chapter 5
When I woke up later, I guessed it was morning, though it was hard to tell. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stretched until I heard my back pop. I instantly felt the ache in my throat and the thirst for water was nearly unbearable. I felt the back of my head and winced at the knot. My head was definitely bruised and swollen under my hair. I tried not to think about what a mess I really was and instead stared longingly at the locked door. Would the water still be there? Would Charlie? I feared the answer to both and yet my thirst begged to be quenched. The idea of food also made my stomach grumble at me angrily, a reminder that I hadn’t eaten in quite a long time. How much longer could I continue to pretend like I didn’t require basic necessities?
I ran my fingers through the tangles of my hair, watching some flakes of dried blood fall to the floor and wincing every time I combed through a tender spot. When I was somewhat satisfied that it was presentable, I walked to the door and opened it.
The food and water were gone, but in its place, Charlie sat to the right of the doorway. His legs were folded under himself, his neck tilted off to the side. Although I wasn’t surprised to see him, I startled anyway. It was strange to see him like that, smaller than himself, so still and settled.
It took me a moment to realize he was asleep. At first I thought he might have been faking it; trying to catch me off guard. But as I watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, I understood that the sort of concentration he would need to display would probably be too elaborate to fake sleeping.
I knelt down beside him but kept my hand on the door knob just in case I had to run back in the room. There wasn’t anyone else around that I could tell, but I wasn’t going to be stupid about things either and throw all caution away.
I looked him over from the edge of his brow to the end of his worn steel toe boots. He was wearing the same clothes from the day before (at least I thought it was the day before). He also hadn’t shaved yet and had the brim of a 5 o’clock shadow starting to show. His hair was unbrushed, though not nearly as messy as mine. I shook my head and ignored the urge to straighten it—attempting instead, to admire my handiwork with the slight bruise at the bridge of his nose.
I bit my lip. I couldn’t make myself be proud that I had damaged such a perfect nose.
Sighing, I looked behind me and then back to Charlie. As far as prison guards go, I truly couldn’t complain. He had been unmistakably gentle with me when the occasion called for it, not to mention respecting my requests. I only hoped that when we docked, he and the others would keep their word and let me go home. If they wanted my silence, I was more than happy to let them have it. All I wanted was to get out of there.
“Hey.”
His eyes fluttered open. I gasped, taken aback by the specks of green I saw in them.
“Hey.” My voice was still a croak.
“Did you know Twinkies don’t really last forever?”
Twinkies? What in the hell was he talking about?
“Can’t say that I did.” I spoke slowly and carefully—best not to make any sudden movements around the crazy man.
“Yep. The forever thing is urban legend. They only got a shelf life of a month or so.”
He frowned, and while he rose from the floor, I jumped back. He paused; his face blank. We stood facing each other and I could smell the musk of him so clearly it made me dizzy.
“I was starting to think you had kicked it in there.”
I scoffed. “Well, I didn’t.”
“I’m glad.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wouldn’t that make your life easier?”
His eyes narrowed at me. “What do you mean?”
“No more overnight prison guard duty.”
Charlie’s face went tense. The veins in his neck bulged slightly with that not so far off fury and his eyes shot fire. I backed slightly into the door, caught by how quickly his temper had taken him.
“I—” I got the impression that he toiled with himself and the words, a testament to the anger he tried to control. He dropped his eyes and looked uncomfortable then, like I had caught him with something he wasn’t supposed to have. He reached for the back of his neck and rubbed the soreness there. It was easy to imagine how sore he probably was from spending the night sleeping in the hallway.
“I didn’t want nothing bad to happen to you.”
I released the doorknob as a new sort of shame flooded me. It had never occurred to me that Charlie hadn’t just been keeping me in. He had also been keeping intruders out. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to smile.
“Oh.”
It was all I could think to say, but it seemed to be enough. Charlie relaxed considerably and smiled just enough to show a flash of teeth. My heart skipped completely.
“’Sides, seeing as how you’re nothing but trouble and you’re probably gonna do something stupid, I figure I’m gonna have to chase after you anyway. This just makes it a lot easier for me.”
He had a point. I had caused a considerable amount of trouble for the both of us. What could I do now but stay out of the way as best I could until our time was over? At the least, I knew I had Charlie on my side, and I wouldn’t do anything to mess that up.
