A sliver of light slicing through the hotel room curtains stabs at my eyes when I try to open them. With consciousness, the hangover hits like an ax. I groan and pull my pillow over my head to try and dampen the pounding ache. I’m never letting Natalie take me clubbing again. 

I fish blindly for my phone, hoping I had the sense to at least plug it in before passing out. I don’t remember much of the night, if I’m honest. I can’t recall how I got back, or if Natalie had come with me. The silence in the room from her lack of snoring suggests otherwise. My fingers find the smooth screen of my phone and I pull it under the pillow with me, peeking a barely opened eye. 10:42.

“Shit!” Once I see the time I’m already out of bed and calling, despite my skull protesting. Natalie answers on the fourth ring, as I’m throwing my things back in my suitcase with fervor. I don’t even let her grumble out a hello. “Our flight left an hour ago. Where are you? Why aren’t you here?”

“Good morning, Dancing Queen. You don’t have to yell.” Judging by the rasp of her voice, she’s suffering just as I am, but I don’t bother offering any sympathy. 

“Get here, now!”

“Would you relax? I rescheduled.”

I pause my packing, minimal relief washing over me for a second, allowing me to take a breath. I collapse onto the end of the bed before I can find the will to follow up. “You know Jakob is not going to let you off those cancellation fees just because we were hungover.” Natalie always boasts about how she has our Team Leader wrapped around her finger, but this was an abuse of power, even for her.

She gaffs over the phone at me. “Of course not, I’m not stupid, Evie. That’s not why I changed the flights. But, you can thank me later for the sleep in. I know you needed it.”

I sigh, because she also knows she’s being obtuse. “Why did you change the flights then?”

“Barry said you’d need at least five days for your story.”

“Natalie, I told you we had what we needed for the story last night.”

I know her eyes are rolling with the groan she gives. Not from the hangover but from my impatience. “Not that story.”

I rub my temple with my thumb and index finger, trying to sort through what I remember from the night before to see if I can make sense of her cryptics. As the bits start coming back, my body warms with a hot flash of dread. “No, no-no. Natalie. What did you do?”

“I forwarded you a list of things they said you’d need, and the directions to a camping supplies outlet near you. Barry said his friends would come by at… well, now.”

“Now?” I’m on my feet again, trying to find my jeans. “Why, Nat?”

“Because I know you, and I know you wouldn’t have shut up about that Stalker and the ideas you have about this opportunity. You want this story. And you always talked fondly about going out camping with your Dad. Seems like a little ‘vacation’ that’s more your style.”

“You just want to fuck Barry again.” It’s snide, but I can’t manage anything more polite.

She doesn’t even argue. “An unplanned bonus.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Love you too, honey.”

Before I can literally growl at her, the hotel room phone rings. “For fuck sakes, that’s them.”

“Have fun. If you’re not back by Friday I’ll let the FBI know you were kidnapped for ransom.”

I don’t have time to express how furious I am, so I hang up and answer the hotel phone instead. My “hello” is more aggressive than I mean it to be, but as the front desk addresses me, I can tell any perceived rudeness was maybe the least of their concerns. “Um, Miss Voss? There are some… men here saying they’re your guests?”

“Yes, let them up, thanks.”

“Yes? Yes, of course, I mean. Right away.”

I wrinkle my nose; a strange interaction but I don’t have time to dwell. I need a shirt, and probably a shower, but shirt was a bit higher priority with them heading up the elevator at this second. I throw on the first tee-shirt I find and scramble for a painkiller from my toiletry bag, raw-dogging it without water. It catches in my throat on the way down. 

A knock to my door in a cheeky little rhythm, and I curse again. Catching my reflection on the way to answer, I try to fix my bed-head with a quick comb of my fingers, but it’s barely effective. My dark, out-grown bob hasn’t truly been tamed in years. “Fuck it.” I huff off my stress, and inhale deep before opening the door.

I understand immediately the front desk’s apprehension; I can only imagine the things they were thinking when approached by a couple of black-clad, mask-wearing locals asking for the hotel room of the two foreign girls. Even while expecting them, I wasn’t exactly expecting this.

The one that knocked holds out a gloved hand. “Eveline Voss?”

He’s my height, so, shorter than average, and slight in frame. He’s wearing a thin, knit cap, but where his hair sticks out around his ears, I can see that the ends are dyed a toxic green. On his face covering, a cat nose and whiskers, which accentuates the angled shape of his crisp, blue eyes.

After I shake his hand, he points to himself. “Mikey,” then to his friend while entering the room, “and this is Nico.”

Nico is taller and stouter, his hair an unstyled mess of dirty blonde, and his mask has what I can only decipher as meant to be a chipmunk face. Also fitting, with his fluffy build.

