"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." - Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
At exactly noon, Fin knocked on Hailey’s door as she scrambled to get her other arm into her jacket.
“Just a second!” she hollered. She didn’t know what he had planned, but she did know that it was an overnight date, that Asher would probably go ballistic if he knew, that she didn’t care—Asher didn’t own her and she was allowed to date whoever she wanted—and that she needed to stop worrying about Asher right now and pack a change of clothes, which her jellied in-between shirt helped her throw together.
“Bring your mittens,” he hollered back, and she caught them when her shirt lobbed them from the closet.
“Miss Hartley,” Fin said when she emerged. He took her bag and offered his arm. “Ready?”
“Mr. O’Shea. Thank you, and I think so…”
He let out a wistful growl.
“Call me Fin,” he said. “I love it when you call me Fin.”
“Where are we going, Fin?” Hailey could hardly contain her excitement.
“Up,” he said.
“You’re taking me flying?” she said, her voice going way higher than she intended.
“As promised.”
He led her out the door to his giant red truck, which took them through the White Forest gate.
“Why are we here?” said Hailey, clutching her seat as visions of homicidal Yetis and man-eating trees danced through her head.
“Relax,” Fin told her. “The airfield is this way, and I-MET keeps the whole flight area clear of bad things.”
Before long, a hangar came into view, and Fin parked his truck next to a tiny red and black two-seater, which stood on skis and bore the Yeti’s team logo on its tail.
“Where are the wheels?” Hailey pointed to the airplane’s feet.
“In the hangar, I think.” He opened the hatch and gave her a boost.
“Why aren’t we taking the small one?” she remarked after she bonked her head and bumped her elbows squeezing into her seat.
Fin shook his head as he strapped her in.
“Zip up and put on your mittens. There’s no heat back here.” With their luggage secured behind Hailey’s seat and their headsets donned, Fin fired up the single engine plane, and his voice crackled in Hailey’s ear.
“It’s a short, thirty-minute flight to the lake and a ten-minute go on the snowmachine.”
“The what?”
“The snowmobile,” he clarified. “You need to learn some Alaska words—” Fin cut himself off to make a radio call. “Bear Towne traffic, Cub bravo-tango-uniform–tree, taking runway zero-four, departing north, Bear Towne.”
He throttled up for takeoff, and Hailey gripped her seat.
“This is incredible,” she said, low enough that it didn’t activate her mike, and she watched as they rounded a corner and flew over the campus.
Olde Main tilted only slightly to the north, and she could see enough detail to notice two students walk briefly outside the Trinity Center, grab their hoods around their faces, and walk back inside. No doubt they’d decided to take the tunnel. It wasn’t below zero, but it was darn close.
Thirty minutes passed in a flash, and Fin pointed out the left window. “There it is,” he said, dipping a wing.
Sitting in the middle of a white wonderland was a small log cabin, and the plane descended until it landed without a sound on a white field nearby.
“Where’s the lake?” Hailey asked as the engine spun down.