“You don’t have to chase me.” I tried to sound resolved but my words came out as a whisper.
“Planning on starving yourself to death then?”
I broke his gaze, the stare becoming too much for me. Those eyes of his were more than just kaleidoscopes, they were mind teasers, trying to seduce me with some corrupt pattern.
“I wasn’t hungry.” I crossed my arms over my chest, hoping somehow that they would help conceal the noise erupting from my stomach every so often.
And yet he moved closer to me then, his face erupting into an openly crooked smile. “Do yourself a favor, Vicious. Save the lying for the liars.”
I smiled. I simply couldn’t help myself.
“Fine, I am hungry.” I confessed. “But food isn’t my priority right now.”
He pulled a phone from his pocket and glanced at it. “We missed breakfast—”
“What time is it?”
“After 11.”
“Yikes.”
He smiled again and I felt myself quiver. I told myself it was from hunger. He put the phone back in his pocket and looked up at me.
“Food won’t be ‘round for ’while yet. What’ll you want ’til then?”
I put a hand in my hair and felt the scrunch of dried blood there. Though I hated to mention it, I knew the obvious couldn’t be avoided forever.
“Okay.” I rotated my neck from side to side and tried to force a smile. “Well, what exactly are the bathing accommodations?”
Astoundingly, the water was warm, even hot at some intervals, and it dulled my aching muscles so that I almost didn’t feel them anymore. I had found some liquid hand soap that I decided to use as both shampoo and soap, and while it definitely wasn’t ideal, it was better than nothing. Besides, Charlie had sworn he would guard the only door of the community showers, and again I wanted to believe him.
I blamed the head wound.
Still though, the idea of being exposed around all these strangers made me uneasy. So I made record time through the entire showering process, barely taking in the smell of bleach or the feel of the slimy walls. It reminded me of the times at summer camp when we were advised to keep our water shoes on—I left my sandals on in this shower, too.
I didn’t have a towel or fresh clothes, but I still felt better. I didn’t want to be bare for any longer than I had to be, so I quickly put on my clothes even though they were soiled and the back of my shirt was speckled with blood.
My blood.
Inspecting my tank top was a jolt. The color of the dried crimson looked so bleak against the white of the fabric. I ran my fingers over the small dots then touched the back of my head where water still freely dripped. It occurred to me that I should be very grateful to be alive, but I couldn’t help but be mad at myself. Why hadn’t I just kept walking when I heard those gunshots?
A knock on the doors startled me from my stupor.
“Okay in there?” Charlie called.
“Um…yeah, fine,” I croaked.
I opened the door and there he was, bouncing from foot to foot. I saw the end of a cigarette on the floor and the beginning of a second in his mouth.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah…thank you.”
He nodded and smiled at me, a gesture that made my heart beat faster than I wanted it to. I had to distract myself.
“You shouldn’t smoke so much.” I shook some of the water from my hair.
“You shouldn’t wander ‘round truck stops at night.”
I glared at him and tried to look mad but instead wrung my hair out and flung some of the water out in his direction. “Touché, sir.”
I followed him back to the cabin and tried to remember my way. Luckily, we didn’t come into contact with anyone, although Charlie said that midday and midnight were some of the busiest times, so they were probably the safest times for me to be wandering around. Still, around every bend he insisted I stay behind him and he took the extra precaution of looking both ways to make sure there was no one coming when we crossed the stairways.
Once inside the cabin, my eyes had to readjust to the pale light. In the hallway everything was lit by fluorescent bulbs, but Charlie’s cabin only offered the stale lighting of the lamp. It made me feel cramped and confined. I stretched my arm to the wall and tried to picture a window there but my mind couldn’t manage it.
When I turned and saw him sitting on the bed next to his stack of papers, he seemed more relaxed than I had ever known him to be. He had a notebook on his lap and a pencil in his hand, furiously working away at the paper, doing something I couldn’t see. Every few seconds he looked up at me.
I stared back.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothin’, just hold still for a minute.”
“If you’re doing nothing, then why do I need to hold still?”
He responded by scratching the tip of his nose and rotating his wrist. When I looked back at his face he had smudges of lead on his nose and chin.
“What are you laughin’ for?” he asked when I started to giggle.
I covered my mouth. “Nothing.”
I quickly grew impatient and ambushed the notebook, which he tried to keep away from me.
“You had better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”
“No! It ain’t finished yet!”
