“The bottle, you moron. My head is killing me. Maybe it will numb me up.”
“Speaking from experience, I can assure you that it won’t. Maybe you should try to get some rest.” I glared at him with the good, old-fashioned raised eyebrow. He sighed and passed the vodka back to me.
I noticed half the bottle was gone already. I was anticipating another puke-fest. I surely wasn’t in the mood to help him through that. I tipped the bottle back and let the liquid pour down my throat. As I pulled the bottle away, the burn hit. I looked at the label. “Ugh. This is the cheap shit.”
“Would you like me to put an order in for the good stuff, straight out of Russia, to arrive at our next stop?” he said with great sarcasm. Asshole. How dare he? He knew that was my thing.
“Of course. Maybe you can have them stop in France and grab some Dom Pèrignon, as well.” He smirked at me, and I handed him back the bottle. Feeling the desire and need to change the subject, I asked, “So where exactly are we traveling to?”
“The port.”
“Why there?”
“It was planned out previously in the program. It’s where I’m supposed to meet him.”
“So you know exactly where we’re going?”
“Of course.” I sighed at him. He was hiding something again. He knew how I felt about that. I decided to let it go for the moment and sit quietly, hoping that the vodka would kick in soon. So far, no luck. Henry kept glancing back and checking on me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to.
At some point, I must have nodded off because when I woke up, it was dark. We were stopped in front of this creepy, dilapidated house.
Surprisingly, Henry was passed out, as well as Claire. Thomas and Nick got out to investigate. I sat waiting, keeping my fingers crossed that we were alone. Several minutes later, Nick came back to the truck.
“Looks good. It’s empty. No beds or furniture, though.” I sulked a little. He rolled his eyes at me. “Cut the shit, Lainy! What did you expect? A fucking five-star hotel?” He slammed the truck door and went to the back to start unloading. Grumpy much? He was really worried about Claire and the baby so I cut him some slack. He was pulling a Henry, and not sleeping very well, either. There were times when I would wake up in the middle of the night, and Nick would be chatting with him.
Henry stirred, and Claire sat up. I began the daunting task of waking Henry from his drunken slumber. Once I got him inside, I helped unload the truck. I was so fucking sick of loading and unloading the damn truck. It was getting beyond ridiculous. I couldn’t wait until we found a place where we could stay for a while. Hopefully, a more permanent place. I just wanted to be able to call some place home again.
***
When I woke up the next morning, Henry and Nick had the maps open on the floor. I wondered how long they had been at it, until I saw that the couple candles they had used were melted on the floor. They were quietly discussing different routes we could take to get to where Henry needed us to go.
Nick wanted to get somewhere that would have some sort of bed for Claire. She was growing increasingly uncomfortable. Plus, her legs and feet were swelling. Every minute of each day, Claire was becoming more and more worried about the baby. She was having contractions throughout the day, which worried me. She tried to convince me it wasn’t a big deal and it happened, but I could see the fear in her eyes. It was far too early for her to go into labor.
Nick made an executive decision after he spent a good portion of that morning trying to console Claire after another crying jag and said we were staying a few more nights in that run-down house. She needed to get rehydrated, and we needed to convince her to eat more than she had been.
All of us gave up close to all of our bedding and linens to try to make her as comfortable as possible. We had a long-winded argument over it because she worried we would get too cold. We told her we would pile on the clothes, and not to worry about us. I wasn’t worried about Henry because, more than likely, he would keep warm with whatever bottle he was nursing.
Approximately a week later, we left that house and headed the direction Henry and Nick planned out. Once again, Nick was driving and Henry was helping navigate from the passenger seat with a bottle of booze clutched in his hand. We were getting extremely low on essential supplies, which meant food and water. However, for some reason, we had plenty of booze.
***
It was roughly another week before we finally made it to the approximate area where Henry was to meet Gunther. We were trolling down a country road when we saw signs of the bombings. The few houses that we saw were either burnt to the ground or dangerously close to collapsing. There were only a couple that looked like they could have still been lived in. It was so sad to see all of the destruction. As we drove past each house, we were all silent as one question lingered in the air around us.