He stared up at the sky. Without the lights of the city a billion stars lit up the darkness. Charlie knew he was supposed to look up and feel insignificant; feel that, amid everything, he was a tiny fragment of a huge, expanding universe. But he didn"t. Instead he stared at the blanket above him and felt powerful. He felt entitled to each and every one of those glimmering diamonds. They were his. They belonged to him. For years he"d lived with his brother under that canopy. Just them and the universe. It was a divinity beyond any doctrine. A promise beyond sin and redemption.
He felt John standing beside him. They"d spoken of it in the past; of the world that had been theirs when they were children. There had been no one to stop them. They"d lived like animals outside the reach of the Ins