I sat next to him on the bed and settled for wiping the lead from his nose, an act that unsettled us both. He watched me with wide eyes that threatened to unhinge the frame of me—in this light he looked kind; his irises were now a soft cerulean.
“Thanks.”
“You looked ridiculous.”
“I’ve heard that ‘afore.”
We both laughed.
“You’re movin’ your mouth too much.”
I almost choked. “Excuse me?”
“You can’t talk if I’m sketching ya. It messes it up.”
I smiled. “I thought you said you weren’t doing anything.”
“Just stay still for five minutes, will ya?”
It was really much longer than five minutes, but I was desperate for a distraction. I focused all my energy on remaining as motionless as I possibly could, trying to pretend I was a statue or one of those ugly ceramic figurines Mom used to buy from yard sales. It was better than thinking of Robbie and if he would still deploy on time. Would the few acquaintances and professors I knew from school care that I was missing? Would Dad tell Aunt Maggie? Or would he avoid it, knowing it would probably only deteriorate her health? I wanted to laugh—it was probably the only time in my life that it was good to have so few people that cared about me.
“Are you done yet?”
“Almost.” His brow was furrowed and his back was hunched. He bit his lip with such concentration I thought he might bite a hole through it. As he worked, I thought about the other sketches of me. Though I wanted to ask him about them, I still didn’t feel comfortable about it. I resolved to put it off until later, telling myself that I had enough time to get around to it.
“How about now?”
He smiled. “Yeah, I’m done.”
I felt as though I had to be careful with the flimsy pages. It was easy to see he had done something amazing in such a short amount of time. Charlie had made an image of me. Well, almost me. And yet it wasn’t me at all…it was so much more than me, it was better than me a thousand times over. And while I could see pieces of my features at the foundation, every line and smudge was according to some grand detail that was beyond any genuine depiction of myself. Everything was illuminated by the shadows he created on the surface of the figures that made me up.
“Wow.” I was breathless. “This is…incredible.”
He stood up quickly and took a cigarette from his pocket. From the corner of my eye I saw that he looked at it for a moment but then put it back. Instead, he took a torn duffle bag from under the bed and began throwing clothes inside.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I mean it.” I slid off the bed to get a better look under the lamp. “How did you do this?”
“Do what?”
I flipped the book upside down. It even looked amazing from this angle. “Make me look this good?”
His smile became sly, dangerously clever. “I just draw what I see, is all.”
I swallowed hard and tried to pretend like I was brushing the hair behind my ears. There was no way he couldn’t have seen me blush in that small space.
I put the sketchbook down and reached for my sling bag hanging on the back of the door. I have never in my life been so relieved to have my hairbrush. I detangled the unruly mess of knots as gently as I could and wished for conditioner. It was only then that I noticed what Charlie was packing.
“Um, wh-what are you doing?” A new, unequivocal anxiety found me with the two concepts of Charlie and away combining. I didn’t like the idea of Charlie going anywhere, at least, not without me. Even though he was the reason I was there and that my life had been put in serious jeopardy, my instincts told me he was honest. Well…as honest as a thief could be. And given that I had no other choices at that moment, those instincts would have to be good enough.
“Across the hall. I’m takin’ Polo’s cabin. You’ll, ah…stay here.”
I froze. “Wh-what about your other friends?” I thought about Wallace and put my hand to my throat. Fear had no trouble climbing back into my heart. I realized it probably had never left. I didn’t even want to say his name out loud—like an urban legend, it might make him appear.
He read my mind again. “Wallace ain’t on this ship.” Charlie’s voice was flat. “A lot of things were leadin’ up to it, but he ain’t working with us no more.”
I breathed a sigh of relief without even realizing it. I smiled and tried to get back to the conversation.
“If you take his cabin, where will Polo sleep?” It seemed like the next, most logical thing to ask.
His smiled widened a bit. “Who cares? It’s just Polo.”
Charlie broke out laughing and threw the duffle bag over his shoulder. “He’s a little slow sometimes. But he’s a good kid—he won’t hurt ya or nothin’.”
“Good to know.”
There was a visible hesitation before he walked out the door and for a terrifying instant I was afraid he would tie me up again. I tried to think of reasons for him not to. If I had to, I would plead a case for myself. I would probably beg if I had to.
