"You didn't get us McDonald's, asshole. You love yourself too much to even be in the same room as that crap," Sapphira scoffed without turning around from setting up her laptop on the center table.
Auggie moved toward the woman with a smile on his face. "Cami, how are you?" He pulled her into a quick embrace.
"You look like hell. Cameras say you were at the gym until four? I'll make coffee," Cami moved toward the kitchen area with her duffle bag. "Hey, Annie," she casually greeted as if they were old friends as she passed her.
"Hey, Cami," Annie returned with forced casualness. Cami produced a bag of coffee from her duffle bag as well as a bunch of bananas and some other kind of small brown fruit. Auggie filled up the coffee pot with water and got the coffee maker started.
"Fira, got you your fucking salak," Cami tossed Sapphira one of the small brown fruits and Sapphira started peeling it.
"Snakefruit," Sapphira mentioned for Annie's benefit.
Annie stood near the center table, watching how effortlessly Auggie moved around the space. He had definitely been here before. Annie used the moment to take in Cami Mason: tall and tan, probably a few years older than Sapphira, muscled like a prized fighter, with her blonde hair spiked in all different directions and held back with a simple black headband. She wore a tank top and jeans with steel toed boots.
"Blake should be here soon. We drove separately," Cami announced. "We should probably fix the main gate. Squeaks like a devil."
"See, told you!" Auggie chimed in. Sapphira just rolled her eyes and continued eating her fruit.
"So, Annie, how are you enjoying Bali? You know, besides that someone's sort of out to maybe kill you," Cami inquired politely. She sounded like she was inquiring about the weather.
"Haven't had much time for sight-seeing, but it seems fine," Annie replied.
"Nice beaches, huh?" Cami looked up with a scheming look and raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, they were nice," Annie answered simply. Cami hummed and glanced at Sapphira, who had since moved to the kitchen to grab another salak. They seemed to share some telepathic thoughts before Cami addressed Annie again.
"Come eat something. My brother's bringing actual food, but a banana will be good to ward off muscle cramps. Don't want your body to be too sore after that boxing session," Cami offered. So she watched the videos of us working out. Not creepy. Annie grabbed a banana anyway.
As if on cue, the door opened again to reveal the stunningly handsome Australian man that Annie met on her little ocean adventure.
"Ladies, Auggie," he greeted from across the room before shutting the door. He carried a few grocery bags and placed them on the table before pulling Sapphira into a hug and kissing her forehead. Auggie offered his hand and Blake clapped him on the back. "Looking good, man."
"Same to you," Auggie complimented wryly. Annie just stared. She was definitely an outsider to their little group.
"Hey, Sapphira," Blake intoned jokingly at Annie. She blushed slightly and shrugged. "No harm, no foul, Annie. I know how you spies work. Just thought it was amusing that your first choice was her name."
"I'm flattered, really!" Fira called from the kitchen area.
Annie nodded as she took his hand. "Sapphira sent you to come check up on me at the beach?"
Blake nodded with his stupid, beautiful smile. "My buddies were already there, so I just joined in on their barbecue, though."
Annie was more than a little pissed off at Sapphira's assuming attitude. She didn't need a hot, godly Australian babysitter. But then her mind flashed to the moment when she wanted to drown herself in the ocean and her anger quickly evaporated.
Cami moved forward to take Annie's hand in a late, formal gesture. "Thank you. Fira said Henry Wilcox provided intel behind the '02 bombings. A friend of mine was killed in the blast. I hope you smiled when you put a bullet through him."
Annie winced. She definitely wasn't smiling when she pulled the trigger.
"Cami, watch yourself," Blake admonished. He was far more perceptive than his brash, outspoken sister. Cami rolled her eyes. It was clear to Annie why Cami and Fira were friends.
"What did you bring, Blake?" Auggie asked, looking positively ravenous and itching to move toward the food.
"Enough for an army," Blake replied vaguely as he began to unpack the food containers from the bags in his arms. "No, seriously, we have enough supplies for a week if we can get that bloody refrigerator working again."
"Cami, didn't you fix it last time?" Fira glared pointedly at Cami, who just shrugged carelessly.
"Annie, know how to fix a fridge?"
"I can take a look, but no promises. What's wrong with it?" Annie took a deep breath through her nose, inhaling the delicious scents of the food that Blake was setting up on the center table.
