I had awoken sometime near midnight, Shay with her head on my chest and the pink and teal of the after-dark Mandaluyong bleeding into our suite.

As soon as I checked the time on my phone, I shot up, first calling Andrei to tell him we had all overslept. Why hadn’t he called me first? The worst-case scenario played out in my head: that this was when Shay and I would have to flee and leave Andrei behind.

Fortunately, Andrei had sent a text three hours ago.

No one’s here. I’ll keep watch. You two take your time.

Jeez. I laughed through my nose at that comment. I knew what Andrei was getting at, and that wasn’t happening at all. Shay and I had slept all through the afternoon.

I texted back: It’s not like that. We just dozed off. We’re up.

I got a reply almost instantly: I’m packed to go.

We needed to move. We had already overstayed our welcome in Pasig, a city too close to Mandaluyong. When the Giants and PNP inevitably returned to the safe house, they could trace us to this motel. They were probably already doing that.

I thanked myself for showering before I slept, but a part of me wanted to again, seeing as I was caked in sweat and Shay’s coconut lotion. That second part wasn’t so bad.

I poked her. “We have to go.”

“Hi,” Shay groaned and found my waist, wrapping her arms around me. Her brown eyes were as dark as globs of chocolate, and I wanted to take the whole night to stare into them. She sat up. “Where to, gentleman?”

That was the question: I didn’t know where we’d go. I had no plans, only to evade capture until my Uncle sent help, whatever form that came in.

After Shay and I had finished packing and more or less cleaning up, I called Andrei to my room. He had already checked out, and having the three of us confined to one space only added to the heat. That, or my anxious, nervous energy, made me sweat. The Giants and the PNP were looking for us, and every second we spent huddled in an enclosed space together made it easier for us to be captured.

“So,” Andrei started, “what’s the plan?”

He looked straight at me when he said it, abandoning all subtlety.

The truth was, I was out of ideas, but I began to tell them about my call with Uncle Nestor, stressing that someone was coming to protect us. I didn’t know when they would come, but it was better than returning to my mother.

“He said that?” Andrei asked, peering out the window. There was nothing beyond the glass but an alley. “‘Protect’ us?”

“Well, no.” I looked down. “But he implied it. Like he’s looking out for me.”

“I think if you don’t trust your mother, Jayson, then you shouldn’t trust your uncle.” Andrei shrugged. “Did you ever think he was lying to you so that you’d turn yourself in the first time someone came for you?”

Damn. That was a good point. I couldn’t think of a retort yet, and I wasn’t sure I would ever.

“On top of that,” Andrei continued, “how big can this operation really be? Maybe it’s just smoke and mirrors…”

“…and a lot of money,” Shay finished. She searched our faces. “We could leave Manila,” she continued. “We’d be further from the action, but if what you said about your Uncle handling distribution of The Crest is true…”

“It is true,” I finished. “I already sent Episode 3 to him—before we slept. It’ll be out soon.”

Mentioning that Shay and I had slept even in proximity to each other sent a chill of awkwardness throughout the room, enough to make me shiver. I didn’t bother clarifying because it would sound like I was defending myself, even though nothing happened.

But it almost did.

I suddenly wanted nothing more than to be alone with Shay again, to take her up on her offer and forget about everything—my mother, Black Fire, and this damned polluted, traffic-ridden, and corrupt city. I felt a prisoner here—I always had. There was so much more to this country than this concrete jungle and its putrid, buzzing drones.

“I never liked Quezon City,” Andrei said, referring to Shay’s earlier point. “It’s like a less dense Manila. Not enough to do.”

“We don’t exactly have the luxury of choice,” Shay reasoned. “It doesn’t have to be QC. It could be Rizal, Taal, Laguna.” She stopped. “OK, definitely not Laguna, but we could go even further.”

“I always wanted to visit Cebu,” said Andrei, “and swim with the whale sharks.”

“Not that far,” Shay said. “You want to ride a ferry there? It’s like 24 hours, by my last guess.”

“The flight’s one and a half hours. Why would I need a ferry?”

The answer was evident to Shay and me, but I was the one who spoke. “Because none of us can fly a plane again.”

Our collective youth hit me then. Our total ages were still under seventy five years old. We were still young, and our lives were still open to us. At least, they had been until I looped us all into the Black Fire operation, promising my friends a massive payout at the chance of risking their lives. It turned out that compromising your future so early wasn’t worth financial compensation. My youth was more valuable than anything Mother could have paid me, and I had thrown it all away, even before she had re-appeared in my life. Now, I had thrown my friends’ lives away as well.

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I thought back days and weeks and tried to recall an opportunity when I could have pulled my friends out and ran with the cash. It would have to have been just after I recruited them, requiring me to go against my mother’s wishes, leaving her like she had left me. But I had already done that when I freed Janice.