“Am I a prisoner here?” In the end I knew I would ask. No matter how foolish or obvious, I wanted a clear statement of intention.
He paused again, his smile faded. “I gotta say yeah.”
A few minutes later I heard Charlie’s intense footsteps coming back. He had returned before I even had the opportunity to miss him, although during his short absence he had never left my thoughts.
Again I blamed the head wound.
As soon as I realized it was him I jumped to the door.
“Knock, knock.”
I tried to contain my smile. “What’s the password?”
I heard something similar to a grunt. “I’m tryin’ real hard to be nice…”
“Sorry, try again.”
I could practically feel his eye roll while his patience evaporated. I knew I was pressing my luck with his good humor, but I also liked the feeling of pushing the edge with him. It felt like a safe sort of dangerous, falling out of an airplane with a parachute.
“You wanna get some food?”
I almost ran into his arms, as this was, in fact, the password. “Yes! Yes! A million yeses! I could eat tree bark, I’m so hungry.” I opened the door and tried not to appear too excited, but my smile gave me away.
This answer seemed to please him, and I saw the creases around his brow relax. It occurred to me to ask about what had made his mood so sour in such a short amount of time, but then I thought a part of me might not want to know.
“Soup’s on.”
I hesitated. “But aren’t I a stowaway?”
“Right now the first shift is on; most of the crew is first, so they won’t be ‘round the galley.”
“You guys do stuff around here…on the ship?” He led me down a completely different hallway from before, though to me they all looked the same. The halls were a boring white, but every few yards, beneath a glass undercarriage, lay a fire extinguisher, and every door was painted a mundane gray. It made me realize that even if I tried to commandeer a lifeboat (even if I had the slightest clue about boats), I was sure to get lost before even reaching the deck.
“We got to,” he laughed. “Me and Ben got the shippin’ company in the pocket and Ben is technically part owner, but for appearance’s sake, everybody works.”
“And that makes it easier to smuggle things from country to country,” I said. He tapped the side of his head and winked, confirming my answer.
We continued to walk down a long corridor with protruding electrical boxes. Just being near all that power made me nervous.
“That truck I saw you guys stealing from,” I began, “what was in it?”
He frowned, then and looked around to make sure no one could hear what he was about to say. “Mostly hard drives, graphics cards, fiber optic cables, some CPUs…”
“Wow,” I whispered.
“Yeah, we only gotta make this trip a couple times a year.”
“I guess you wouldn’t need to do it every day.” I didn’t know very much about that kind of stuff but I did know it was worth a lot of money, and I could only imagine what kind of income a couple cargo containers full of that kind of inventory could bring to one’s bank account.
He held open a large white set of sliding doors that were labeled Galley just above. “No need to be greedy,” he said.
I smiled back. “Funny, I never thought I’d hear that from a thief…”
“You’ll never know what you’ll hear from a thief,” said Reid, with a mouth full of food. “That’s the point.”
I was taken aback when I saw him sitting there at the cafeteria-style table littered by graffiti profanity. I knew there would be other people there, but Charlie had diverted my mind enough to forget about the impending social awkwardness. Charlie shook his head and handed me a plastic bowl and a set of matching cutlery. On a set of industrial stoves, I could see steaming pots and oversized spice racks.
I tried to seem brave while I walked along the outline of the galley. I watched as Charlie got himself some food and tried not to seem obvious about it. He had tucked a cigarette behind his ear and now his long fingers enclosed around the entire bottom of a bowl.
Suddenly, he looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back but quickly looked away when I felt the blush spread. To keep it from going further I had to look elsewhere. Around Charlie, there were a couple of countertops with grimy microwaves. On a large bulletin board there were laminated documents about safety precautions and avoiding food poisoning. Just outside I thought I could hear a jackhammer…and I was desperate to focus on all of it instead of how much I wanted to look back at his face.
“Here I thought Yuri was screwing with me when he said you had made it through.” Reid’s loud interjection interrupted my inspection. He was eyeing me with the same sort of annoyance as before.
I took the lid off a pot of chowder. Instead of thinking about how it might have been made, I scooped it into my bowl. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Charlie scoffed then and stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth. I put the lid back on and took a seat next to him.
The chowder, or whatever it was supposed to be, was pretty tasteless, but it was hot and filled my stomach enough to help me forget my troubles. I ate slowly and carefully, somewhat fascinated by the lack of table manners both boys possessed as they shoveled food into their mouths endlessly, bowl after bowl.
