The Series of Unfortunate Events (pt. 5)

The ferry ride didn't take so long, but the unloading process did. There was a line of cars from the parking lot slowly getting off the large boat, and I couldn't understand what was taking so long. I still had twenty hours of driving to do before I was safe across the border in France and every single setback was just hindering my progress. Impatiently, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, blowing out sigh after sigh until someone walked by my car. I hurriedly lo were the window.

"Excuse me! Hi, I'm a tourist. Do you know what's taking so long?" I'd been slowly creeping towards the front of the line for forty-five minutes. Fifteen minutes longer than the ferry ride had been! I'm just glad I decided not to take any liquid before I left, otherwise that bathroom break I had scheduled for five hours into my drive would have been upon me much sooner.

"The polizia are… screen? Screening? They are screening passengers," the worker pointed toward the front of the line where the hold-up was, and my heart sank. Fuck me, if they figured out who I was due to the news, this entire situation would be blown to hell. I couldn't speak a lick of Spanish while I was here or else the tiny bit of cover I had left would be blown. I was just lucky being held in the hostage compound made me underweight, otherwise, I would be too recognisable. At least like this, my cheekbones were more prominent.

"Why?"

"Fugitive. Sospettare della Mafia has escaped raid. Is from news."

My blood ran cold. Son of a bitch! Even when I'd managed to escape my captors these Italians were still fucking up my plans! "Fuck!" My hand hit the steering wheel and I leaned back in the seat to rub my eyes. I could always floor it past the cops and out drive them… but then that would lead to another warning being put out on me, and since these guys would probably see my face, it would blow my entire cover.

There wasn't anything around for me to disguise myself with, so odds were, I was probably completely fucked. A deep sigh left my lungs and I sat in the car, slowly creeping towards the front of the line, trying to figure out what to do in this situation. Was there a way for me to alter my appearance at least a little bit? Maybe if I pretended to have a lazy eye? But I wasn't capable of manipulating my eyeballs like that…

I looked around the car again, trying to find anything that could help me in this dire situation. I had my fake ID with me—thanks to Lina and politician— but I needed something better than that. If the ferryman was right and this was from the news, everyone had seen it. If I lingered in a place for too long or even showed my face too much, the police would be called immediately.

Due to my faked death, people weren't expecting the escapee to be me, but my father never confirmed the identity of the body to be mine, so the possibility that this could be debunked was very real. If someone saw my face and recognised it, the police would be called immediately and I'd definitely land in prison for conspiracy. In that moment it wouldn't matter if I'd arrived on Sicilian shores as a kidnapee because nobody would believe me.

Also Sicilians were looked upon as criminals by mainland Italy, so if I came up with a theory and threw it out into the general public, not only would it cause my father to rage and destroy the nation of Italy, it would be met with discrediting accusations. Obviously I was guilty in this situation but the thought still made me grimace because if I was anyone else, I would really be an innocent victim who would go unbelieved all because of prejudice. Northern Italians were racist as fuck, man.

My eyes caught sight of the sleeve from one of my long shirts sticking out of my duffle bag. That's it! I grabbed the shirt sleeve and tore off a long piece, making sure to do less damage to the sewn areas. This disguise was a feeble one and the chances of it working were low, but I had to try.

I rummaged through the bag of cash Lina had handed over to me with the prospect of a knife in sight. It was a fact that she'd put one in there because there was no way I would be able to eat those giant calzones without cutting them into pieces. "Bingo," I found the knife and immediately stabbed through the fabrics, trying my best to make the two holes I was striving for as symmetrical as possible. If this was going to work, it needed to look homemade, not hacked up in a hurry.

The line inched forward and I was now the fifth car in line for the check-out. Great, so all of a sudden the moment I was busy, the officers decided they didn't want to be here all day checking identities. Super.

The mask came together pretty nicely and very quickly. By the time mine was the third car in line, I was already testing it out to see how it looked. I couldn't make a full face mask, but if I sounded sick enough, I could pretend there was a viral infection in me or something. Thankfully it looked good on me, and I was pretty convinced that I would be able to get through with little to no trouble.

The car came to a stop and I rolled down the window to hand my documents over to the guard. He took a look at them, then looked at me and said something in Italian, to which I replied with "sorry, I don't speak Italian."

"You must remove your face covering in order for me to verify your identity," he repeated in English. Seeing as I had no choice, I sucked in my cheeks a bit and pulled down the mask so he could see my face. Immediately his eyebrows furrowed and he gave me a 'wait' signal. I pulled the mask back up and leaned back in my seat, hands clutching the steering wheel nervously. I knew it, he was going to run my stuff through a computer.

I could only hope that the politician had done his job correctly and gotten me authentic documents.