Chapter 4 The Girl

Chapter 4:

Alina smoked black cigarettes and listened to jazz like it could save her. She ran a tattoo parlor by day, forged passports by night. Jimmy met her a year ago after a club raid. She stitched his side when a stray bullet grazed him. They never kissed, but Jimmy remembered the way her fingers trembled as she cleaned his wound.

When he knocked on the back door of her shop, she was barefoot, wearing a man's oversized shirt, eyeliner smudged like war paint.

"Jay Ice," she said, unimpressed. "I heard you were dead."

"Almost. I need a new passport. Tonight."

She lit another cigarette. "Do I look like a miracle worker?"

"You're better."

Alina stared at him. Then sighed. "Come in."

Inside, the shop smelled like ink and burnt coffee. Papers were scattered everywhere-birth certificates, visas, stolen IDs.

"You're not just running from the cops," she said, working on the laptop. "Yuri wants your head too."

Jimmy nodded. "If I don't disappear, I'm dead."

Alina paused. "Do you deserve to?"

That question hit harder than the cold. Jimmy looked at her, eyes raw. "No. But I'm not sure if I deserve to live either."

She didn't respond, just kept typing.

Two hours later, she handed him a new passport: James Obasi, Nigerian diplomat's son, currently "vacationing" in Prague. It was flawless.

"I booked you a train to Belarus. You'll cross the border with a contact there," she said. "From there, it's all you."

Jimmy took the documents. "Why help me?"

Alina shrugged. "Because sometimes the broken ones are the only ones who know how to survive."

He hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Thank you."

As he stepped into the snowy street, Jimmy felt something he hadn't in months.

Hope.

But hope, like drugs, was dangerous in doses too strong.