Page 27 of Sanctuary (Deviant Hearts #0.5)

Colors stab at my eyes as a swirl of bodies rush past me when I step inside the terminal. I see her immediately. The exclamation point of orange sitting on a hard plastic chair.

A fissure of joy and trepidation cracks my heart. She lifts her head as if she senses me arriving, and her smile punches me in the chest.

Faces move between us, and I push forward, caught in a stream of roller bags and screaming kids. It's a synthetic galaxy—bright signs, the smell of cheap coffee with a high price tag, voices in various languages that rise and echo in every direction.

I squeeze past a trio of businessmen glued to their phones, dodge a sticky-fingered toddler and his worn-out mom.

Overhead, a boarding announcement comes from the speakers, garbled and lost by the time it reaches me.

The rush is contagious. I want to be next to her already.

I want to be next to her more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.

And it’s a terrifying feeling.

She stands up right before I reach her, her expression a mix of relief and something else—something bruised. "You found me," she says with a smile, but her voice is paper thin.

"Hey." I return the smile. "What time's your flight?" My words come out easy, belying the clatter in my chest.

She glances at the ticking red letters of the giant wall clock. "An hour." A nonchalant shrug, but I see the pulse fluttering at her throat. "We still have time to get you on your flight," I say. "If they have seats."

There's an urgency around us, people wheeling bags like burdensome dreams, an orchestra of comings and goings. I want to wrap my arms around her and make all this static go away.

She looks at me. "Cruz, I don’t know if?—"

"Let's see if there are tickets." I take her hand and feel a bolt of lightning all the way to my shoulder. Then, with my other hand, I grab her luggage.

We weave through the madness to the airline counter.

"I’m sorry," she mutters. "I hope I didn’t put you out."

"Nonsense."

"Weren’t you guys leaving for the next city?"

"I’ll grab a rental and just catch up. We don’t play until tomorrow night. Plenty of time to send you home."

"I feel a little weird about it."

I glance at her. "Why? I told you to call me if you needed help. This is me doing what I promised."

At the counter, I ask her to give me the voided pass, then show it to the attendant. The woman’s smile is flight-attendant vacant, accustomed to desperation.

"Is there anything you can do?" I ask, injecting confidence I don’t quite feel.

Wendy is standing next to me and whispers in my ear, "Cruz, I don’t think this can be reverted back?"

I turn to her. "Let me just check," I say gently to both of them.

The attendant types into a keyboard, perfectly polished nails clicking like a metronome. The world distills down to this moment. To her. To me. To us in this waiting space, with everything else drowning in the noise.

She lifts her eyes from the screen. "I'm sorry, sir. The ticket is void." Her words have the same easy cadence as a turbulence warning.

Wendy makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. She leans closer, a sweet chaos of shampoo scent and uncertainty. "Looks like I'm not going anywhere," she murmurs.

I reach for something hopeful. "Any chance there are seats left?" My voice presses against the impatience behind me—a growing line of travelers with urgent itineraries and little time for broken girls and the boys trying to save them.

The woman's fingers tick against the keys again. "Yes. We still have seats." She says it like she's just announced an early arrival.

"Let’s get one for this young lady." I rest my hand on Wendy’s shoulder for a second.

"Sure. I just need her passport," the attendant drones and resumes clicking the keyboard. "Economy okay?"

And this is where I gotta be that guy, that guy with money and too much pride and a reckless need to impress the girl he likes a little bit too much.

"Business," I reply, going for my wallet.

The attendant’s eyebrows arch slightly at the upgrade.

"I don’t need an expensive ticket," Wendy says in a panic next to me, pulling at the sleeve of my leather jacket.

I grin at her, feeling daring and just the right amount of foolish. "I can afford it."

Silence sits between us, unexpected and loud as I watch Wendy holding the new boarding pass like something precious and fragile. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out at first. I’m ready to fill the silence, to say something stupid or careful, but she finds her words.

"You didn’t have to do this." Her voice is small but finding itself, unfurling in the brightly lit air.

I shrug, trying to be casual about how much this matters. "You had a bad weekend," I say softly. "You deserve something nice."

She looks at the ticket again, then back at me. Her eyes are a carousel of emotions—surprise, disbelief, gratitude—spinning wildly. And somewhere, tucked away like a stowaway, perhaps hope.

With a slow sideways grin, she tilts her head, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. "So you’re my consolation prize?" The words could cut, but there's a playful warmth beneath them.

"If that’s okay, then yes, I’d like to be."

She stares up at me through a fringe of dark lashes, then reaches around and slides my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. "Wanna unlock it for me?"

I do as she asks, my heart thundering in my chest louder than Zander on drums. I watch her fingers dance over the keys. Her orange hair glows under the airport's surgical lights, a bright flare against all this gray.

"My number," she says, handing the phone back, our fingers grazing like an electric current.

The screen blurs for a second as my mind runs wild and uncontrolled with the possibilities. "Can I call you sometime?" I ask.

"Do you think I gave it to you for decoration?" she says cheekily.

Then we stand there. The world is a ghost of itself, spinning at its usual dizzy pace, but we're locked in our own private orbit.

"I really have to go now," she finally whispers. I can’t hear her well over the noise, but I read it on her lips." I still need to try to check this bag and go through customs."

"Yes. You better do that."

Another pause, long and inflated and filled with everything left unsaid that’s probably better not to be shared in the airport in a rush.

I break the silence and start to close the distance between us. "I guess this is a goodbye."

She meets me halfway, taking a step forward until our bodies almost touch. "For now." A soft collision of lips follows. The kiss lingers, as delicate as a half-formed wish. It's over too soon.

I pull back, breathless in ways that have nothing to do with oxygen, and see a spark in her eyes—a little fire that says she needs and wants more. It takes everything in me to let her go. I watch her shoulders lift as if she's about to disappear into the unknown.

"Thank you," she says, the words barely a whisper and somehow the loudest thing in this goddamn terminal.

"I’ll call you soon."

"You better."

Boarding pass in hand, she takes a step away toward luggage check-in, toward something better than what she's left behind. I stand like a lost boy, an expectant fool, wanting to carve this moment into something permanent.

She gives one final glance back, a hint of a smile tracing her lips. Her eyes catch mine like a promise across the Universe, and then she's gone. Just like that. Gone.