A chill went through Eshe when she made eye contact with the man on the opposite side. Even from here she shuddered at the dark, antagonistic vibes he gave off. Walking over his grave would probably make her sick.

They broke into a run following Masahiro down the street. The stranger began to keep pace with them.

"Who is that man?" Ruslan called to Masahiro's back.

He held out his hands to take the hover board from Eshe. She smiled gratefully and managed to awkwardly pass it over without slowing down.

Masahiro called back, "Someone we do not want trouble with. He is...what is the word?...disgraced and will do anything to gain face again."

When the other three overtook him, Masahiro gaped. "Are you sports fanatics?"

Ruslan cracked a smile. "We all play racquetball regularly. It's how we met. Even Joey." They slowed down so their Japanese friend could keep up.

Masahiro huffed at the strain of running. "I will have to start playing when this is over. Only my thumbs get a regular workout."

"Where are we going?" Ruslan asked.

"We aren't far from Nippombashi subway station - No!"

Masahiro skidded to a stop, making Eshe, Ruslan and Leora bump into him. Eshe would have laughed at the comedy of it - had she not spotted Joey far up ahead on the road. He had his phone to his ear and smiled wickedly when he spotted them. He nodded, more to his caller than them, and turned to face their direction.

"He's at the subway. We won't be able to get by him." Masahiro looked between Joey and the mysteriously dangerous Japanese man who was standing on the opposite curb gesturing angrily at passing traffic that was preventing him from crossing. "I have a plan, but you must trust me."

"We have no reason not to trust you, Masahiro," Eshe said.

"And no choice," Leora whispered, bent over with hands on her knees catching her breath.

Just before Eshe followed the others when they darted down an alley, she looked back and saw Joey turn down whatever road he was standing on to head in the same direction they were going.

"He's following us!" Eshe called.

"There is nothing we can do. Please... don't talk... to me... while we... are running!" Masahiro huffed back.

He led them down a maze of alleys and side streets until several minutes later they went inside a multi-story store where Masahiro collapsed onto the internal steps leading to the second level.

He held out a hand, pleading, "Give...me...a...moment!"

Eshe rubbed his back while he struggled to get his breathing back under control.

Once Masahiro's face had turned a more normal colour, he said, "After this I must play more exercise games! This running will be the death of me." His face blanched and he smiled apologetically at Eshe. "Please, stay here. I'll be very quickly."

"I'm sorry!" sobbed Leora. "If I hadn't been afraid and screamed they wouldn't have found us."

Eshe wrapped her arms around her assistant. "It's okay, Leora. You meant no harm. We know that. Some things are just beyond our control. You did the best you could."

"But- but-"

"Shhh," soothed Eshe, pushing Leora's long, brown hair back. "It's past now. Let's focus on the future."

"Okay," Leora sniffed and nodded, then took out a tissue to wipe her nose.

"Good girl," Eshe said. She smiled then turned to Ruslan. "I can't believe Joey would..." She couldn't bear to finish the sentence.

Ruslan scrubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, making it stand up in all directions. "Me either. I hired Joey because he's fluent in four languages, is amazingly organised and has the best backhand in racquetball I've ever seen."

Eshe and Leora chuckled.

Ruslan gave a wan smile and guilty shrug. "The backhand was just a bonus. He has been an excellent assistant so far. I'd never imagine he had such connections, would do these things..."

Ruslan's voice trailed off. Eshe wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly. They stood that way for several long moments.

She'd given up on the hope of ever finding someone who would want her for just her, and not for how they could benefit in some way from her gift. After three such fake romantic interests, she kept herself carefully remote from developing intimacy with anyone. Leora was the only person she'd allowed to get close to her in a decade.

It was clear now on looking back, that Ruslan had been quietly courting her for many years now in his own way. He often sent her books he thought she'd like, engaged her in long email discussions of archaeology and theology and politics, and no matter where she was, he would usually send her information on the best raquetball courts around. Sometimes even before Leora had found it out.

She smiled when she recalled their conversation about money and why she didn't ask for more. It was clear he understood money was a tool and not something to chase. With the wealth he'd inherited from his parents, he didn't have to work at all, but he'd be out in the hot sun digging alongside the local people he always insisted they hire, teaching them skills, and quietly making sure they all got extra bonuses to take home.

Into her hair, Ruslan said, "I'm so sorry that I have put you in danger, even indirectly, by what Joey has done. If he harms one hair on your head, my Eshe, I will break him in two with my bare hands."

Eshe squeezed him tightly then drew back to look into his face. "There is nothing to forgive. People have been trying to take advantage of my gift since I was a child. Never underestimate the power of greed to turn a good person bad."

She stepped back and drew him down to sit beside her on the internal steps. Eshe picked up the hoverboard and laid it across her knees, stroking the smooth grey surface. Freedom had been so close.

"How did you manage as a child?" Ruslan loosely wrapped his arm around her, seemingly unwilling to be out of contact with her now that they had progressed to that stage.

Eshe shrugged. "People thought I was possessed by demons. I would always pass out then wake up talking about the things I had seen, which they thought were some kind of visions I had due to the evil influences within me.

"My mother believed me. My name means 'bears heavy burdens'. She said she didn't know why she chose that name. She'd wanted something completely different, but as soon as she saw me, that was the name I had to have. When I began describing incredible things I'd seen, she knew I was speaking the truth.

