* * * * *
The coffee machine filled the toxic, tense air with rich aroma and ghastly gurgling sounds, but no one had moved to fill a cup. No one had answered my confounded, grasping questions, either. Can't you just refuse? You could just ignore that part, right? and all of that desperate nonsense.
No one had humored me with alternatives. There were no alternatives, and they knew it.
I looked to the microwave. Its primary purpose, other than storing bagels, was to tell me the time. It was fifteen after eleven. Without seeking consensus, I picked up the remote, turned on the TV, and didn't stop flipping channels until I found the evening news.
Ghi was relieved―we were all relieved―not to see his face on the screen. If he had indeed been labeled a terrorist who'd entered the country under the guise of a rare and tempting psychological disorder, at least it hadn't been leaked to the public yet. One worry checked off the list.
But the breaking story of the evening was, of course, a fire on the set of Odette. That much was unavoidable. Coverage on all networks was flooded with comments by the studio's press people, interviews with the sobbing woman who'd driven to Chicago at knife-point, and warnings to the public about escaped convict Su Kim Khan, who, among other things, was now suspected of attempting to murder Jesse Cannon in a crime of apparent fan passion.
Honestly. The things people come up with on their own.
If Khan had any feelings about these allegations, he certainly didn't show them. I prodded Ghi's shoulder with the remote and he took over for me, readily surfing through channels until he found something that was neither a commercial nor news-related. A cooking show. Mushroom quiche.
Then the dividing door swung open.
"I had a dream!" Jesse proclaimed, throwing himself into the room. For a moment, all else was forgotten. Every ear on that bus was instantly tuned to him, commanded by the unreasonable hope that he might actually have useful, applicable information to tell us. Such was the level of our desperation.
"There was a huge tornado." Jesse stalked closer, his eyes wide. "You were there," he said, in his best Judy Garland, gliding past Khan. "And you were there, and you ...."
"Don't you take anything seriously?" Corin asked, not even bothering to frown.
Jesse shrugged, unrepentant. "Couldn't sleep." Leaning against the counter, he took in the panting coffee machine, the mushroom quiche, the general acrid silence.
"And," he punctured the air carefully, "I could really go for a drink. Anyone else? Vodka? Jordan, do we have any―"
"Go to hell," I said darkly.
"Coffee, Jesse," Jackson interceded. "I'll take coffee."
Jesse blinked. He turned away from me, filled two cups to the brim with black coffee, and, without spilling a drop, settled smoothly into the plush passenger seat, handing one boiling drink over to our tireless driver. He did all of this without looking in my direction again. Somehow, he must have guessed the meaning of my sour glare and all the tension in the air. Maybe he'd heard the entire conversation about the Becoming. Either way, he didn't dare to look me in the eye. Not now, with me knowing what I knew. Not after he'd kept that from me.
Miles passed. Jackson and Jesse conversed pleasantly. Corin reclined the armchair and closed his eyes. Khan and Ghi both appeared to be very interested in how the quiche was turning out.
They were all marked for death.
Without a word, I stood up and withdrew to the back of the bus. I closed the dividing door behind me, passed the bathroom and the sleeping berths, and flopped face down into Jesse's circular bed.
The coverlet was still faintly warm from his attempt at dreaming, and the memory foam mattress sank under my shape, luring me into that wonderful limbo between heaviness and weightlessness. I'll leave as soon as possible, in the morning, I thought with firm resolve. I wouldn't stick around a minute longer than I had to. I'd say goodbye, and I'd go home.
I was asleep before I could decide where home was.
Vessel, Book I: The Advent Page 42