Chapter 7
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“Remind me why we let Charisma send a chauffeur in a limousine?” Tanner asked a few hours later. “This is so embarrassing! Good night, a limo?”
“I mean, it’s not that bad,” Harley interjected. “It’s just a black stretch limo with heavily tinted windows and a chauffeur who could totally be Chris Pratt’s body double.” She paused. “Y’know, now that I think about it, I get where Tanner’s coming from. What do you have to say about this, Ethaniel?”
But her question fell on deaf ears. Ethaniel had laid down on the seat beside her and was curled up, cradling his torso, the Tylenol having long worn off.
Harley sighed.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Infinity blurted. “Did he say he got shot three months ago?” She counted on her fingers. “Five, six… It’s been SEVEN months, not three! Who the- I mean, what the- Aw-” She cussed in Russian. “What happened in the six months you were gone?” she said, leveling her dark gaze on Cameo, who was fingering a telltale bulge on his hip.
“Nothing,” he responded defensively. “All we did was fix the Fall. That’s it.”
She narrowed her eyes and balled her fists. “I don’t believe you. Your track record for lying is pretty impressive right now.” She laughed a humorless laugh. “I mean, you lied to me for a month and half. Did you really think I’d just up and forgive you for that?”
“Я как бы надеялся, что ты это сделаешь,” he whispered.
“Oh, shut up, Cameo,” she snapped. “No one feels sorry for you! No one cares!”
Cameo pulled his letterman tighter around his shoulders, trying to dispel the cold coming from Infinity. He could feel everyone’s eyes boring into him as he stared into his lap. The walls of the limo swayed and buckled and compressed around him. The car felt too small. He pressed his hands to his ears to stop the voices in his head.
He had to get out. “ENOUGH!” he screamed and slammed his body against the car door. His heart pounding in his chest, he fumbled with the handle until the door finally swung open.
“Cameo, NO!” Tanner yelled as he lunged for Cameo, milliseconds too late. Cameo hung in the air for a fraction of a second, then hit the pavement hard, rolling a few feet before coming to a stop. He picked his head up, barely registering that he had landed on the outskirts of town, and peered through the heavily tinted back window. He could hardly see through, but he could. All he saw was Infinity staring at him as the car kept driving, and in that split second, he knew they weren’t going to stop for him.
He sighed, and picked himself up. His letterman was torn and covered in dirt, and his old khaki shorts were splattered in mud.
Funny, he thought to himself, I don’t look all that different from last time I rolled into Yellowknife. I sure don’t feel any different. Still feel terrible, still have no friends. I’m half dead, I tried to murder someone.
“Это не так уж и отличается!” he yelled at the roostertail of dust behind the rear wheels of the retreating limo.
“It’s not different at all,” he whispered, beginning the long walk into the heart of the city and the Rale Mansion.
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