Lost and Found (Scions of Sin Book 4)

by Taylor Holloway

  “I’m in. You’re going to need someone with my skills if you’re travelling to that part of the world.”

  I needed a sound mixer, so I hoped that was what he was referring to and not some nonexistent adventuring expertise. I reached out my hand and he shook it.

  “Welcome to The Quest.”

  8

  David

  The next month passed by so quickly that I could barely believe our departure date had snuck up. The morning of the flight, I met Casey, our camera operators Curtis and Daphne, and sound mixer Trevor at LAX. According to Casey, we’d be meeting our local ‘fixer’ and translator, Zing, when we arrived. The four of us fought through the morning security rush with our equipment—armed with optimism, passports, and a boatload of permits for our expedition.

  Casey had taken care of a million details I hadn’t even thought of—many of them not even related directly to the production of the show. For instance, our travel immunizations. I never would have realized we all needed to receive vaccinations for so many ailments. Typhoid, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, cholera, rabies, Japanese encephalitis, and influenza shots were all recommended before travelling into the countryside. I hadn’t even known what Japanese encephalitis was, although a quick Google search on the subject made me very glad there was a vaccine against it. No matter what the supposed health properties of flame-leaf, I doubted it would beat never getting sick in the first place.

  Casey and I had been in constant communication over the past month, but she was all business. Any time I tried to shift a conversation toward anything personal, she deftly redirected it. I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that she wanted a purely professional relationship, and I could understand that since I was now her boss, but I couldn’t deny my disappointment. Even this morning, sitting next to me in the international terminal, she was asking questions and talking on two cell phones at once. Somehow, she even managed to make multitasking look good.

  “David, when we get to—” she started to ask me, and then her eyes went wide in a panic. She stood up midsentence, scattering a number of papers and electronic devices. She slapped a hand over her mouth and sprinted toward the bathroom.

  “Casey?” I called after her, confused. Trevor, Curtis, Daphne and I all looked after her in shock.

  After a second, Daphne got up as well. “Um, I’m going to go check on her.”

  Neither woman returned from the bathroom for a very long time. Eventually, Daphne reappeared and asked if any of us had packed anti-nausea medication. Trevor perked up.

  “I packed some,” he said proudly. “I figured one of you ladies would get the vapors, although I admit I thought it would be after we left LA.” Trevor was a weird kid, and not just because he said ‘the vapors’ like it was a real condition. The very few conversations I’d had with him had given me the impression that he thought I was competing with him in some sort of bizarre masculinity contest. I was also relatively sure he had a crush on Casey, although I could hardly fault him for that since I did too. “Or perhaps looking at David was just too revolting to her,” Trevor finished. I bristled. Were the crew usually allowed to talk like that to the talent? Trevor seemed to utterly lack a social filter.

  Daphne rolled her eyes at him but accepted the pills gratefully. “Thanks Trevor. I think she’s just having a vaccine reaction or maybe ate a bad muffin.”

  “Do you think she wants some club soda?” I offered. I hated the idea that Casey was hurting and there was nothing I could do to fix it. “I can go buy some right now…”

  Daphne smiled but shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I’ll tell her you offered. She’s already doing better.”

  Once Daphne went back to the bathroom, Trevor leaned over. “Casey doesn’t like soda. Plus, ginger ale is better for nausea than club soda. The ginger helps to settle stomach acid,” he informed me.

  “Oh really?” I asked him blandly. How and why I’d found myself in any sort of a competition with Trevor was confusing, but I didn’t like it. I also didn’t like that Trevor knew something about Casey that I didn’t. I wished and wanted to know her better.

  Trevor’s nod was smug. “I’ve been reading a lot about first aid. You know in case we run into trouble. After all, we’re taking women into a dangerous jungle, the three of us need to be prepared to protect them.”

  I had no reply and Curtis had already put his earbuds back in rather than listen to Trevor and I talk. I almost thought Trevor might be joking, but it wasn’t clear. Joking or not, he really was a piece of work. Curtis, Daphne, and Casey all clearly humored him, apparently on account of his talent, but he hardly seemed worth it to me.

  Nevertheless, I’d learned over the years that feeding the trolls only makes them hungrier. I could only assume that Daphne or Casey could have smacked him themselves if necessary. I merely raised an eyebrow and returned to my email.

  When Casey did finally return, she looked embarrassed but otherwise fine. She’d completely changed her clothes, which could only mean that she hadn’t made it to the toilet in time, and I winced out of sympathy for her. Being sick while travelling was a curse.

  “I’m just fine,” she said preemptively as our group all looked up at her. “I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me for breakfast. I’m not running a temperature so don’t worry, I’m not contagious.”

  “Are you sure you’re alright to fly?” I asked after she sat down and awkwardly began reorganizing the things she’d dropped before her quick retreat. She stared around herself in confusion, and then yawned as if suddenly very tired. I was worried about her even though she answered,

  “I really am ok.” Her voice didn’t sound very confident.