My sister had made it out, so why couldn’t my friends?

Shay grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and appeared not to care that Andrei had seen this. She paused and thought of something. “How about Iloilo?”

The previous night’s impromptu celebration—more like an embracing of death—returned to me.

“That was a joke,” Andrei uttered, remembering. “What’s so special about Iloilo?”

“Nothing, really,” Shay continued. “It’s far from Manila. I just thought…well… that it would be funny if-”

Andrei took a moment to himself, peeking outside the window again before clarifying. “Reggie’s from there.” He glared at us. “And yes, I’m fully aware my best friend is dead, but he does have family there, and you know what? I want to tell them what happened to their son.”

Shay and I were silent.

I contemplated the practicality of such a decision, not just Andrei taking a ferry to Iloilo without being discovered, but about staying there for an extended period. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

“Maybe a Plan B,” I ventured. “The rest of us have no contacts in Iloilo. We’d be starting from scratch. Also, the last thing I want to do is involve any more people in this than is necessary.”

Andrei frowned. “I just want to tell them what happened.”

“Then send them a letter.” I felt like a tyrant mentioning it, but it was true. “I’m sorry, but we need long-term solutions. Going to Iloilo, where I have no connections, won’t help.”

“You’re running from your connections,” said Shay. “We’re on our own.”

“No,” I said. “I have my uncle.” I have my family—the Vargases.

“And the stupid phantom he sent to protect us,” said Andrei. He folded his arms, raising his voice. “So what, Jayson? What’s the plan? Where do we go?”

The volume of his words prompted me to face what I had been thinking all this time. The point came to me earlier, but the thought of it only started to settle within me now. It was the safest option and the one that would keep my friends alive.

“It’s not a long-term solution to go to Iloilo,” I said, “but it is a temporary one, and it’s better than anything we have.” My eyes drifted to the duffel bag sitting next to the bed, containing my laptop and the reams of cash my mother had given me. “At least, it’s the best option for you guys.”

I rose to get the bag.

Shay watched me. “What are you talking about, Jayson?”

I opened the bag, removed the laptop, and dumped the rest of the contents onto the bed. Clothes, non-perishable food I had never needed, and Ziploc bags of cash poured out. I took the latter items and sorted them into a pile. “We have maybe one million PHP here.” I looked at my friends. “That should be enough for you to make it to Iloilo and lay low for a while.”

Andrei folded his arms and raised an eyebrow.

Shay crooked her head in confusion. “Why not ‘us?’”

I dropped the bag and sat. “My mother will be looking for you if you go. Whether we're together or not, I can’t help that, but I can minimize the damage. If we split up, Mother will not search for you guys until she finds me. I only need to elude her until…” I shrugged, remembering Uncle Nestor’s words. “Until help comes.”

Andrei stared at the ceiling as if he could find the answers there. “Going dark again.” He chuckled, though it was an empty sound. “Just like before, eh?”

A long silence settled, containing the past that had been so dangerous to us then but now was innocent in comparison.

“How much of that can we get, anyway?” asked Andrei, nodding to the money lying on the bed.

“Four ways,” I said. “How does that sound?”

“Sounds like a hell of a lot more money than I could get doing other things. He looked down at Shay, who was now squatting against the wall. He tapped her foot and asked her, “What do you think?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute, and for a moment, I thought she hadn’t heard. Her head was stooped, facing the floor. I thought I saw her eyes quivering.

“Shay?” I asked.

She looked up then, not to me, but to the window, where a pink light emanated.

We froze. Like a Tyrannosaurus rex peeking through our window, we thought we could elude the capture drone by making ourselves still and uninspiring. But its pink running lights never faded.

They brightened.

Tap.

I frowned, studying the drone as it moved its head against the glass. It could have broken in if it wanted to, but it didn’t.

Tap.

Tap.

“What’s it doing?” Shay asked, fearless now.

I stepped closer.

“Watch out, man,” Andrei said, backing up towards the door and checking the peephole.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I opened the curtains a tad and peeked through, staring into the murky black face of the capture drone. It was a Q-96, the largest of the standard spherical models. Was it lost?

“It doesn’t seem stuck,” I said, pulling the curtain closer.

Andrei readied his bags. “We’re going. Everyone. Now. Jayson, come on.”

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I turned away to repack my duffel bag, and the thing slammed into the glass again with the loudest TAP yet.

Shay crooked her head, and something formed in her expression. “If I didn’t know better, I would think it wants your attention.”

I thought the same and decided to try something.

I opened the curtains wider. I pointed at the capture drone as if it were the yawning mouth of some huge leviathan beast ready to swallow me.

It pulled away from the window, staring at me head-on as it hovered there.

Then, it pivoted, tilting its body toward the alley’s mouth.

I turned to the others. “Maybe help has arrived after all.”