We wouldn’t know, unless we tried.
And oh, did I want to try with Charlie. Always with Charlie.
“I think we’re meant to go out there,” I whispered, still clinging to him. The door reappeared, propped open wide for us in invitation.
He looked over his shoulder at the beautifully foreboding vista, eyes weary. “What’s going to happen if we do?”
I kissed his temple. “I’m not sure.”
He looked into my eyes. “There’s a fire out there, though. And a storm is coming. What if we get hurt?”
I wrapped my arms around his middle, bumping our chests together. “We almost certainly will, but I still want to go with you.”
“TATE! WE HAVE TO GO! NOW!”
Sunglasses was already back up into the helicopter along with Charlie. He leaned out the side, beckoning for us to follow.
“ALRIGHT!” Tate yelled, strapping me into the stretcher.
“You hold on, you stubborn idiot,” he said to me as we were lifted into the air. “I’m not nearly as open-minded as you are. I’m not gonna be your friend if you show up as a ghost to haunt me.”
“I’m scared, Reece,” Charlie said. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this.”
Smiling, I tugged him toward the door. “You are. And we’ll do it together. I’ll never let go.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He took my hand in his again. The world around us surged, sunset orange and the deepest blue of night smudging together, like bleeding watercolors meeting across the page.
I could see Charlie standing before me, whole and healthy, and lying on a stretcher next to me, soaked through and barely breathing.
Urgency tugged on those blue-black shades all around us, telling me to return to that darker place. It was time to go.
Charlie must’ve felt it, too. “Ready?” he asked, poised to step out the door.
Movement out of the corner of my eye made me turn.
The Thing appeared just on my other side. He looked right at me, gaze boring into mine more directly than ever before. Something quiet passed between us; a truce. For now, at least.
Together, we faced ahead, toward the possibilities that lay before us.
He was coming along, too.
I stepped away from the small shaving kit mirror propped on the counter and squeezed Charlie’s hand.
“Ready.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Death fucking sucked.
Everything hurt, the blankets itched, and there was a grating alarm going off somewhere that had about five seconds to quit before I started yelling.
Oh my God, I’m in Hell.
Clearly, making fun of Viola’s new-age relaxation music had been the final straw. She was kind, in the end, and really, wandering around in the jungle couldn’t be as bad as suffering for eternity with that alarm.
