“Sure,” I said.
“Liar.”
I sighed and looked down into her eyes. I didn’t know how she always knew, but she always called me out on my bullshit.
“I’m just not used to it all,” I said, using my head to gesture towards the room in general.
“All of what?” she asked.
“The noise,” I told her. “The cars going by, the clock – whatever. Not used to it.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. There’s no way in hell I would have confirmed that for anyone else, but it was Raine asking.
“You got me, right?”
“I got you,” I assured her. I took a deep breath and closed my heavy eyelids for a moment. “You’re safe.”
“Good,” Raine said. Her hand reached up and pushed my hair off my forehead and behind my ear. I really needed a fucking haircut. John Paul had been right about being able to make a ponytail with it if I were so inclined. It still felt good when she did that, though – when she took hair off my forehead or my face and pushed it behind my ear over and over again.
She kept doing it, her fingertips just barely touching my skin. I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath. My eyelids grew heavy as her fingers stroked over my skin. I settled my head against her shoulder, and the next thing I knew, the sneaky thing had put me to sleep.
*
Twelve noon, local time, was a stupid fucking time to be wandering around in an airport, but here we were anyway. There had to be five fucking billion people in the place. If we had to wait another fucking hour to get on our flight, I was going to slaughter someone, probably someone in a security uniform even though they were supposed to be keeping the crowds away from the long-lost castaways on the final leg of their journey home.
Fucking media.
We walked down the small terminal towards the gate where our plane would start loading in a half hour. The two security dudes who stayed with us blocked off a bit of the area near the windows for the five of us to sit. Nick was talking about the plane we’d be flying in – apparently he used to fly commercial aircraft as well – and Lindsay and Raine were beaming at him like he was some kind of fucking superhero.
I needed to get away – just for a few minutes.
I grumbled something about being back in a second but didn’t say it loud enough for anyone to actually hear me, just enough to claim later that I had. While Raine fiddled around with the small travel bag containing a change of clothes and some toiletries, I slipped down the corridor. When we had walked to our terminal earlier, I had seen the one thing I hadn’t managed to acquire since leaving the island, and I wasn’t going to waste another second without it. I headed towards the airport bar.
Upon entering the room, I inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of leather barstools, beer, and sweet, sticky liquors. Without hesitation, I walked straight up to the bar and ordered three vodka shots – top shelf. The Bartender raised his eyebrows at me and then poured out each – all in good-sized shot glasses and pretty full, which is how they fucking should be – and set them in front of me. I wrapped my fingers around the first glass and picked it up. It was cool against my fingers, and my throat burned in anticipation of the fluid about to fill it.
“Bastian!”
Fuck.
Raine raced into the bar, nearly knocking over a couple of chairs and a table as she rushed past and collided with the edge of the bar right next to me.
“Stop, Bastian – please!”
“Why?” I responded, barely glancing in her direction. I kept my vice-like grip on the glass in my hand. The clear liquid sang out, begging me to taste it.
“You don’t need it.”
“Like hell I don’t.”
“If you drink it, it controls you, Bastian. Don’t let it be like that.”
“Maybe that’s the way it should be,” I said.
“Bastian…don’t do this.”
“Do what?” I barked out a laugh. “Drink? I’m a fucking alcoholic, Raine. I told you that the first fucking day. That hasn’t fucking changed just because I didn’t have any alcohol available. I never stopped wanting it. Never. You know this shit.”
“You don’t have to drink,” Raine said. “I know you are an alcoholic, I know you want it, but you’ve been a sober alcoholic for over two months. Don’t throw that away, Bastian. Don’t you remember what you had to go through just to get dried out?”
“Of course I fucking remember,” I snarled. “That doesn’t change anything. I want a fucking drink, and I’m having one. You’d be better off figuring that shit out now and probably find yourself a decent guy to be with instead.”
“Bastian, you don’t mean that.”