Vain (The Seven Deadly 1)

All the talk of danger, disease and devastation frightened me, but I was ready for a change, just as desperate and just as aching to escape, to live, really live, as the songs and paintings in her words.

We pulled up to the unloading zone and Spencer opened my door for me. He looked deflated.

“No worries, my very good friend.”

He smiled but the grin never touched his eyes. His hands dug into his pockets. “And that’s all I’ll ever be to you, I think.”

My shoulders sank into the car door a bit. “Spencer, please...”

“Shh,” he said, pressing the pad of his thumb at my lips. His fingers grazed my cheek slightly when he pulled away. “Absolutely no worries, Sophie Price.” He smiled in sincerity then and my heart dropped a tad for him.

“I’ll miss you very much,” I admitted to the only real friend I’d ever really had but only very recently realized.

“As I’ll miss you. I’ve just discovered you’re as lost as I am and now you leave.”

“By court order,” I jested, making his grin wider.

“I’ll give you that.” He sighed. “We were supposed to find our way together though.”

“I’ll still be as lost when I come back. We can pick up from there, Spence.”

Spencer grabbed my bags and laid them on the cart the porter had brought over.

“I’ll see you in six months,” I told him.

“I’ll be right here,” he said, pointing toward the pavement. “Waiting.”

I grazed his cheek and squeezed my eyes painfully. “Don’t wait for me, Spencer,” I whisper ordered.

Spencer pulled me from him. “I’ll do as I damn well please, Price. Now get.”

I smiled at him and followed the porter. When I turned back around for a final wave he’d already gone.

Twenty hours of flight, despite a night of sleep in The Palm in Dubai still feels like twenty hours of flight. When I arrived in Africa by way of Nairobi, I didn’t get a chance to absorb the continent as I only had twenty minutes to catch my Cessna, but when my little chartered plane landed, barely, and the stairs were brought out, the door opened, I looked out onto a most wonderful sight, a breathtaking sight. A sight of green lush vegetation, dirt red with iron and the expansive blue and breathtaking Lake Victoria. My breath sucked into my chest as I took it all in. It was incredibly beautiful.

I descended the stairs and was met with my luggage at my feet and a happy African young man with dark mocha face and gleaming white teeth.

“Welcome to Africa, miss,” he greeted me with cheer. “I understand this is your first visit?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He smiled the largest smile I’d ever seen and I wondered what had made this guy so happy. “Follow me, miss.”

I fished around in my pouch for a ten-dollar bill. A guy in Dubai had told me they prefer American currency so I never exchanged the hundreds Pembrook had given me. We approached the airport itself and all I could think when I looked upon it was the nineteen-seventies had died and gone to heaven on this little inlet. My skin went cold when I thought on that. Before I’d left, I’d read up on Uganda and discovered the very airport I’d flown into was also the site of a most dangerous hostage situation involving terrorists in that same era. I shivered thinking on the details and the very close call it was. It reminded me where I was and what my real purpose for visiting entailed.

When the enthusiastic porter set my bags down inside, he beamed at me and I almost laughed at his optimism.

I couldn’t help myself. “You’re quite animated, and why are you so happy today?”

“I am happy every day, Miss. I am alive and working. I have a roof. I can feed my brothers and sisters. I am very, very happy.”

My heart clenched and I dug in my pouch for another ten, thought twice, and grabbed a fifty before settling the cash in his hand. His eyes blew to impossible proportions and I shook my head at him, silencing the protest forming on his lips.

“Think nothing of it,” I snapped and cleared my throat. “Excuse me,” I told him and grabbed my bags hurriedly before walking with purpose down the corridor toward what I assumed was the front entrance.

I tried not to think of what fifty dollars meant to that boy and his family. I also tried not to think about the silly bracelet tied around my wrist that cost five hundred. I stopped where I was and gathered myself, remembering my notebook and sliding it out of my pack. I flipped through the pages and looked for the name Pembrook told me not to forget but did anyway because it was such an unusual name.

“Dingane,” I repeated out loud. “What kind of name is that?”