"Then one day when I was five years old, I was out with a group from my village returning from getting water, some foreign game hunters stopped us and asked for a drink. It was a very dry summer.

"My mother had to take me along for some reason. Usually she didn't, because if I had a fit, she'd have to carry me until I recovered as well as the vessel of water or wood bundle or whatever she was collecting. I was very slight, but I hated to burden her. She never complained though. She wore an extra wrap to use a sling if I ever went with her.

"We'd had to go a bit farther than I'd ever been before. In reality, it wasn't that far. It just seemed like it because I was young and I rarely got to go anywhere. My mother kept me very close to the village because I knew the ground there and rarely had fits. So you can imagine how exciting new places were for me because I honestly loved to see what was in the ground.

"So even though I knew it was foolish to wander off by myself, that day when the hunters stopped us, my mother wasn't paying attention and I really wanted to see what was around. I had found the skeletons of some men who were killed by lions.

"Of course I had a fit and when I came to, one of the local guides translated what I was saying. One of the men was very keen to hear about all the things I had 'seen' over the years and about how my gift worked.

"Later on, that hunter returned to our village with some military men and dug up the ground. They found what I had described. I was hiding in a hut nearby and saw the evil in their faces when they were discussing how I could make them rich.

"We were poor villagers. These men had guns. If they wanted to take me, there was nothing to people of my village could do unless they were willing to risk dying for me. Since most of them thought I was possessed anyway, they didn't hesitate to point out the hut where I lived. They said they were happy to get the 'evil' out of the village.

"It was just luck that at the same time a charity was in our village and had just finished teaching us how to make cleaner latrines. One of the people in that group, Marianna, had seen me have a fit and believed immediately.

"When the military men started looking for me, Marianna saw me peeking out the window and signalled me to come to her. She hid me in a sack in the back of her truck. It felt like all day, but Marianna told me later on it was only about an hour I had to stay there. But without water and not moving was like forever to a five year old!

"The truck was already packed before the soldiers arrived, and the villagers told them I was in a hut, so I guess they doubted I'd be in the truck or something. Anyway, they missed me when they searched the truck and forced the charity workers to leave. As the truck drove away, I heard the soldiers shouting at the villagers to form a line."

Eshe's heart ached at what might have been done to the people she loved just because she was born amongst them.

"Marianna took me back home with her far away on the other side of the country. She lived on a great big estate in the country. I didn't understand it at the time, but she was very wealthy and very well connected. She homeschooled me and helped me learn to deal with the emotions of what I read in the ground. She dedicated her life to helping me and for all intents and purposes became my mother. My only regret is that I couldn't bring my real mother with me or say goodbye to her."

The deep regret of abandoning the only person who had protected her and sacrificed so much for her still stung deeply so many years later.

"Have you ever been able to go back to look for your mother?" Ruslan asked, gently wiping away a tear that had run down the side of Eshe's face.

She nodded. "Years later, when I was too well-known for the government to kidnap me. No one could, or would, tell me what had happened to her. Marianna sent people back for her the next day, but Mother was already gone. The soldiers were still there. They had confined her to her hut. The villagers said she just disappeared during the night. I walked every inch of the village and as much of the surrounding area as possible, but I didn't find her remains."

"At least you know there's a chance she's alive!" Ruslan smiled, encouraged.

Eshe shook her head, disheartened. "You know as well as I that sometimes death is a better alternative to being kept alive."

"But-" the barrel-chested man began.

Eshe shook her head again. "People can treat each other in the most heinous fashion even when they care about each other. It is so much worse when there is no care or they see the other person as a commodity or 'less than'. We've both seen this in real life, and I've definitely learned from so reading many historical sites that it holds true through the ages. My only hope is that my mother died quickly and did not suffer before or during her death."

"Maybe she just ran away to look for you and you'll meet up with her one day," Leora said with a hopeful smile, then sadly, "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

"Thank you. It is what was written for me, and I have done my best to make peace with it and accept it. There are some things we cannot control and it is futile to spend energy and emotion on them. Giving back to the world through my gift is something I can control. So I do. The emotional burden is worth the service."

"A burden I can help you bear, if you will let me," Ruslan said softly, staring at Eshe's hands on the hoverboard.

She reached over and took his hand in her own. Only when he looked up did she respond, her voice full of happy tears, "I'd be more than happy to have you by my side."

Knowing he would hesitate, Eshe leaned into him and pressed her lips to his.

Leora sniffing broke them apart with embarassed blushes. She was wiping happy tears from her eyes. "That's so wonderful! I've been hoping you'd get together for months now!"

"You did?" Eshe raised her eyebrows.

"Eshe, you are the smartest woman I know, but you've put such a thick wall around your heart that you couldn't hear when Ruslan was knocking on it."

She turned to Ruslan who gave a small smile and nodded. "I have loved you for many years now, but I didn't want you to think my intentions were for my work. I didn't know how to show you-"

Eshe cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him to her awkwardly around the hoverboard for a passionate kiss. "I got the message now. Loud and clear."

Ruslan touched his forehead to hers, then said, "Let me go and check the street to make sure you are safe." He jumped up and went down to peek out the door. "All clear."

"Ruslan-san! Come back inside!" Masahiro called urgently coming down the stairs from the second floor.

"You've got to be kidding!" Ruslan scoffed when he saw what Masahiro was carrying.

CHAPTER WORD COUNT: 2694