Page 181 of Johnny

something so monumental, so world-changing that it can’t be stopped. I’m afraid that if I get lost in

this man’s beautiful innocence I’ll lose sight of the evil he’s hiding underneath and then I’ll succumb

to it. I’ll embrace it. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him with me.

But he is wrong.

“I’m gonna say this once, Johnny Boston, and only once. We are probably bad people. We are

probably the villains in the story. We are probably going to make things worse before we’re done. But listen to me, OK? And you listen good. I don’t need a fucking prince to save me. And I know it

appeared that I did when you waltzed down into my dungeon and carried me back to this fairytale

yacht, but that was a lie. It was a setup. So… my point is this. No matter who they are, no matter what

they do, no matter what we do, or don’t do, or how we end up when this is over—be it dead, or alive,

or wishing we were dead, or sweating our asses off down in our special place in hell, or hating the

world, or hating each other, or crying our eyes out, or being responsible for a shit show of epic

proportions… I want you to know one thing. Just this one thing. And that one thing is this… I can take

it.”

We stare at each other, treading water in the middle of the ocean, awash in natural neon light. I

reach up and cup his face with both my hands. “Do you understand me?”

He nods and says, “You had me at ‘we are probably bad people.’”

I splash him in the face with glowing blue water. “You’re stupid.”

“You’re stupid.” He splashes back. But then he gathers me up in his arms and I wrap my legs

around his middle, and we bump foreheads like teenagers and stare into each other’s eyes.

And I whisper, “Do you want to be my partner in crime?”

And he says, “I do.”

It’s so romantic with the dolphins, and the blue light, and the moon, and the yacht, and the stars

above us. Johnny was right—we could come back here to this spot a million more times and never

have another night like this—but here’s the thing…

I’m keeping a very big secret.

Like huge secret. And yup, I’m part of that whole gonna-live-forever shit show, but that’s nothing.

That was a stupid fluke of a project as far as I’m concerned. And OK, maybe it works. Maybe the

Way will find a way to reverse aging, and maybe the lucky upper class of the next generation will all

live to see their two hundredth birthday.

But my real project wasn’t so innocent. It wasn’t innocent when it started and I only knew half the