"We'll figure it out later. We still have the upstairs fridge, but god forbid Fira have to walk upstairs," Cami whined playfully. "Let's eat."
They all took seats around the table and Fira passed out plates and chopsticks. They scarfed down the majority of the food in minutes, silent except for reaching for more food.
Blake was the first one to break the silence, having eaten the fastest of the group. "Living in the same apartment as two gorgeous brunettes? Auggie, man, you're living the dream."
"Annie's blonde," Auggie trailed off questioningly.
Annie responded quietly, trailing her fingertips across his bare forearm quickly. "Aug, I dyed my hair brown the day Calder shot me." Auggie winced at the callousness of her terminology. "No one told you? I've just kept it up. I think it'll stay a while longer."
For some reason, this bothered Auggie more than it probably should have. It was such a tiny, insignificant detail, because he was blind; he couldn't appreciate her hair color anyway. It didn't even matter what she looked like. But it was how they would share the details of their lives, no matter how tiny and insignificant; that stopped the moment she went dark. And this was a tangible example of that.
Auggie just nodded and didn't voice his actual thoughts. Blake realized he struck a nerve there, and shut the hell up fast.
"How do you all know each other?" Annie inquired. She was genuinely curious, but it was a helpful diversion from the way Auggie's face closed off from any visible emotions.
"Cami and I worked a mission early on. Blake and I built houses together. He can wire an entire three-story building in 15 minutes," Fira explained between mouthfuls of some spicy chicken dish.
"That's an exaggeration. This woman, though. I've never seen any human being climb like her. She did roofs because she weighed the least. It's a bunch of big, burly Aussie men, then Fira. She could hoist herself to the top of a hardly-built three-story house using nothing but a line of paracord and willpower," Blake laughed.
"Really? You built houses for a mission?" Annie tilted her head and reached for another chicken satay.
"Nope, not for a mission. It was between missions, on those forced vacations I had. Decompression time," Sapphira mocked with a haughty voice. "So I built a house a few times."
"Stop trying to downplay it, Fir," Auggie cut in. "She always did something spectacular on those weeks between missions. Built houses, taught English, dug wells. Always something to give back."
Sapphira shrugged and shied away from their looks. "I had to give back something good after taking so much. I could live the rest of my life and still never make up for the wrongs I've committed."
"I understand," Annie said simply. And she did. Annie really understood that feeling, all too well. It felt like she had worked so hard to destroy things in the world that she needed to rebuild. Maybe she would look into taking some time off to do those things with Fira.
"My favorite is when Fira works with kids. She's claims she despises kids, but she's so good with them!" Cami exclaimed excitedly. Sapphira made a face.
"What, you never thought of having kids?" Annie smiled at the exchange between the two women.
"Not until my love for Cami can transcend the laws of baby making and manifest itself in a child," Sapphira answered sarcastically.
"Aw, babe, medical technology is working on that. We'll get you pregnant with my kid in no time," Cami cooed. She slurped up another scoop of noodles.
"Fira, if you really want our genes, there's a simple solution," Blake teased suggestively with a wag of his eyebrows.
"If I'm going to bear Mason spawn, I want it to be from the strongest of the litter. Let's be honest, it's not you," Sapphira replied sweetly. Blake faked a dramatic pout before breaking back in to what Annie realized was his signature carefree smile.
A phone rang from the kitchen area. Sapphira and Cami both stood, exchanged a look, and nodded. Cami sat back down while Fira walked to the ringing phone and answered in Indonesian. She continued to the hallway for privacy on the call. Annie tamped down the flair of suspicion. None of them had done anything to lead suspicious thoughts, but she still felt strange not being in complete control of everything on this mission.
"Everyone done eating?" Cami asked as she cleared the plates anyway. She placed them in the kitchen sink and returned to the center table after flipping on the TV screen on the wall in front of Annie. She set up her laptop and waited for everyone to get their laptops out as well. Fira returned and made a quick gesture to Cami, who nodded once.
Cami pulled up a file onto the screen. "We have a lead on who we believe is the Dutch woman in contact with Ular Tanah."
Author's Note: Thank you for reading and reviewing. And thank you to all who read my other three (very different) stories. It's great to hear from you as readers and fellow CA fans! I'm always up for a chat, so feel free to send me your thoughts in PM too.