I stifled a laugh as Reid wiped his mouth on a piece of bread. I lowered my head and stirred my spoon around the remains in my bowl. Next to me, Charlie hit his chest and let out a belch.
Unable to control myself, I burst out laughing.
“What?” Charlie asked; wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“Hey!” Reid scowled at me. “Not everybody went to charm school.”
It was with the harshness of his voice that I began to comprehend what my presence here meant to this group of renegades. While I was beginning to lose my fear of what they could do to me, their fear of me was increasing. Charlie made it apparent that he wouldn’t allow me to be harmed anymore than I already had. And his way around these men—even the way they had described him in the media, had portrayed him as a kind of leader. A sort of second-in-command to Ben Walden. As it was, I very much doubted they would go against him, even if they did think I would go flying to the authorities at the first chance. No wonder they hated me. If I were in their shoes, I would naturally hate me, too. I had the potential to ruin them, and currently there was nothing they could do about it.
“Exactly,” I said, trying to make my voice sound brave. “And it’s done Charlie a world of good,” I patted him on the head. “Just think how uncivilized he might be with it.”
Charlie glanced over at me and before I realized it, I was smiling back. Reid swore under his breath and got up for another serving, kicking his chair in as he walked away.
“You guys act like you’ve been raised by wolves.”
He raised his eyebrows up and down playfully. “Maybe we were.”
“Ha, ha.”
The doors swung open, hitting the wall loudly. Polo and Yuri walked in, yelling something about a horse and someone’s mother. I figured it was a joke I didn’t want to hear the punch line to.
“You’re an idiot; you need to stop talking to me,” Yuri said to Polo.
They smelled like sweat and oil. I felt myself go still in my seat. I was just beginning to adapt to my environment. Why did things have to change every five seconds?
Yuri got his wish when I turned my head and Polo saw Charlie and me sitting together. He gasped like a cartoon character and rushed at us, practically sliding into us both before Charlie held out his hands to keep him back.
“Easy there, boy.”
“Hi, you guys!” He knelt between us and wrapped an arm around each of our shoulders. From the corner of my eye I could see Yuri and Reid glaring at us and whispering back and forth.
“I’ve been wondering about you guys all day! Where’ve you been? Causing trouble without me?” His laugh reminded me of a hyena.
“Strictly a trouble-free zone.” I tried to remove his arm without offending him, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Charlie shot me a sort of apologetic look and went up for another serving.
The moment he was gone, Polo stole his seat and scooted himself closer. “Oh man, oh man, oh man! It’s a real good thing you didn’t die!” The unnatural enthusiasm in his voice was symmetrical with the tapping of his fingers on the table and the endless stomping of his feet on the chair legs. His energy was contagious and I felt myself bucking up.
“Thanks, Polo. I think so, too.”
“No, but like, really!” In addition to everything else, he started swinging his head back and forth. I thought with a couple of instruments he could be one of those one man bands carnivals are always advertising.
“If you had, I think Charlie woulda like…killed everybody!” He spread his tapping fingers across the table for emphasis.
I nodded, but didn’t really know what he meant. With his childlike demeanor, there was a strong possibility that he was probably just confused or exaggerating.
Reid and Yuri came back but sat at the other side of the table as far away as they could get. Charlie sat on the other side of me. I was much more comfortable when he did. After a couple of minutes, the silence was getting to me. For this, I entirely blame my parents. They always insisted on those wholesome family dinners, the kind without television and lots of substantial conversation. I could get that these guys spent most of their day together, but eating in complete silence like this was maddening.
I crunched on the crust of my bread and tried to laugh. “If any of you guys is the chef, I could give you some pointers.”
Yuri wasn’t as obvious with his scowl, but Reid slammed down his spoon, having no problems expressing himself. “Ungrateful little bitch! You really complaining—”
“I wasn’t complaining.” The eagerness to defend myself made me speak before thinking. Needless to say, I was surprised that it shut him up. As I looked away, however, I realized it wasn’t my words that had made him retreat, but the look on Charlie’s face. It made Reid back down instantly.
I couldn’t help but feel as though I had once again been the source of his anger. His eyes caught mine and softened slightly—I most desperately wanted to see him smile.
“I didn’t realize you boys were so sensitive.”
Even Yuri laughed then.