Chapter 7: At the Edge of the Wolves
After changing clothes, we hired a professional to do his makeup.
Carla’s beauty parlor smelled like hairspray and lemon cleaner. She winked at me, then turned Marcus into someone unrecognizable with a few strokes of her brush. The makeup lady, Carla, was the kind of woman who could talk circles around anyone in town, but she took one look at Marcus and just whistled. "Y’all in some kind of trouble, huh?" she said, but didn’t press when I tipped her an extra twenty.
It was almost impossible to recognize his original appearance.
Instead, it revealed a different kind of beauty.
After staring for a long time, I couldn’t help but get lost in it.
I could only turn away and splash my face with cold water to regain my composure.
The system tried to persuade me: "If you were the main character and met someone this stunning, you wouldn’t feel secure either. You’d want to keep him by your side forever."
"I wouldn’t."
I would treat him as a saint.
Admire him my whole life.
Such a good person should walk a path lined with wildflowers.
Safe and sound, healthy and well.
Never to be dragged through the mud, life after life.
There were more guards at the city gate than ever before. I swallowed hard, and Marcus, holding my hand, was trembling with nerves.
The guards opposite looked at the sketch again and again, then asked: "What’s with the eyes?"
Marcus wasn’t good at lying.
Neither was I.
The moment I lied, my heart jumped to my throat.
"This is my wife."
"Her eyes are sick, so I brought her here to see the doctor."
They waved us through.
But before we could relax, an unexpected voice called out: "Wait."
"Lift the scarf and let me see."
My grip tightened on Marcus’s hand. Sweat beaded at my temple. One wrong word and we’d be done for. For a split second, I weighed every escape route out of that checkpoint—the busted vending machine, the chain-link fence, the low-slung sun dipping behind the water tower. I could smell the fear, sharp as gun oil, but I squeezed his hand and tried to steady my breath. This was America. And right now, the only thing standing between us and the wolves was a lie and a prayer.