  Without thinking, I tipped her chin up so I could see her eyes and assess for myself. Casey didn’t flinch away from me, but she did look surprised I’d touched her. Her chocolaty brown eyes were wide when they met mine, and her soft lips parted. She smelled aggressively like toothpaste, but aside from being a shade pale, looked otherwise alright. I held her gaze for only a moment before she pushed her hair out of her face sheepishly and pulled back.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, this time in a whisper. “David, really. I’m ok.”

  I wanted to press, but I could feel the gazes of the rest of the crew observing us surreptitiously. I drew back into my own space and away from Casey’s sweet-smelling skin. After a few minutes of getting her bearing back, Casey was back to normal. Given that I had no idea what I was doing from a television-making perspective, I was relieved. Without Casey, I’d be totally lost.

  9

  Casey

  When I booked our seats on the plane, I had been thinking more about avoiding sitting next to Trevor for nineteen hours than anything else. I ended up sitting right next to a window, with David to my right. The rest of the crew was one row over and behind us. Somehow, and I suspected it was due to the Durant-Breyer family largesse more than anything else, but for the first time in my life we were flying first class.

  I stared around myself in curious wonder. My seat was enormous! And so totally private! Unlike the shabby planes that carried me to and from the family homestead in Arkansas, this plane was brand new, beautiful, gigantic, and perfectly clean. I sat down gingerly, and half expected to be quickly corrected and put somewhere much less luxurious.

  Although David was right next to me, we had almost total seclusion within our little reclining, private ‘pods’. Given that I’d never been out of the country before, this seemed like a ridiculously glamorous way to begin my international experience. I examined my little kit of complementary toiletries with delight. A beautiful flight attendant in a stylish uniform appeared at my side almost immediately after I settled in.

  “Welcome aboard. How are your pillows? Would you like some champagne?” She asked me in perfect English. Her teeth were very even and white. The bottle she was holding had golden writing on it in French. It looked expensive.

  I shook my head shyly. Champagne sounded goo
d, but I didn’t want to take any chances after my recent sudden nausea. “Oh. The pillows are perfect. Thanks, but no thanks to the champagne.”

  “How about you, sir… oh my god you’re David Breyer! I love you!” The flight attendant recognized David. He smiled at her with his mega-watt smile and it made me vaguely and irrationally jealous to see her falling all over herself to take a selfie with him. She fawned over him for a few minutes before remembering herself and continuing to serve champagne. I caught her stealing glances back at him the entire time and was secretly pleased to see that he didn’t notice whatsoever.

  “Does this happen to you a lot? Fans recognizing you?” I asked David after a moment.

  He shrugged and had the humility to look embarrassed. “Sometimes. Less since I grew the beard.”

  I wanted to ask if that was why he grew it but didn’t feel like it was any of my business. I merely nodded and returned to my laptop.

  “I watched your cooking show last week,” I remarked after a bit, not really knowing why I was admitting to it, but wanting to make conversation. Maybe I felt like it was less embarrassing if I didn’t keep it a secret. An interested silence followed my pronouncement.

  “For the first time?” David asked, peeking over the divider a second later and blinking in surprise. I nodded at him. “What did you think of it?” He looked extremely interested in my opinion.

  For some reason, I found myself blushing intensely. Maybe because I’d binge-watched every episode of David’s prior work in my undies. Now more than ever, I got it. The man could somehow even make cooking mashed potatoes weirdly sensual and sexy. I had no idea food and sex appeal went so well together.

  “Yeah, I actually liked it a lot. You made a great show.”

  He grinned excitedly. “Really? You liked it? I consider that high praise.”

  David’s face was so innocent and excited that I smiled. I suppressed a girlish giggle that he might think my opinion was high praise—he knew I’d just escaped the set of Forgotten Extraterrestrials. Just like with the flight attendant before, he really seemed amazed that I might enjoy watching him cook. He clearly appreciated his fans.

  One thing he didn’t seem to appreciate was talking about the storyboarding for the season of television we were about to shoot. I’d been trying to get him to talk about it with me for the past two weeks and he tried to weasel out of it every time. As soon as I pulled it out, he groaned.

  “Doesn’t it sort-of undermine the whole reality concept if the plot is already mapped out?” He asked sullenly.

  “You didn’t really think that any reality show ever didn’t have at least a plot mapped out, did you? A lot of them are actually almost scripted television at this point.”

  David frowned. “It feels like lying.

  “How can it be lying if everyone knows this is how reality television is produced?”

  “I don’t know. It just is. I feel like we should let the story develop naturally.”

  I sighed and sat back. “Ok. If you don’t want to storyboard I guess we don’t have to. But if we don’t end up with a coherent series, you’ll have no one but yourself to blame. The show needs to tell a story. We have to make sure we have enough footage to piece that together.”

  “No, no. I’m not trying to be obnoxious and stubborn. I trust you. If we need a storyboard, we need a storyboard. I made the mistake of never listening to anyone but myself last time around. This time I’m going to listen to you.”

  It was actually quite gratifying to hear until he added, “How about you just storyboard the whole thing and I’ll just do the scenes you tell me to do? I’m sure you’ll do a good job.”

  That felt more like he was avoiding the work, but as long as he did the scenes, I guess it didn’t really matter.

