I lean over and kick the old chest open at the foot of my bed. Begin to throw its contents into a box beside it. Pictures, each face bringing the memory back plain as day. I throw most of them in without looking twice. Letters, some frayed, some the ink is running or bloomed into puddles across the pages. Poems and notebooks falling apart, the backs long gone and half the pages missing. Random useless things that I was given as gifts. Old ratty shirts. I get near to the bottom and it appears empty. My heart twists as I stare at the bottom and press the back right-hand corner and the bottom of the trunk opens to reveal a hidden container. I pull a small red box and pull the garbage can over, sitting on the floor. I stare at it and turn it upside down spilling the contents. A vial of scorpion venom. Vials of blood, empty blade sheaths. Three old blades and a large sliver of glass. I dump the pile into the wastebin and reach down into the chest again and pull out a 9mm. I wrap it in an old shirt and put it in my bag, along with a picture of alexander. I stare into the bottom of the box and pull the last bits out, a bit of rope, a couple throwing knives and a broken dagger i had been meaning to fix. Fold the box shut and push it over by the door with the rest of it. I stare out the front door and the mistress of the house comes over to wish me luck. Ashy meets me at the door with her backpack and her box and we gather our things and walk out to the cab. We stop at the cemetary and i put the tshirt wrapped weapon through the bars under alexander's hearse. And we board the plane to the US.
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