The Palace Crumbles

Airport

Canada, Nova Scotia
$2,632.83
$380.45 (Canadian dollars)

After about an hour of riding between stops and moving from station to station, we board the bus for the long haul. We've got about eighteen hours to drive; however, I'm more worried about eighteen hours in public, risking being seen. Any wrong person could be the death of us, so we agree to keep our hoods up and our disguises as thick as possible. When we talk, which is rare, we speak French. I keep my glasses on even when I fall asleep, head tilted down to hide my face.

There doesn't seem to be a point, though. Everyone on the bus is engaged in their own thoughts or activities, and there are hardly any riders anyway. The seats around us are nearly all empty, and the one man that I can see hasn't woken up in hours.

I honestly dread the moments that we have to stop for breaks. I prefer the monotony of the bus, and it's one of the only places I've felt safe. I know that we can't be caught there, and knowing that we're getting farther and farther from danger comforts me.

The one thing the stops are good for, though, is the ATMs. I extract a large amount of cash from one of the accounts I keep open, two thousand dollars, and store it away safely in our bags. Despite years of being locked away, the FBI never found some of my accounts; I'd kept them in the hands of other people for good reason. Chiyoh is in charge of some of them, since there is little to no suspicion under her name, and the rest are under various fraudulent identities that I didn't keep the cards for. The police shut down all of my accounts for which I had IDs - but I had planned for that exact scenario.

"You had all of this, and you didn't say anything," you say to me as we get back on the bus, a tinge of betrayal in your voice. I wait until we're seated again to speak.

"I've explained myself," I say. "At some point, if we were really suffering, I would have pulled some out behind your back and acted like I found it somewhere. I wouldn't have let us become completely destitute."

"You let us start mugging people."

"It was your idea. I was hesitant, and you insisted."

"Whatever. You totally knew that you could have refused," you hiss. "You just wanted to kill someone."

This doesn't faze me like you want it to. "Perhaps I did," I reply. "I'll let you have your turn next time."

You blink, shaking your head in annoyance as you turn to look out the window. In your reflection, though, I notice you licking your lips, a distant expression in your eyes.

It's a long and exhausting ride to Halifax, especially for my legs. We both grunt and groan as we disembark at the final station, muscles screaming for movement, and we immediately depart for the airport on foot. Since we've decided to walk, we have no time to linger.

"Germany," I tell you. "There's frequent flights from Halifax to Frankfurt. Expensive, but we have the money."

"Those accounts have to run out eventually."

"You underestimate my family. And my ability to launder money."

"You just admitted to being both an old money kid and a racketeer."

"Double threat. Triple, if you count my impeccable murder skills."

You laugh drily at this. "For real. Are you going to run out of money on those accounts?"

"It's not like we'll be retiring and laying around the house all day - unless you want to, and in that case I don't blame you. But it doesn't have to be that way, if you're worried. We can get jobs."

"Just tell me how much we've got."

I sigh. "Okay, but don't get a big head about this. We can't start using it all at once, or else it'll seem suspicious. We have to spend moderately, like Chiyoh's already doing."