The nephilem, p.30
The Nephilem, page 30
Now Solomon looked up. “What?” he asked.
“Yeah, I know about Yasmina. How that little fling resulted in a baby. A baby that was since lost. And when she came to you and tried to tell you, you tried to brush it off, dismissed it has her trying to get you in her pants.”
“That wasn’t true” protested Solomon desperately.
Hyienna thought back to Yasmina, the night she had appeared at the Green Lizard seeking refuge after the incident with the rucksack.
She had been in the process of cleaning his room when she had happened upon the rucksack. Hyienna had chided himself with how carelessly he had placed it. Anyone could have come in and seen it.
But even if Yasmina hadn’t, she would have still been drawn to the tinnitus sound emanating from the partially-open wardrobe door, where Hyienna had hastily stashed it, too preoccupied for what to wear for his date with Kate, an indecisiveness that seemed to stalk him all the time. The only thing that seemed to keep him grounded was the anchor in his pocket, the only thing in his life able to offer him a modicum of stability and calm.
By the time Hyienna had found Yasmina and happened upon her discovery, she was already quite high when he found her, thus her defences had been lowered. She wouldn’t never have confessed those secrets to someone she had barely known, but in that moment, the pain had become too much for her and she needed to share it with somebody lest she go mad. So, she had told Hyienna all about the child. How she had hesitated to tell Solomon. Had decided against terminating and raise the baby as best she could. She had even found herself mapping out her child’s life. “He’s not going to settle in life” Yasmina had said. “He’s going to be someone who matters, a doctor or a lawyer. Someone who helps people. I had opportunities to make something of myself. But I never did anything.” And then she had lost the baby in tragic circumstances. And the pieces had clicked together for Hyienna.
Inside, his mind explored those memories. But outside, his verbal assault on Solomon continued. “Who else was Yasmina going to sleep with, huh? They weren’t exactly lining up. You were the only person who fit the profile. Solomon. And Yasmina was actually foolish enough to believe that you would settle down with her. But you didn’t. And I think that deep down, she knew that too. That’s why she didn’t tell you about her pregnancy. That was why she felt as though she needed to suffer in silence while you go gallivanting around Barcelona with no goddamn idea that you’d just lost her child. You ever wonder why she smokes so much weed? Because that’s the only way she can cope with the loss. Who knows, maybe if you had been willing to step up, your baby might still be here-”
That had been the final straw. Solomon roared with anger and grabbed Hyienna by the throat, slamming him into the ground, much to the shock of the onlookers. He raised back his fist, clearly intending to bring it down on Hyienna’s face...
...but he didn’t. As Hyienna looked up, he could see Solomon’s eyes brimming with tears, finally confronted with the horrific truth and unable to hide it. And Hyienna knew that he had found it; the open wound that would never be healed.
Seth rose from his seat and placed a hand on Solomon’s shoulder. “Not here, Solomon. We have business to attend to, and I would prefer not to carry it out before the eyes of prying citizens.”
Solomon hauled Hyienna to his feet and dragged him over to the car, shoving him into the backseat before clambering into the driver’s side. Seth inserted himself into the passenger seat. Hyienna barely had time to gather his bearings before the car pulled out of its parking spot and drove away.
“Where are we going?” asked Hyienna worriedly. Solomon didn’t answer, his eyes focused on the road ahead.
“We’re going to find Nathaniel,” said Seth. “We’re going to scour the entire island if we have to. And when we do, you’re going to help us bring him in whether you want to or not.”
“You can’t do this!” protested Hyienna. “You can’t-”
Seth turned around in his seat revealing a bladed weapon. “I’m not used to people telling me what I can’t do. You want to be a brave man and start trying?”
Hyienna kept his mouth closed.
“Goodman,” said Seth. “I like you, Hyienna. You’ve got a fire in you that isn’t easily quelled. I don’t want to have to dump you in with Nathaniel. But I will, if I need to. Now, first thing’s first. Is there anything you can tell us that might make finding Nathaniel a lot easier.”
Hyienna tried to think of something that would throw them off the trail. He didn’t think he could escape from these two. Solomon was clearly a man on a mission, and he wouldn’t stop until he found Nathaniel or die trying.
But even if he managed to find Nathaniel, packed him off to the Moirae, settled his debt with them, life would never be the same again. Hyienna had opened his eyes and made sure that they could never be closed. Solomon would never be able to enjoy a comfortable life with Sarah. He would always look at her and see Nathaniel. And he would be forever reminded of his sins regarding Yasmina. Hyienna wasn’t sure whether this qualified as a victory. On reflection, he had wanted to get back at Solomon for some time, but he didn’t relish the idea of breaking a man.
Hyienna’s mind quickly flashed to the rucksack that he had failed to discard. He remembered the elderly woman who had given it to him, and whom he had been unable to return it to.
He wondered what would happen if they turned up at the lighthouse with the rucksack in tow? Would the woman be willing to hear out the demands of two men, one of which so driven by vengeance that reason had long since abandoned him?
It was a risky maneuverer but considering that the alternative was handing Hyienna over on a silver platter, he needed to divert their attention.
