Chapter 67: Help From an Old Friend?

She tried to pull it off, but it was stuck tight. In a bit of a panic, she dug a nail cutter out of her jacket pocket and figured she’d give that a shot. After a tough struggle, the string finally came free, along with a tiny bit of blood. It wasn’t a big deal, so she quickly wiped her arm with a tissue and took a closer look at the string.

To her shock, it was beeping with a bright red light. Suddenly, it hit her: someone was tracking her. Maybe it was Zayden or one of her enemies, but she couldn’t tell who. Feeling frantic, she broke the string and flushed it down the toilet, wanting to get rid of any evidence of what had just happened.

Zeynep walked out of the salon’s bathroom, her arm still hurting from a little cut she had hidden under the sleeve of a jacket she borrowed. The buzzing fluorescent lights in the salon were kind of annoying, masking the rising panic in her chest. She reminded herself to breathe normally, kept her head down, and quickly slipped out through the back door.

The tracker was gone. Flushed. Sunk. Destroyed. For the first time since waking up in that cabin, she felt like her old self again, the version she couldn’t stand, the one always on the run, lying, and disappearing. The version that knew how to vanish without a trace.

Outside, the weather was chillier than she expected. Manhattan in the early morning was already loud, filled with delivery trucks, honking taxis, and people rushing to work; all the noise helped her blend in.

But noise also meant cameras. Every streetlight. Every shop. Every crosswalk. She couldn’t let herself get caught on any of them. Not today. So she kept her hood pulled low and checked the windows for reflections. Instead of really looking around, she focused on peering through everything. That was her trick: spotting the cameras before they spotted her. And she dodged everyone else around her.

After weaving through blocks of concrete until her legs ached, she found what she needed: a nearly forgotten gem tucked under an old bridge, a LinkBox street hub. It was updated enough to work but outdated enough that it wasn’t really watched. It looked like a public terminal with a wired receiver for long-distance calls, mostly ignored by locals. But she remembered it well; she’d mapped out a ton of these dead zones back in the day.

This one still worked. She slipped into the narrow booth, pulled the sliding door shut, and let out a slow breath. Her breath fogged up the glass. She punched in the number from memory, not just any number, but one she promised herself she’d never call again.

It rang once.

Twice.

Then,

A click.

Followed by a voice that was calm enough to make her knees feel a little shaky.

"...Zey?" Reyes’s voice carried that cool, professional vibe but had a hint of genuine concern. "Tell me I’m not dreaming."

Her throat got tight. "Reyes... I need you."

There was a long pause.

"Where are you?"

"Manhattan. Upper East Side." She swallowed hard. "I don’t have long."

Reyes let out a deep breath, a sound she had really missed. "You ghosted me, and now you’re calling from a street hub like some kind of apparition? You’ve got to be kidding me."

"I, uh, didn’t know who else to reach out to."

"You found the right person," Reyes said right away. "What do you need?"

Zeynep shut her eyes and barely managed to whisper, "Everything."

There was a beat of silence before Reyes switched into serious mode. "Alright, spill it."

"I need a passport. A visa. A new name. ID. Some cash. A way out of Manhattan without hitting any checkpoints. And a flight out of the country in a week."

Reyes let out a low whistle. "Wow, you’re going all out."

"You seriously have no clue."

"Oh, I totally do." Reyes’s voice got lower. "Your name popped up in some internal chatter after you vanished."

Zeynep froze. "...What chatter?"

"The kind you don’t want your name to be a part of." Reyes hesitated a moment. "Zey, there’s a bounty on your movements."

Her stomach dropped. "So I was right..."

"You’re being hunted," Reyes said seriously. "And it’s not just one group doing the hunting."

She pressed her palm against the cool glass of the booth, trying to steady herself.

"Reyes," she whispered, "can you still help me?"

"Zey," Reyes said with a heavy sigh, "I’d light up the world for you if I had to."

A shiver went through her.

"But you’ve got to act fast," Reyes went on. "Send me your location."

"I can’t do that," she shot back. "I ditched the tracker. They could’ve followed it."

Reyes let out a frustrated curse. "So they’re closing in on nothing, then."

"That’s a good thing."

"No," Reyes said with a serious tone. "It’s bad for them, but good for you. And it’s good for me too; we’ve got a day or two to figure things out."

Zeynep felt her breath catch. "Reyes..."

"Just give me one hour," Reyes instructed. "Meet me at the old train depot on 143rd. It’s abandoned, no cameras. I’ll leave a black duffel in locker 18C. It’ll have everything you need."

"Is it still a week to Malaysia?" she asked.

"Five days," Reyes corrected. "You’ll be across the ocean by then. I’ll route you through rural freight, then you’ll catch an unregistered ferry to the private airstrip."

Zeynep felt her knees go weak, relief washing over her like a wave. "Reyes..."

"Zey," Reyes said softly. "Just don’t disappear again, okay?"

Her eyes started to sting. "I can’t promise that. I don’t know who else is after me."

"Do you think I care?" Reyes murmured. "I just need to know you’re okay."

She swallowed hard, trying to push back tears. "I’m doing my best."

"You always go at it alone," Reyes said gently. "Let me help this time."