I’m about to close the door behind them when a flat palm holds it open, and I turn back to the threshold. And gape.

“Salut.” The Shadow speaks. Then, moves to enter, and I retreat a step. His mask is already grinning wickedly, but under it I see his jaw shift with a smirk. “Noapte distractivă?”

Nico giggles, instantly softening their otherwise intimidating appearances.

I choke on that dry painkiller in my throat before I can respond, far more timid than usual. “I don’t speak much Ukrainian, I’m sorry.” I’m still staring I realize, so I shift to close the door and attempt to compose myself. 

“Lex is Romanian,” Mikey clarifies as I turn back to them, and I feel my face warm with embarrassment that I couldn’t tell the difference. “He asked if you had a good night out.”

 Mikey clearly sugar-coated the slight that Lex had made about my disheveled appearance. I blush even redder, but try to laugh it off. “Natalie didn’t exactly give me much of a heads up on this.”

“You haven’t shopped?” 

“No I, um…” I try to hold the conversation but I realize their hands are on everything. Nico is fingering through my toiletry bag, and Lex has crossed the room to the window, flipping the pages of the novel I’d left open on the desk. I move to snatch my toiletry bag away from Nico, zipping it up. “I just woke up, actually.”

“No trouble. It’s better we help you. Then you won’t be begging to switch dinners with us because you only bought beans.” Mikey is good at English. I've noticed this about the young people in Europe, but his is exceptional, only given away by his barely-there accent and choice of words like ‘trouble’ instead of ‘problem’.

“You’ll need new clothes also. Don't you own anything black?” I realize Lex has moved his attention from the book to my suitcase, his gloved hands rummaging carelessly through my clothes. I cross the room to stop him, but not before he withdraws a thong, hung on his finger, and adds, “not the best to hike in, my guess.”

I snatch it from him and bury it back in my suitcase. “I have other underwear, pervert.” I wouldn’t be inclined to use that word usually, but Lex’s English was good also.

I can tell again when he grins, despite the stupid mask.

“Lex, termina.” Mikey’s tone is scolding, and Lex flicks his dark eyes to the other boy, then lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender and leans himself back on the edge of the desk. 

Comforted that Mikey was on my side against this menace, I let my shoulders drop a bit before addressing the issue. “None of my clothes will work? My father always said you should wear bright clothes when hiking or camping, so that it’s easier for a rescue team to find you.”

Lex sighs. “Necrezut…”

I glare, because I can tell his exasperation is at me.

“No one will be coming to rescue us,” Mikey explains. “Black is more subtle. In case we run into security.”

I wanted to argue that the masks weren’t very subtle.

“We’re breaking the law for this, Mikey?”

 “Budʹlaska. Like you’ve ever given a shit. Hroshi ye hroshi.” Mikey’s accent thickens heavily when he reverts to Ukrainian. 

“Da, da.” Lex rolls his eyes, then settles them back on me.

I cross my arms to hide my discomfort, pressing on. “What should I bring then?”

“Phone, charger. We have power banks. Any medicine you need, underwear and socks. Leave your passport, you won’t want to be identified if we’re caught anyway. The rest we will buy.” 

I nod, considering what I should put it all in, then decide to just empty my toiletry bag and pack it with the few items on Mikey’s list. 

Nico speaks for the first time to add to it. “Tampons.” His accent is thick on the word. When he gets a look from all of us he shrugs. “She’s first girl. Girls need tampons sometimes.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, but then reconsider and grab a couple from the mess of bathroom products I just dumped out into my suitcase and stash them away with the rest of it.

When I signal that I’m ready, the boys all head to the door. Mikey and Nico leave out into the hall, but I linger after them at the hangers by the exit, considering my jacket options. I’d brought a black rain jacket, and another sharpei thing that Natalie had bought me for my last birthday. I didn’t much like how it looked on me but it was warm and doubled as a great pillow on the flight.

Lex is on my flank, and I jump a little when he reaches over my shoulder to grab the rain jacket and put it in my hands. “This will work.”

“OK. Thanks.” I offer a placid smile, but he doesn’t see it, already following the other boys out of the room. 

I hang back, getting my shoes on and throwing my arms through the jacket sleeves, then sling my camera strap around my neck. A last look at myself in the mirror, and I manage what feels like the first exhale of the whole morning. With my nervous hands, I lift my camera lens and take a picture of myself through the mirror. I don’t really know why. A record? For the story, or for my inevitable disappearance?

When I pull away from the viewfinder, the anxiety has settled in like nausea. Or maybe that’s just the hangover. “What are you doing, Evie?” I ask to my reflection, but when she gives me no explanation, I cross my eyes and collapse my shoulders with a groan, then follow after them.