  “Ok. If that’s what you want.”

  I pulled up my calendar and started looking at our filming schedule and where we needed to be in the narrative by the end of each filming date. I accidentally flipped to last month and found myself staring at the dates in confusion. There was something missing from my calendar. Usually I always marked the day my period started, but there was nothing on there.

  My period hadn’t come last month at all. In all the stress and confusion over creating the show, I hadn’t even noticed its absence. That wasn’t too unusual on its own, I argued with myself. The whole month had been a mad dash to get things accomplished, and I’d simply been too busy. Stress can cause hormonal changes. But now that I was thinking about it, the last time I’d bought tampons had been a while ago. In fact,... I turned to the previous month and looked for the tell-tale highlighting I usually used for my cycle.

  There was nothing.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Two entire months late? And now the morning nausea? I’d only had one partner in the past six months. One spectacular partner who never called me after.

  David. At my side, he was happily tapping away at his laptop. He was totally oblivious to my revelation and it made me simultaneously furious and terrified. My stomach had seized up into complicated sailor knots. I forced my breath in and out with conscious effort, thinking about the odds and getting lightheaded.

  I hadn’t missed any of my birth control pills. I took them like clockwork. Perfectly. Every day. For years. Was it even possible that I could be pregnant?

  As the plane rumbled down the LA runway, lurched heavily into the sky, and headed out across the Pacific Ocean, I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t possible. The pill is 99.98% effective when used properly, I argued internally. I was more likely to win the lottery than get knocked up in a single one-night stand. But it wasn’t impossible. Improbable, sure, but not impossible. It happened all the time.

  I adore children, and I always saw myself growing up to have a whole house full of tiny Caseys, but I was only twenty-four. I lived in the world’s shittiest one-bedroom apartment and I could barely feed myself half the time. This production was an enormous professional risk, and one I would only take because I was young and unencumbered. A baby would entirely change my life’s trajectory.

  And then there was David. Would he be angry? Disgusted? Disappointed? What if he wanted me to get an abortion or put the baby up for adoption? Would he want anything to do with the baby? What if he wanted something insane in the other direction? What if he wanted to, like, get married or something? What if he wanted sole custody? Could I do that? Would I want to? I could barely comprehend how I would tell him the news, let alone predict how he might react. I wasn’t even sure how I was supposed to react. The possibilities were so numerous, and some were so frightening, that I was starting to hyperventilate. I forced myself to calm with all my might.

  After takeoff, the lovely flight attendants circulated again with the bottles of champagne. I declined a second time, but for a totally new and mind-blowing reason. I needed to find a pregnancy test as soon as we got to Manila.

  10

  David

  Casey was quiet for almost the entire flight to Manila. I didn’t know if she was a nervous flier, or if her anxiety had a different source, but her uneasiness was so strong and clear that I practically felt it vibrating off her in waves. I decided to do the polite thing and give her space. As much as I wanted to take down the divider between us, wrap my arms around her, and tell her that everything was fine, I knew it would be a huge breach of a professional boundary that she’d carefully installed between us. It was my curse to respect her decision.

  Those nineteen hours were torture. Once I made a commitment not to disturb her, disturbing her was all I could think about. The past month had been an endurance event in resisting her, and I was not at all sure I’d be up to the challenge of traveling with her.

  To make matters worse, directly to my right there were a couple of honeymooners. They weren’t being horribly obvious about it, but it was clear that they were totally obsessed with each other. When the two simultaneously disappeared for half an hour to the showers, I knew precisely what had gone down. The
y kept giggling like the whole cabin wasn’t aware of their clandestine marital-aerial coitus. What a couple of assholes. I gritted my teeth, read my book, listened to my music, and attempted to mind my own business.

  The cherry on my sexual frustration sundae was Elodie, the first-class cabin flight attendant. Every time I got up from my seat, she was extra-solicitous: bumping up against me in the galley, giggling hysterically if I said anything halfway funny, taking more pictures than anyone could ever need, and offering me free drinks to share with her ‘in the back’. The David of yesteryear would have been more than game for a mid-Pacific hookup with a friendly stranger, but now I really only wanted Casey.

  When I managed to weasel out of drinks with Elodie by professing that I was in a relationship with my seatmate, I found Casey finally sleeping in her little pod on my return. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow next to her, and her mouth was parted ever so slightly. Her skin was very pale—almost too pale and translucent under the artificial airplane lights—but she still looked like she was glowing subtly from inside. The previously purple streaks in her blonde hair were now a vivid orange-red. The whole effect reminded me of ‘Flaming June’ by Frederick Leighton.

  I let myself daydream about Casey for a while, pretending that she was really my girlfriend, and not my disinterested coworker. If she were mine, I could brush her hair back from her forehead and settle her blanket better around her shoulders. I’d take down the awful divider that kept her away from me and hold her. I would figure out what had her so anxious, and then fix it. And then we’d go join the mile-high club.

  I was still entertaining lurid fantasies about going down on Casey at thirty thousand feet when we began our descent into Manila. At my side, Casey was still down for the count. She slept all through the landing announcements and the landing. I had to wake her just to get off the plane.