Chapter 34

Nouakchott

Karim catches my glance, his face open and honest — a silent promise in his shy beauty. “You attract wolves, Elena,” he murmurs, a wry smile at his lips. “Fortunately, not all of them bite.”

I can’t help wondering how my heart has room for all three. Karim’s shy, steady devotion. Tarmo’s stoic, aeons-old claim. Asdar’s untamed, wordless pull at the wildest roots in me. Three flames, three corners of the same sky — and somehow none of them cancels the others out.

As we trade camels for the battered SUV waiting by the palms, the oasis alive with anxious talk of wolves, I tuck every sensation deep inside — desire, tenderness, the strangeness of golden drops still warm against my skin. The desert rolls out before us. Watched over, wanted, woven into stories older than fear.

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The docks at Nouakchott sprawl with noise and sweat and the constant creak of rusted hulls. Sea-laced air tangles with diesel and fish; gulls wheel above the cranes. Karim steers us toward a bulk of chipped blue steel — our passage: the cargo ship El Amal, tired paint spelling out hope in battered Arabic script. Beside the hull, men shout directions in a braiding of Wolof, French, and Arabic, shouldering crates marked for more places than I can count.

I know better than to let my long blond hair fly loose here. I braid it and tuck it under a lightweight, sand-coloured scarf, leaving a few stray strands to frame my face — enough to feel myself, not enough to become a lighthouse of difference. It’s not just modesty; it’s smart travel, respect, and maybe a little armour in the chaos of the docks.

My linen blouse is loose and pale, sleeves rolled carelessly to my elbows. Quick-dry trousers, sun-faded, deep pockets for notes and other essentials. An indigo shawl across my shoulders, ready for chill or shade. Boots that are battered veterans of this continent. Satchel a tangle of papers, IDs, and half-finished stories. Silver Berber bracelets catch and scatter the morning sun — private totems of places survived and promises kept.

As I adjust my satchel, my hand brushes the gentle curve of my belly. Four months now — no longer easily hidden. The fabric of my blouse and shawl drapes double over it, but any sharp gaze would pick up the new roundness. I move forward through the crowd, catching the briefest flickers of curiosity — a glance at my pale hair, at the growing life beneath my shirt. I don’t shrink. I straighten my spine, cradle my belly without thinking, and fix my eyes on the cargo ramp.

I’m not here to disappear. I’m here to continue.

Sidi — Karim’s friend from Brussels, all shoulders and an easy grin — waits at the gangway, his coveralls sun-bleached and his handshake warm. “Welcome! We sail on the midnight tide. No luxury, but you’ll have your own corner. Try not to step on any rats, and remember which deck is for sleeping and which is for goats.”

His crew is a lean, sun-burnished crowd: a Senegalese mate with a gold-capped tooth, two Mauritanian deckhands with hands like rope, a wiry Gambian called Moussa, all angles and infectious laughter. They move with the practised, irreverent efficiency of men bound by hardship and saltwater.

Before boarding, Karim steps aside, unzipping his battered duffel to check his guns — efficient, careful, every movement at odds with the shy lines of his face. I raise an eyebrow, a smile curling despite the fatigue.

“Look at you,” I say, nudging him.

“From the tourist guide I met in Tetouan to — what, a real cowboy now?”

Karim glances up, green eyes shining beneath his tangle of curls.

“Well, you have influenced the better part of me,” he replies, voice feathered with affection and something true. “Maybe not the good part, but the wild certainly.”

I laugh, some of the tension breaking loose as sailors call out for us to board. Sidi waves us up the gangway, promising safe passage and coffee strong enough to kill a tired elephant.

As I step onto the ship — a floating city of steel, patched with hope and pride — I glance at Karim: so much the same, impossibly changed, a gunslinger in the making and my trusted companion on this improbable road south. Beneath us, the engines rumble to life, and for the first time in days I feel the pull of a new horizon, the promise of stories drifting on the surf.

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The world shatters awake — a volley of gunshots, wild shouting, boots thundering above and below deck. My dreams flee; I sit bolt upright in my bunk, night pressed close against the rattling hull. Karim is beside me in a flash, his hand tight on my shoulder, mouth close to my ear.

“Under the bed. Now,” he whispers — a command threaded through with terror and tenderness.

I slide down, heart pounding, the metal cold against my cheek. Karim grabs his pistols, positions himself in plain sight — shield and lure both, his lean body a line of protection between me and whoever bursts through that door.

The corridor fills with shouts in a language I can’t parse, the heavy thud of boots coming closer. The lock rattles. The door swings open.

Harsh flashlights slice the dark, illuminating Karim crouched, guns raised, breath held tight against the world’s edge.

The pirates fan across the threshold, weapons levelled, wild with adrenaline and the raw hunger that only comes in the ugly hours before dawn.

Then it happens.

I.Ph.