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So Charlie had done it. He’d admitted who he was to the Horsemen, and they hadn’t rejected him outright.
“You don’t get to choose your family,” said Henley finally. “And we’re not going to judge you for them, especially when you’re the one trying to stop them.”
“Yeah, and it wouldn't be the first time we’ve had to take down someone’s criminal sibling,” Lula added helpfully, “Did you know Merritt literally has an evil twin brother?”
Charlie didn’t mention that they were all very familiar with the footage from New Year’s Eve 2016. Probably best to not unpack the evil twin thing right now.
“So how are we getting to Abu Dhabi?” Atlas asked, also not particularly eager to revisit Chase McKinney.
Charlie shrugged one shoulder. “We budgeted for ‘The Eye’ to charter a private jet.”
“Wow, okay Taylor Swift,” said Lula.
“Do you want to fly commercial, then?” asked Henley.
“Not even a little bit,” Lula replied immediately.
“It’s actually kind of practical,” said Atlas. “Gives us time to plan on the move. There’s a lot we’re going to have to set up and not a lot of time to do it in.”
Next to Charlie, June flagged, leaning into his shoulder. Charlie put an arm around her, gently rubbing her bicep.
Noticing this, Jack spoke up. “So that sounds great and all, but where are we sleeping tonight?”
“Too risky to book a hotel, especially nearby,” Atlas mused. “That’s the first place I’d be monitoring, if I was Veronika. And if four of us boarding a train to France was already enough to make headlines, I can’t imagine it’s any safer now that we’re fugitives. Again.”
“Maybe if we did disguises?” said Henley. “Lula, do you think we could go back to your place and–”
Lula sucked in through her teeth, looking down at her phone. “Sorry, no can do. Doorman just texted – the cops are staking out my apartment as we speak. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken off the old lady makeup while we were still INSIDE the jailhouse…it was pretty itchy, though.”
“You have a doorman?” asked Jack.
“It’s a nice place, Jack,” she snipped.
“The doorman has your number?”
“Henri is also, like, eighty years old. Relax.”
“That’s not what I was–” he gave up. “Whatever.”
Charlie turned to Lula. “Do you think we could stay here? Just for the night, I mean.”
Lula glanced around the darkened barn. “The couple who owns it will probably be around in the morning, but they like me. They’re pretty elderly, so if we help them out with a few chores tomorrow I think they’ll keep quiet about us being in here.”
“Why do you know so many old people?” asked Atlas, unable to help himself.
“Old people love magic tricks,” she said, “Where do you think I got the idea for the makeup?”
“Not really an answer to my question, but okay,” said Atlas. “Whether Lula’s elderly friends agree to us being here or not, we should probably have someone keep a lookout outside in case you guys were followed.”
“Henley and I will take first watch then,” Lula announced. “We’ve got some catching up to do.” She took Henley’s arm and whisked her away before anyone had a chance to object.
Jack and Atlas split to one end of the barn, Bosco, Charlie, and June to the other. While the trio had been careful to hide their relationship back in Antwerp, there really didn’t seem to be a point to it now. Whether the Horsemen knew or not, what did it matter? If they were ever going to get Merritt back, they’d all need to see the plan out to its bitter end.
The hay seemed…well, as clean as hay could get, anyway. And once you positioned your clothing just right to be sure that nothing was itching your skin, it was surprisingly comfortable and sweet-smelling. God knows they’d slept in stranger places before Meltzer’s.
By silent agreement, June took the middle spot on their makeshift bed for the night. They slept close, touching just enough to remind one another that they were all still here, all three of them.
Charlie had nearly fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion when he felt June shake slightly next to him. At first he thought she was trying to hold in silent laughter, but then he heard her breath hitch and realized she was crying.
He rolled over to hold her, and saw Bosco had done the same. She had curled in on her side, facing Bosco but pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, shuddering with the effort to keep quiet. Bosco wrapped his arms around her, and she buried her face into his chest. Charlie stroked her hair, feeling increasingly helpless at the situation.
“It’s okay,” said Bosco, gently but with firm conviction, “we’re not letting you go again.”
