Page 10 of Song Bird Hearts (Green River Hearts #4)
Valerie
“W hat the fuck is that?” I ask, staring at the small plane in front of us. And when I say small, I mean it looks like it can’t hold more than four people, if that. I’ve never been in anything smaller than a commercial airline. This thing? It looks barely capable of flight.
“That, cher , is your limo,” Gilden teases.
“You don’t have something. . . I don’t know, bigger?” I ask, staring at the plane.
Gilden opens his mouth to answer, but Knox smacks him on the head. “Don’t say it. Now ain’t the time for dick jokes.”
“It’s always the time for dick jokes,” Gilden grumbles, but he keeps the comment to himself.
“This is what we got,” Knox tells me. “Luckily, there’s enough room for the pig.”
“Kevin,” I correct him. “He has a name.”
“You’re lucky I’m lettin’ him come along,” Knox grumbles. “My assignment doesn’t include the pig.”
“That’s because you’re here. They assumed you already had one,” I fire back and then smile brightly at him when he shoots me a look of annoyance.
Gilden snorts out laughter and grins over at Knox. “You got a knife in your boot, cher , or just in your smile?”
Knox tugs open the plane’s door. “You lookin’ for someone to keep you safe, or just someone to fight you?” he asks me with a scowl. “Get the fuck in if it’s the first option.”
“He always this pleasant?” I ask sarcastically.
“This is him on a good day, la grande flamme !” Gilden laughs. “I think he likes you.”
“Doesn’t seem like it. But I guess I can be hard to handle,” I grumble, reaching down to help Kevin into the plane. It’s taller than he’s used to.
Gilden helps and then offers me a hand up into it behind the pig. “If you were easy to handle, then you wouldn’t need us.”
When he gestures for me to take the front passenger seat, I blink at him in surprise. “You don’t wanna sit in front?”
“I think it’s more entertaining to watch your interactions with the big guy. You giants gotta stick together,” he teases. “Also, it’s necessary for the weight distribution.”
He puts a headset on my head and I adjust it. “So why can’t we take a larger plane?”
“This is a larger plane,” Knox replies. “These things come as two seaters.”
“The nasty people you’re runnin’ from will have their hands in the regular airlines and any sort of regular travel,” Gilden explains.
“These things don’t have to be tracked. We don’t have a manifest, and other than listening when air traffic control tells us to stay out of the area, we don’t have to let anyone else know where we are. Untraceable.”
“And this thing can make it all the way to Wyoming?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
“As the bird flies, yes,” Knox says. “About six hours, but we’ll make it.”
“Six hours?” I repeat. “That long?”
“This ain’t a 747,” Knox grunts. “It’s what we got. The quicker we get you somewhere to hole up, the faster you’ll be safe. So just sit back and try not to freak out on me.”
“We’re cleared,” Gilden says after checking his phone. “Let’s get in the air.”
I pull the small seatbelt on and grip my thighs as Knox maneuvers the plane out of the hanger and onto a long stretch of concrete that clearly doubles as the runway and the driveway all in one.
“You wanna take off?” Knox asks, his voice weird in the headset.
I look over at him with wide eyes. “Why the fuck would I wanna do that?”
He shrugs. “Just asking.”
And then he speeds up and we’re flying down the runway.
He pulls back on the controls and we lift into the air.
The entirety of it feels like the plane is going to rattle apart, so I sit with my back tense and my teeth grit.
This isn’t what I had in mind when I called Hank, but the guys are right.
I can’t just walk into an airport, not if the Foundation has their hands in everything.
Things level out a little once we’re in the air and I’m able to relax just a little. “So. . .” I say, glancing over at Knox and over my shoulder at Gilden. Kevin seems happy to sleep on the seat next to him. “What do I do when we get to Wyoming?”
Knox shrugs. “Not my concern. Our job is to keep you safe until told otherwise.”
I scowl at him. “You know, you’re a real asshole.”
He doesn’t respond to my insult. Instead, he glances over past me and goes, “you might wanna latch your door.”
My heart stops. “What do you mean?”
“Your door isn’t latched. It’s just sitting closed.”
“And you waited until we were in the air to tell me?” I shriek, reaching over and trying to force the latch down. I’m not gonna lie and say I’m not two seconds away from a full-blown panic attack.
“You had your seatbelt on,” Knox shrugs. Like it’s okay the door was just fucking open while we’re ten thousand feet above the ground.
The door finally latches and I breathe a sigh of relief. But the almost panic attack wears me out, plus I haven’t slept since the morning of the award ceremony. How long have I been awake now? Two days? Shit. I hadn’t even realized. I’ve just been running on adrenaline.
“Get some rest,” Gilden tells me. “We’ll be there soon.”
And against my better judgement, my eyes fall closed and I slip into sleep lulled by the sound of the engine.
* * *
I wake up with a jerk when the plane suddenly plummets just enough for it to make my stomach flip before it evens out. I grab at Knox, panicking, until he shrugs me off and shoots me a look.
“It’s just turbulence,” he grumbles. “Calm down.”
“Why does it feel like a roller coaster?” I ask, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.
“It’s hot air. Thermals. We’re passing over sun-heated terrain—barn roofs, gravel roads, blacktop.
The air rises, curls, and punches us in the gut.
Bigger planes absorb it better. We ride it like a canoe in rapids.
” When he realizes I’m not exactly following, he just says, “it’s a flying lawnmower with dreams. It catches every damn bump in the sky. ”
“Okay,” I grunt, when it does it again. “Why won’t it stop?”
He points out the window. “We’re flying through a storm, too.”
In front of us, dark clouds form and move, a sight that would almost be beautiful if I wasn’t so terrified. “Why can’t we fly above it?”
Knox chuckles and it’s the first real emotion I’ve heard from him. “What do you think this is, Decatur? This plane don’t go that high.”
“Okay, then we can go around it?” I offer, clutching at the seat.
“Don’t got enough gas for that and it’s not safe to land. Straight through is our only option,” he says matter-of-factly, as if we’re not flying a tin can into a literal fucking storm.
“Don’t worry,” Gilden reassures me from the back. “It’ll just be a little bit of rain.”
It is, in fact, not just a little bit of rain. The plane begins to whip back and forth, dropping and rising with the wind currents. Knox tries to explain again all the technical side of things, but I’m so focused on trying to calm my stomach, none of it sinks in. Knox eyes me carefully.
“Don’t you dare,” Knox growls.
The turbulence gets to me so fast, I’m helpless to stop it. I try everything I can to stop it, to not embarrass myself, but I’m a slave to the pit in my stomach that opens up and then forces its way out.
I lean forward, trying to at least avoid any of the instruments. Unfortunately for Knox, that leaves his shoes. I barf there in the little plane, all over the floor, my stomach cramping painfully as motion sickness gets to me.
“I’m so sorry,” I rasp, my face hot with shame.
“I’m so, so sorry.” Tears well in my eyes.
How much longer do we have to fly? Oh god.
I just puked on his shoes and we can’t land.
The tears trickle over. It’s just too much after everything else happening.
Now I’ve gone and puked on this attractive man’s shoes.
“It’s alright, cher,” Gilden says from the backseat and hands me a clean rag to wipe my face. “It happens to the best of us.”
Knox doesn’t say anything. He just sighs really heavily, reaches over to the latch on his door, and pushes it open just slightly to let some of the smell out. My face gets so hot, it feels like I’m on fire.
I consider leaping out of the plane right there. Only my fear of heights keeps me firmly planted in my seat.
Otherwise, the open air seems a better option than the quiet disappointment coming from Knox in waves. I think I’d have preferred his anger. . .