“I... I think I have something that can help us track down Nathaniel.”
Seth glanced at Solomon. “Sounds like music to my ears. Start singing.”
“I was given a rucksack, something that we can use to find Nathaniel. It contains... a message.”
Seth looked to Solomon. “Is he pulling our leg? If we’re going to be meeting up with these people, I hope to have more to offer than a rucksack.”
“We can use it to our advantage, return it to its rightful source.” But in his heart of hearts, Hyienna knew that this was contradicting every instinct he had built up over the rucksack. He felt as though he had been tasked to deliver a message by a higher power. Hyienna had never been a superstitious man, but he felt as though fate had put the rucksack in his path so he could carry out a specific task... and now he was about to contradict fate to save a friend.
“And where is this rucksack?” asked Seth.
“It’s at Yasmina’s inn” said Hyienna.
“You’d better not be lying to us, Hyienna” warned Seth before turning to Solomon. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a little detour.”
Solomon looked as though he was going to be sick. Given what he had just learned, the last thing he wanted to do was face Yaz.
But he felt as though his life was now on a collision course from which there was no return.
He drove towards the Green Lizard and Hyienna climbed out of the car, starting for the Green Lizard before Seth grabbed him roughly on the shoulder.
“Now, now” he said softly. “We don’t want you doing a little disappearing act on us now, do we? I’m coming with you, just to make sure that this thing is the real deal.”
Hyienna marched into the Green Lizard with Seth right behind him. Yaz looked up from a magazine as he walked past them. “Hyienna?” she asked, moving forward, before immediately shrinking back at Seth’s presence. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve... just got to pick up a few things before I head out for the day” said Hyienna, hoping it was a convincing lie as his life depended on it. “You wouldn’t happen to have that rucksack I found, would you?”
Surprised by the peculiar request, Yasmina nonetheless said, “Sure, I put it in your room.”
“Thank you” said Hyienna. “Just going to go upstairs and get it.”
“Why is he coming with you?” asked Yaz nervously.
“I’m giving him some money to drive us around” said Hyienna.
Yaz nodded. “OK.”
As they disappeared up the stairs, Seth whispered, “So that’s your cover? That I’m your chauffeur?”
Hyienna whispered back, “Well, somehow, it sounded a lot better than saying you’re threatening me at knifepoint.”
ONCE THEY WERE GONE, Yasmina turned her attention to another person standing in the doorway.
It was Solomon.
“What do you want?” asked Yaz, immediately feeling the sting of rejection from that night when she had tried to tell hm the truth.
“The other night” he said, carefully choosing his words. “When we spoke... and you told me about your baby...”
“Our baby” insisted Yasmina.
“You were telling the truth, weren’t you?” asked Solomon, knowing that the words he spoke would be the last time he ever felt any comfort in his life, the last time anything would ever be OK.
“Course I was telling the truth!” said Yasmina. “Last time I checked, weed doesn’t make me hallucinate.”
“What was he like?” asked Solomon, daring himself to move closer, while knowing he had no right to do so.
“What does it matter now?” asked Yasmina. She had never seen Solomon like this; a complete shell of himself, his once-unbreakable bravado shattered.
“Please” pleaded Solomon, and Yasmina could see his eyes were red from crying. “I need to know what he was like.”
Yasmina sighed, reopening the wound that would never heal. “His name was Samuel” she said wistfully. “He was a beautiful little baby. I had never thought much about having kids, but I knew that the moment I lay eyes on him, I was meant to be a mother.
“Even from a young age, he was more aware than any infant I know. Most babies are normally scrawling messes. But Samuel? He seemed to be aware of the entire world around him.”
“How so?” asked Solomon, feeling the need to lean against a desk.
“I can’t explain it, but whenever I looked down at that little face, I could see all the love and care I’d given him staring back at me. And when I took him to places, he would always remember them, pointing to trees or people. He would take in everything around him.”
She found herself thinking about those moments when she was pushing him around in his pram, little Samuel squawking happily at his surroundings, feeding him baby food in the form of an aeroplane...
...and not for the first time, she found herself thinking about the kind of life she would have wanted him to have, tried to imagine him growing older, getting to a point where she would be the one who had to chase him for attention. She thought about him leaving education to go into a job that made him happy, before one day finding a woman to complete his life, at which point they’d be starting a family. And Yasmina would be made a proud grandmother.
Solomon found himself trailing down the same flood of memories, inserting himself into Yasmina’s daydream. He tried to imagine himself in the role of a father. He had thought of himself as a great many things, a ladies-man, a diver, but the idea of being a father felt like an ill-fit to his persona. But as he imagined himself giving a child the parenting he had never received, he realized that it was a side of him that he’d never known had been there.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” asked Solomon breathlessly, bringing Yasmina crashing down to reality.
“You’re joking, right? You would have seen Samuel as some kind of marriage trap.”
Solomon’s first instinct was to deny it, but deep down, he knew he was exactly the type of man who wouldn’t welcome a child into his life.
“How did it happen?” he asked, daring. “What happened to him?”