“She tried to use me,” June said, her voice watery and hoarse, “to get at Jack. Her lackey – I don’t even remember his name – took me into his interrogation room, held a gun to my head–”
Bosco and Charlie’s eyes snapped up to meet with identical looks of alarm.
“Ssh,” said Charlie, “it’s okay, you don’t have to–”
“I would have told her anything. If I’d known where you were I would’ve said it; I thought — I thought he might — “ It was too horrible to even think about, let alone say. Her hands dropped from her face, balling themselves into fists in Bosco’s shirt. “But she didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know.”
“That’s the thing about torture, June,” said Bosco, fighting to keep his tone light, “just because it doesn’t work, that doesn’t stop people from trying to do it.” It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought, but he hadn’t really meant it to be. “God,” he said finally, “I’m sorry.”
Charlie didn’t say what he was thinking, because a very ugly instinct had surfaced in his mind; one that he’d had more than once over the last fifteen years and that scared him every time: he didn’t want Veronika exposed or jailed. He wanted her dead.
It was not a practical line of thinking, nor entirely rational, nor moral. It was, however, a very Vanderberg solution. Charlie had never been his father’s son, not really, but a trace of the father still remained somewhere inside the mechanics of his brain. That, if anything, was the line that separated him from his sister: he resisted the impulse. She hadn’t.
That wasn’t to say it was an easy thing to do.
“I left Merritt,” June choked, her voice muffled against Bosco’s chest.
“She’s not going to hurt him,” said Charlie, tucking June’s hair behind her ear. He could see just a sliver of her tear-streaked face, eyes screwed shut in misery. “He’s her leverage. She wouldn’t throw away the only chance she has to get her diamond back.”
“I ruined your plan,” she continued.
Bosco’s eyes flicked up once more, searching Charlie’s face. Charlie didn’t meet his eyes as he kissed the top of June’s head. “You didn’t,” Charlie assured, “you didn’t.”
“I ran away.”
“You came back to us,” said Bosco, which was all that mattered. He would have traded Merritt McKinney a thousand times. He would have thrown away years of careful planning and betrayed the Horsemen in a heartbeat. He would have burned the world to get her back. He took one of her hands, releasing its death grip against the fabric of his shirt and pressing his lips to the back of it.
“Shit,” said June, extricating her hand from Bosco's to wipe roughly at her eyes. She sniffed and tilted her face so just her forehead was against him. Her eyes were still closed, but this time it was in resignation. “I hate feeling sorry for myself.”
Given the circumstances, she was well within her right to do so. But Bosco and Charlie knew better than to tell her that. They remained in silence for a few minutes after that, long enough that Charlie thought June might have fallen asleep after all.
“Charlie,” June said quietly, not moving anything but her mouth, “tell me a fact about magic.”
“Um, okay.” Charlie wracked his brain. The first thing he came up with was that William Ellsworth Robinson never broke character from his stage persona of Chung Ling Soo until the moment he was shot through the lung on stage during a failed bullet catch. Didn’t seem like the one to bring up right now. “The first known magic trick was the cup-and-balls illusion. It’s been around for at least 2000 years; the Acetabularii regularly performed it in Ancient Rome.”
“Knew that one,” said June.
“Apollo Robbins once pickpocketed the cartridge out of the pen in Penn Jillette’s front shirt pocket.”
She yawned. “I could do that.”
“You think?” said Bosco, cracking a smile.
“Yep.” Eyes closed, she held one hand up with a flourish, holding a piece of hay between her thumb and forefinger. “Was this your card?”
“That’s a piece of hay,” said Charlie.
“Yeah, but if I’d thought to make you pick a card earlier, it would’ve been pretty cool if I had pulled it out now.”
“It definitely would’ve,” Bosco agreed.
“I’ll be okay tomorrow,” June said after a beat, dropping her hand once more.
“It’s okay if you aren’t,” said Charlie.
“But I will be,” she said, as if commanding herself to believe it.
Tomorrow there would be an escape, and a plan, and chores for an elderly French farm couple.
But tonight there were three of them, they were together, and everything else was detail.