Page 50 of Threads That Bind Us
Embarrassing enough that I slipped when Charlie pressed his fingers against my wrist to adjust my grip the other day. I will not let him know both the injury and my ego still sting.
Charlie just raises his eyebrows, like he knows I’m lying but is letting it slide, and I try not to blush. It’s been a month of training, not just with him, but with other members of The Syndicate as well. Sometimes Lily, Ana’s shadow, will have Zane cover her so she can teach me hand-to-hand combat. Zane walks me through restraints, both how to make them and how to get out of them. He even lets me drive every once in a while, showing me how to handle a car when it’s running over one hundred miles per hour. Once, Charlie joined us at a tiny airstrip in the middle of a cornfield where Diego, The Syndicate’s resident fleet expert, offered to teach me to fly a prop plane.
Some time over the past four weeks, I’ve learned to manage whatever the fuck happens to me around Charlie. It helps that I have a release valve now. I can blame the intimacy of learning how to kill and maim for the way my body thrums around him. And then, when we leave that little room, I can compartmentalize.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. I don’t have many other options.
There’s a small part of me that I know is not convinced. It’s fed exclusively by the memory of Charlie’s voice coming from that shower. When I’m laying in bed at night, listening to his steady breaths next to me, it seeps into my mind like poison into water, permeating every inch of the insulation I’ve built.
We watch as Ana opens the envelope from Linda and Paul—tickets to Awesome-Con, their standard gift for the past few years. Ana thanks them, and she and Gray talk about their cosplay plans in a level of detail I will never fully comprehend.
“You think she’s going to be up for tonight?” Charlie asks, watching Ana hide a yawn behind her hands.
She’s been back at school for almost a month, and while her energy levels seem to get better every day, she still passes out right after dinner almost every night. But she slept in today, knowing we have evening plans for her birthday, even if they’re a surprise to everyone but Charlie.
“You’ve amped her up too much. She’d tape her eyes open before she missed this,” I reply.
“Hello? Can I open yours?” Ana asks for what sounds like not the first time, staring at Charlie and me with her eyebrows raised in annoyance.
I shake myself again and join her on the couch, squishing between her and Kenzie.
Ana carefully unwraps the paper and lifts the lid of the box I hand her. Her hand stills over the top.
“You don’t even know if I’m going to get in.” Her voice is tight, breaking a little on the end, as she picks up the sleeve of the vintage Carnegie Mellon sweatshirt. The edge is embroidered with the year she’ll graduate.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, kid,” I say, pulling her under my arm and tucking her head under mychin. She squeezes around my ribs, and I hope she can feel how much I believe in her.
An hour later,Kenzie takes off for her shift, and the McCallum family piles in their car to follow us to whatever surprise Charlie has planned.
“You’re still not going to give me any clues?” Ana asks Charlie as Zane pulls the SUV around.
Charlie opens her door for her and narrows his eyes.
“You’re not getting anything out of me at the last minute,” he taunts, closing her door and walking around to the car to open mine. “She’s not big on surprises, is she?”
“She’s a control freak,” I say, and Ana sticks her tongue out at me.
“Wonder where she gets it from,” Charlie laughs.
Once Charlie’s in the passenger’s seat, Zane takes off, ensuring the McCallum’s car is following close behind. Ana only lasts for a few minutes before she’s trying a new angle.
“Hey, Zane,” she says, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Do you happen to know what the surprise is?”
“Ana,” I scold, slapping her arm lightly as Charlie laughs again from the front seat. “Don’t try to get insider info a half an hour before we’re there.”
But she doesn’t even look at me. She’s staring down Zane, a challenge in her eyes, and I wonder how he’ll hold up to her.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” he says, nodding his head toward his boss beside him. “But I promise it’s really fucking cool.”
She laughs, and I lift my arms up in defeat.
“Can we watch the language around the minor?” I implore, shoving her arm again. All she does is laugh and look down at her phone, obviously texting Gray.
“Sorry about that, Miss Byrne,” Zane says, but I catch his smile in the mirror.
A half hour later, we’re pulling into a small artsy community in Reston. There are gallery spaces with warm lighting and wine bars with their outdoor seating covered in tarp to keep the ice away. Zane pulls us through a few blocks before idling in front of what looks like a large fabric studio.
We all get out of the car, Gray scrambling to catch up with Ana as his parents wrestle Maddie out of her car seat. Charlie hits the intercom, letting whoever’s inside know we’ve arrived. I can’t help but be impressed by the wall of fabric rolls lining one of the walls inside. It looks like art, the way they’re stacked, creating a chromatic grid across the whole space. The big, open windows let us see a few long, high tables with drawers underneath, and I wonder if we’re at some sort of upholstery shop.