Yasmina felt her stomach turn as she relived the moment her son vanished from the face of the earth. “Honestly, I have no idea. One minute he was there in his crib, the next... he was gone.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!” shouted Yasmina, exasperated. “I’ve spent ten years trying to work out how it happened! There was nobody around the apartment within a ten-mile radius that night. It was as if he had completely disappeared from the world altogether... and he had.”
Solomon thought on what he had learned only hours ago from Seth, about this clandestine group who profited off the backs of children, who seemed... more than human. “Do you think... there’s a chance that Samuel is still alive?”
“Don’t” said Yasmina sharply, turning away from him. “I spent many years holding out the hope that one day, I would see my baby again. But he’s dead.”
“Surely, we can find him-”
“No. I’m not going to help you with your fantasy of playing the doting dad. Why do you even care now? What does it matter to you?”
Solomon wanted to tell her about the Moirae, how they operated, how they dealt in gifted children. But to tell Yasmina would be to put her in harm’s way.
As Solomon’s mind raced, he realized that he was on a one-way collision course with the people who had unknowingly robbed him of his child. Solomon gasped as he took in this newfound fate.
Steadying himself for Yasmina’s sake, he asked himself, “If you could find the people who took Samuel...” The name pained him like a knife to the gut. “...If I could put you in a room with the people who took him, what would you say?”
“Solomon, I’m not indulging your hypothetical crap-”
“I need to know what you would say to them!” pleaded Solomon, laying his soul bare for her to see. “Please!”
Yasmina sighed. “If they were here. I’d ask them why... why they felt the need to separate a child from his mother. What a baby could have possibly done to deserve such cruelty. Why most of us were left to grieve so that a few could profit? But I don’t think I’d ever get an answer. And even if they did, I’m sure they’d explain it away.”
Solomon bowed his head. “I’m so sorry, Yasmina. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man you needed me to be.” He wondered to himself; if he had been a better man, if he had been a man worthy of parenthood, if Yasmina had felt brave enough to come to him, would the tragedy have been averted? Would Samuel be alive today?
The weight of it all was too much for Solomon to bear. Suddenly, Hyienna and Seth came walking down the steps, bag in hand. “We’re all set,” said Seth. He turned to Yasmina respectfully, kissing her on the hand. “A pleasure to see you, my dear. As always.”
Yasmina watched as Hyienna walked out of the door with her rucksack... containing the final link she had with her son.
And then Solomon turned and followed without another word.
Now that they had a rucksack, all that remained was to find Nathaniel and then they would be set to confront the Moirae.
The question was what would Solomon do when confronted with his child’s abductors?
CHAPTER 20
S’Palmador
Even though he was supposed to be driving towards his salvation, Solomon felt as though he had wanted to drive to his destruction.
He hadn’t wanted to leave the inn and thus, Yasmina. There were so many questions he had wanted to ask her. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to dare thinking of tomorrow until today was sorted.
He tried to set his mind on the task ahead. He had always thought of Nathaniel as his enemy. The man who came into his world, lording it over with his wealth and a non-existent background that was supposed to make envious. Solomon had wanted him out of the way, certainly. And wasn’t above letting Seth beat him black and blue to do so. But could he actually kill him?
He had never killed a man before, Solomon told himself. Never come close to killing one.
But that wasn’t strictly true. He thought back to when he was first taking tourists out into the sea. He remembered one woman who seemed so delicate and fragile, almost like a bird that was on the verge of being wounded. He would have liked to have made a conquest out of her, but the man accompanying her – her boyfriend, presumably – had made a point of watching her watching everyone else. There was something about the boyfriend that Solomon hadn’t liked. The way he moved and stood perhaps a little too close to his girlfriend. But not like a man about to take his lover in his arms, but like a coiled snake waiting to strike.
Solomon figured that he didn’t want to bring any negative attention to his then-burgeoning business, so he backed off and tried to keep it professional.
But a few days later, he saw the woman walking through the town centre by herself, looking down on the ground. Solomon had gone over to ask her if she was OK. When she looked up at him, Solomon had assumed that the woman had overdone it on mascara, but as he looked closer, he could see the black eye starting to swell.
He hadn’t asked her why it had happened, only where the boyfriend was now. She had directed him to the beach where he was staring out into the sea. No words were exchanged, only a flurry of fists as Solomon lay into the man until by the end, he looked as though a train had hit him.
Solomon had held the man under the seawater, as his opponent thrashed madly for air, clawing at Solomon’s face in an attempt to get him to loosen his grip. Solomon could feel the life leaving him. But he returned to his senses, and pulled the boyfriend out of the water, throwing him onto the beach. No one dared make any eye contact with Solomon.
The man had gone to the local hospital, and despite only being a tourist, news travelled fast, and Solomon found himself waiting for the moment the police would come for him. But they never did.
It was around that time he had started socializing with Seth. And as he got to know Seth, and the kind of grip he held over Formentera, he found himself wondering whether the feared man had pulled some strings to keep Solomon out of trouble, taking it upon himself to act as a guardian angel. He had expected Seth to ask for a favor in return. But Seth made no such requests.
