We got out, shouldered our gear, and met the others at the steps. Parker hugged Harper tight, then whispered something in her ear that made her laugh.
Bronc pulled me aside. “Bring them home,” he said.
I nodded. “Count on it.”
He clapped my shoulder, hard. “You always were the best at bringing people home.”
We climbed the steps, took our seats, and buckled in. As the engines spooled up, I reached over and took Harper’s hand, squeezing it until she looked at me.
“We’ll be okay,” I said.
She squeezed back. “I believe you.”
The plane rolled down the runway, gathering speed. As it lifted off, I looked out at the dark Texas sky, the lights of Dairyville shrinking behind us.
Chapter 21
Harper
I’d never flown private before, but I guess if you’re running a paramilitary rescue mission in Europe, you might as well do it in style.
King Rafe’s Gulfstream G7000 was less an airplane and more a horizontal skyscraper: all panoramic windows, leather upholstery so soft it felt like memory foam, and hand-stitched wool rugs underfoot. The first step inside, I almost tripped over my own shadow, stunned by the glare from the overheads bouncing off the polished walnut. I’d grown up with luxury; flown first class, the works. But this; this was something completely different. Here, two flight attendants stalked theaisle like a pair of magazine models: both six-three, both wearing white shirts so tight across the shoulders it looked painted on. Male shifters. They had the bored confidence of men who took zero shit from anybody. I appreciated that Rafe wanted to take care of the people on this flight both protection and otherwise.
Jess and I took the seats at the back of the main cabin, a window booth set a little apart from the rest. He looked completely at home, legs stretched in the aisle, his arm draped over the seat-back. The only sign of tension was the way his thumb kept tracing the inside of my wrist, a tiny, circular motion over the skin. He kept his eyes on the door until the last of our crew was on board, then nodded to the taller flight attendant, who responded with a crisp “Roger that, sir,” and vanished behind the galley curtain.
Across from us, Wrecker and Parker sat next to each other, Parker’s laptop balanced on her knees, Wrecker’s own device open on the tray. Their heads bent together, pale and dark, a study in opposites. Parker was talking so fast her words tripped over each other, but her fingers flew even faster, tapping out code or maybe just nervous energy. Wrecker grunted occasionally, low and deep, but didn’t look up from his screen.
Toward the front, Doc and Big Papa had commandeered the only table in the cabin. Doc had a binder open, cross-referencing a stack of dossiers, his glasses slipping down his nose as he read. Papa just sat, arms folded, a serene mountain of muscle and patience, eyes closed like he was already forty thousand feet up and dreaming of the landing.
The last to board was Gwen, and even in this zoo of power, she was hard to miss. Barely five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds in heels, with white-blonde hair twisted into a perfect chignon. She wore an unstructured navy suit; the pants cropped at the ankle to show off blue suede pumps. She carried a clutchand a slim leather satchel, not a weapon in sight. The minute she cleared the cabin threshold, the temperature dropped ten degrees. I felt the goosebumps on my neck before she’d even made it to her seat.
She smiled at us, a little too wide, and slid into a single seat two rows up, nearest the galley door. “Wolfsbane, right?” She called, glancing at Jess. “You always sit where you can see the exits. How delightfully retro!”
He gave her nothing but a nod. She winked and settled in, crossing her legs and tucking her bag under the seat. I tried not to stare, but failed. Even at rest, Gwen hummed with a strange, glassy energy, like her whole body was two seconds away from snapping into a thousand splinters.
The engines spooled up, a vibration that worked its way through my sneakers and up into my jaw. I looked out the window, watched the tarmac flicker past, the glow of Amarillo’s runway lights retreating in a blur. Jess leaned in, his lips close to my ear. “Relax,” he said, a whisper only for me. “No one here wants to see you fall.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “You’ve done this a hundred times.”
He squeezed my hand, the calluses rough against my palm. “You’ve survived worse than this.”
I had.
The jet rocketed down the runway, the takeoff so smooth I barely felt the nose lift. The world outside went black, then blue, then nothing at all. Inside, the lights dimmed to a moody, cinema-level glow. The flight attendants made their first pass, carrying a tray of white porcelain cups and a glass carafe of coffee so strong I could smell it from ten feet away. The taller one—Nils, according to his nameplate—smiled at me and poured, not a drop spilled.
“Cream? Sugar?” he offered, voice clipped and efficient.
“Both, please,” I said, and he obliged, folding the paper-wrapped sugar into the mug with the skill of a magician. I took a sip. It tasted of burnt molasses and adrenaline.
Beside me, Jess waved off the service, focused on his phone. He scrolled through encrypted messages, thumb flying. I peeked at the screen and caught a list of logistics: safe houses, contact codes, gun runners in Lyon. It was less a rescue mission and more a small war.
I nursed my coffee and tried to get comfortable. The seat was impossibly soft, but my body wouldn’t settle. Every few minutes, I checked on the others.
Wrecker and Parker argued about some digital dead-end, Parker’s voice rising. “That’s the difference between a real hacker and a script kiddie, Eli. If you’d just let me set the sniffer—”
“No.” Wrecker’s reply was a flat wall. “Last time you ‘set the sniffer’ you bricked the whole firewall for three hours. And then you crashed the pack’s Netflix.”
“Because you wouldn’t give me admin—” She stopped herself, then started again, softer. “It won’t happen again.”
