goggles off my head, hands coming to rest on my face. His skin feels raw,

about a million degrees. “Stop looking at me like that.” He walks me into the

darkness of the unlit entryway. “You know I’m no cheat. She’s a source. A

friend.”
What I

want him to say is why the ‘friend’ with the jealous eyes and curvy figure was

acting  if she knows me. Why he was

comforting her. I’d settle for some hint of why she’s in trouble in the first

place, but if she’s a source, with Matty, that’s the end of it. I know he’s no

cheat, sure, but he’s never been as secretive and self-destructive and just

plain messed up as he’s been the last few months either.
I want to

blurt out I think I’m pregnant, but the words won’t come. I’ve seen too

much of the world to want to bring a child into it, and any time it’s come up,

he jokes that his brain should be donated to science, not inflicted on another

generation. Kids were never in our plan. But here we are, and I need him to

tell me he’ll find a way to crawl out from whatever he’s under, that he’ll do

it for me and the baby because he loves us. Yet I love him enough to know it’s

not that simple.
The basement

smells of must. A strange, sweet salt tickles my nose. Down here, it’s a maze

of painted metal boxes and shelves, filled with dusty artifacts collected god

knows when. He’s wandering between them, lost and unfocused, so I take his

camera and set it on a nearby crate. “Matty, where are we?”
He blinks,

scanning around. “Cairo, right?”
Anxious, I

step between his knees, resting my forehead on his, but when I move my hand to

his arm, he flinches. My hand comes away warm and sticky. I grab his wrist and

pull up his sleeve, revealing a two-inch dig right below the monkey tattoo on

his biceps. I know it’s from a bullet, which is bad enough, but he’s written

his name and my cell phone number in thick, permanent marker on his arm.

Suddenly I’m fighting tears.
“Hey, ssh,

ssh,” he says. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I’m here, right?”
Over our

years together, I’ve watched him bury a dozen friends, sometimes nothing more

than memories in empty coffins. I’ve been stuck half a world away when the

internet discovers the latest video of some fuckwit beheading a journalist.

Worry isn’t a choice, it’s something that tattooed itself onto my heart long

ago.
“C’mon,

tough guy. You and I have a date with the first aid kit.”
He buries

his face in my neck and slips his hands under my skirt, cupping my rear. “Leah,

I don’t need a damn Band-Aid. I need you.”
His kiss

swallows the night, deep, wet, and lingering. He wants me to let this go, but

we both know I can’t. “What’s wrong?” I say, caressing his temple. “Are you in

trouble?”
“Nothing a

good lawyer couldn’t handle.” He nudges my knees apart with his hip, shucking

his T-shirt. “Though I’ve got something else for her to handle instead.”
I count

the scars on his torso, making sure there are no new ones. Darfur above his

left hip, Kirkuk across his left pec, Aleppo all down his right side. “You’re

burning up.”
“Can’t

help it.” He lifts my top over my head. “Is this okay?”
He asks,

because once, someone didn’t. It’s not something I think about much these days.

“It is if you tell me what’s going on.”
A kiss, a

nibble, a caress of my hip. “I’m making love to my wife.” He peels down the cup

of my bra, flicking his tongue over my nipple. “Who should know I’m completely

mad about her.”
“Completely

mad about something.” I say, surrendering in a swirl of emotion, dust, and our

own tangled history. Fine, I need him too.
But then

comes a commotion upstairs. Smashing glass, running footsteps. Bitter, angry

shouts. Looters. Yusef’s muffled shouts rise above the fray.
Matty’s

weight drops onto me. With a groan of frustration, he rolls off, contemplating

the ceiling. “He’s about to get himself killed over some clay pot, isn’t he?”
As he

buttons his jeans, I sit up. “Where’s my skirt?”
Leaning

over for a quick kiss, he snags his shirt. “Stay. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
I snag it

back, draping it over my breasts. “Seriously—what’s got you so spooked?”
He stops,

wiping sweat from his forehead. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Does that

mean he knows? I bite my lip. “For starters, you could tell me how you

feel about it.”
His brow

furrows. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
I can’t

make myself say it, so I put my hand over my midsection. His jaw goes slack,

and a rush of breath escapes from his lungs. “God, Leah, I—”
There’s

another crash, a scream. Eyes closed, he kisses my forehead. “I love you, but

right now I am scared to death. I’ll be right back. Then we’ll talk. I swear.”
Scared to

death is better than I expected. “Okay. Go.”
As the

sound of his footsteps fades, I slip on his shirt, and while I’m buttoning it

up, I notice he didn’t take his camera. Given that it’s his sixth appendage,

it’s odd. Not to mention the frustrated way he tossed it onto his bag. As if

he’s tired of it ruling his life.
When I

turn it on, an error comes up on the display, and that’s when I remember him

passing the card to that woman.
Who is

she? What did she want with it?
The

looting upstairs reaches a fever-pitch. Ear-splitting scrapes, floor-shaking

thuds, triumphant shouts. It’s either looters or a herd of zebras dancing Swan

Lake.
My phone

buzzes. Matty’s number comes up on the display. I hit answer. “Hey, where are

you?”
“Out,” he

says, breathing heavily. “Needed a smoke.”
Everything

inside me goes cold. We have a code phrase. In case something ever goes bad.

That was it.
Adrenaline

puts a tremor in my hands. My legs. My pulse poundsin my ears, loud enough I

can hear it. Forcing down the panic, I try to remember the questions we worked

out, the ones we agreed to use if someone could be listening. “Could you get

some ibuprofen while you’re out?” Can you get away?
Muffled

sirens, people shouting. “Stores are closed, babe.”
My legs go

weak. “Matty—”
“Check my

bag,” he says. “Side pocket. Should be some in there.”
I dive on

his old green duffel, hands trembling. The pocket is empty, but the lining is

ripped. Inside, I find a Brazilian passport in my name. He has dual

citizenship—there are places he goes where being American is a bad idea—but if

I have it too, it’s news to me.
“What’s

going on? Where did this come from?”
“I got

your back, baby.”
“Is this

about—?”
“Stop.” A

rush of breath comes out of the receiver. “You don’t know anything. I haven’t

told you a thing, right?”
“Matty

please…”
Echoing

sounds, like footsteps off an alley. More than one pair. “Say it, Leah.”
“Would I

be asking if you had?”
He drops

his voice low. “Listen to me. Put on my sweats. Tie the biggest goddamn knot in

the waist you can because there are gangs out here who will make you regret it

if you don’t. Then get your ass to the embass—”
A low pi-too

sound, like gas escaping in a rush. He gasps and drops the phone. My

heart stops. “Matty, say something, please.”
When he

picks it up again, his voice is slurred. “I love you—you know that, right?”
I lose it.

“You’re supposed to come home, Matty. You promised you’d always come home.”
“No choice,” he

murmurs again. “You’re the only home I ever knew.












In her own fictional world, Rebecca Burrell is a secret Vatican spy, a

flight nurse swooping over the frozen battlefields of Korea, or a

journalist en-route to cover the latest world crisis. In real life,

she’s a scientist in the medical field. She lives in Massachusetts with

her family, two seriously weird cats, and a dog who’s convinced they’re

taunting him.
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