Road to Someplace

Chapter Nineteen

 We made our way downstairs, and stood in the middle of the kitchen. Raveena clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "So! What are we going to make?" She asked. I shrugged.

"Like I would know. What do we have?" I asked, leaning up against the cool marble island counter. Raveena slid over to the fridge on her socks, and opened it up. She stuck her head in and began to rifle around.

"All right, we have...some lettuce, a ton of salad dressing, a bunch of green stuff in general, peppers, a few potatoes, and-damn, there is a whole stockpile of chicken in here? Who the hell needs so much chicken? Seriously, how often do we even eat chicken here? It must be like, what-" Raveena began to go off on a rant about chicken before I sighed loudly.

"Shut the hell up," I muttered. Raveena pouted, and popped her head back in the fridge.

"We have shrimp, pickles, some fish, pork, carrots, um-okay, this is not working. We're probably going to have to force Stewart to help us. We should go get him," Raveena said. I nodded in agreement. "Not it!" Raveena yelled, throwing her arm up. I rolled my eyes.

"Fine," I grumbled. Raveena gave me a sweet smile, and went over to the pantry.

"If all-uh else-sa fails, we always-sa have-uh some-uh spaghetti," She yelled out to me in a very, very poor Italian accent. I groaned and smacked my forehead, before running up the stairs.

I knocked on the door to Stewart's room. There was no answer, so I cracked it open, only to find no one. I sighed, and moved onto the exercise room. It was empty as well, although it had probably been used by Raveena earlier, considering the room and equipment smelled of sweat and some of Raveena's perfume. Her running shoes were strewn across the room as well, while Sophia's and Stewart's were lined up neatly near the door. I figured the next logical stop would be Ace's room.

I stood in front of the door for a minute or so, repeatedly reaching up to the door and retracting my hand, gnawing on my lip. I could hear some soft, calming music playing inside, a bit different from the usual music Ace played. Eventually, I mentally kicked myself enough to gain the courage to knock on the door.

I could hear some shuffling around after I knocked, and I was raising my hand tentatively to knock again when Ace opened up the door a crack, just enough for me to see his eye and part of his mouth.

"Oh, um, hey," He whispered, his voice raspy and nearly inaudible. He cracked the door open just a little more.

I gave him a small smile. "Hi, uh, have you seen Stewart?" I asked, scratching at the back of my neck, turning my gaze to the floor.

Ace shifted around. "Y-yeah, he's kinda, um, sleepin'," He whispered, cracking the door open a bit more to reveal a sleeping Stewart sprawled out on his bed. "What did you need?" He asked, gripping the door tightly.

"Uh, just some help in the kitchen, but it's all right, you don't need to wake him up or anything," I said, adding the last bit quickly so Ace could hang around him a while longer, even if Stewart was asleep. I knew that seeing all of us upset wouldn't be doing wonders for his mental health or anything, so I figured spending time with Stewart was important to him.

I began to walk away, but Ace stopped me. "W-wait!" He called out, almost frantic. I whipped around, worried. Ace shriveled back up, hiking his shoulders up to his jaw. "I could help," He offered. "If you want of course, don't think you have to or nothing-" He began to ramble a bit, shrinking back into the room.

I gave him a smile. "Yeah, sure, Raveena and I are setting up downstairs," I said. Ace looked surprised, but elated. He told me he'd meet me downstairs, and slipped back into his room. I made my way downstairs, announcing to Raveena that Ace would be joining our desperate search for food we could make. She seemed cool with it, and when Ace came down, we wasted no time getting to work.