“I don’t see your life being anything close to ordinary.”
An empty water bottle flew in our direction and landed on my head. Within moments, a barrage of candy wrappers and water bottles were soaring in the air like an army of flaming arrows.
Charlie gauged the attack and broke out laughing. “Hi, guys.”
“Jackass,” Yuri mumbled.
“Hey, Charlie! That was a crazy mess back there, man! There was like blood all over the place and everybody was yelling at everybody. If you were awake it would have been even louder, man! Hey, you want some candy? I found some candy—”
“How are you feeling?” Ben interrupted.
He leaned his head back, “Like I’ve been shanked.”
Ben smiled. “Makes me feel young again.”
Charlie tried to laugh but winced in pain. I immediately flicked him in the arm with my fingers.
“It’s not funny, Charlie. I didn’t think—I mean, with all of the blood and everything.” I couldn’t finish my sentence. Just remembering the small pond of crimson that had collected in the seat around him, the life that sustained him just draining, like it meant nothing, made me want to die on the inside. I had wanted to become some sort of statue or robot that never felt anything ever again.
He reached for me, pulling me close. I didn’t object. Instead, I nuzzled myself against his arm and breathed in the scent of him, wishing we were alone so that I could hold him closer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I ain’t used to having somebody care ‘bout what happens to me.”
I kissed him quickly in the crook of his elbow so no one could see.
“He told me you were in there and I kept seeing all the stuff that ever happened in there. I didn’t think—”
“Goddamn right you didn’t think!” Reid called from ahead. “Could have gotten us all sent to Changi. I’m not going to a Singapore prison for your sorry ass—”
“Easy, kids.”
Charlie ignored them both, sliding down enough so that he could speak directly into my ear. “In the dark, Addie, I heard your voice. I think you’re ‘bout the only thing that kept me from going straight to Diyu, the real one.”
I clutched at him. “My stupidity almost got you killed, Charlie.”
He tensed in my hands. “No. That greedy, yellow-bellied, piece of crap Wallace is what almost got you killed—”
“Not me, Charlie! You!”
“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” Ben said. “I don’t know about any of you, but until I get home, I will hardly be capable of very much brainstorming.”
Home? Is that where we were going? What exactly was home to someone like Ben Walden? A hundred different ideas came to my mind. Now that I knew Charlie was all right, I was beginning to concern myself with the logistics of the journey in front of us. We couldn’t have been flying for more than an hour or two, so that had to have put us behind half a day.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked Charlie.
He smiled at me. “They didn’t tell you?” He grinned at them.
“Do I look like ‘information’?” Yuri crossed his arms over his chest and went back to staring out the window.
Charlie ignored them and turned his attention back to me. “In the wine country, there’s a little town that makes everybody fall in love with it.” His voice was a whisper in my ear again. I shivered and clutched at him.
“Oh, really?”
He nodded briskly. “Yup. Everybody’s got their own place nearby, but we usually just bother Ben at his house.”
I was skeptical. “Where exactly is this place, anyway?”
“Northern California. You know a lot of other ‘wine countries’?” He was mocking me, but I didn’t care. It was just good to hear his voice again.
I rolled my eyes. “For all I knew, you were taking me to a cave in the middle of Italy.”
“Hmm.” He stroked his chin. “That ain’t a bad idea, either.”
I only faked my annoyance but Charlie could see that I was near giddy with excitement. California was only one of the many places I had wanted to travel. And while these weren’t fantastic circumstances, I was glad I would get to see a little piece of it, anyway.
Polo couldn’t stand it any longer. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Hey, Ben? Ben? Is Elise making pancakes for dinner today? Because that would be really great.”
“Who is Elise?” I mouthed the words to Charlie.
“Ben’s old lady.”
I nodded, but it took a moment for the fact to really register. It had never occurred to me that someone like