Page 23 of Queen of Nothing

Serena asks, “Can you call us a taxi, please?”

He does, and we go to wait for it outside.

Serena leads me around the building to the bins out back.

Here, hidden by smelly plastic, she changes our illusions. And we change our clothes.

The taxi pulls up out front, and we race for it before the server can notice that we’re suddenly two different people now.

And in the backseat, the ride to the airport is filled with packing and repacking our bags, sorting through the junk, and mainly, Serena illusioning the cash. By the time she’s done with the money, the paper notes are just a stack of books.

Easier to get through airport security with books than it is to get through with cash—or jewels.

Serena’s print has saved our asses so many times now. Without it, we wouldn’t have made it very far at all, not even past the first airport.

I’m sick of them.

Airports.

I can’t wait for this part to be over, and we’re settled on a beach somewhere, sand between our toes and cocktails in our hands.

But I can’t fast forward through the monotony of airports so early in the morning. At least the main café is open, really more of a cafeteria vibe that reminds me of the mess hall at Bluestone, and I’m glad for it, because I fill up on breakfast as we wait for the next flight out—

To Pristina. Serbia.

I’ve never been. Not like this is really a visit.

We’re only there for two hours before we jump onto another crammed flight and go to Istanbul, where Serena alters our illusions to fit in, then to Baghdad, then Doha, then all the way to Dallas, Texas.

Finally, we stop flying around the world.

I’m nauseas with travel by the time we’re leaving the airport and stepping out into hot, thick air.

It’s horrible.

Serena pauses at a bin and sicks up everything she ate on the last flight.

Once she’s gotten it all up, we wait in the long taxi queue, then we’re off. The idea was to get far away—out of the city, and beyond that.

The idea wasn’t to find a motel on the outskirts to take a breather in.

But that is what we do.

Sick, nauseas, exhausted—we sleep.

And sleep.

Serena wakes up only to be sick, then she’s straight back to bed, and for the next twenty-four hours at least, we are dead to the world.

When we wake, we shower, change clothes, tend to new illusions, then when we leave, this time we aren’t going to the airport.

We walk to the car lot just up the road.

Dressed in matching tracksuits—Serena’s a royal blue, mine just black—we wander the car lot wearing the illusions of men. Appearances that Serena stole from a couple of guys on the last flight.

But her lassitude limit is really hitting her now.

Too much nausea, too much effort, and her nose trickles with a slight trail of blood that she wipes away.