Fin dropped the mike, which swung on its cord like a pendulum, and he staggered to the back of the plane, where Hailey helped him stuff his sleeping bag into his backpack.
“Where’d you go?” he asked her, and Hailey looked up at him.
“What?”
“While we were in the Aether. You were here. And then you were gone, Hailey. Where’d you go?”
“Oh, I went outside,” she said nonchalantly.
Fin studied her eyes. “How?”
Hailey shrugged and went back to packing his sleeping bag. “I don’t know. I was getting scared, so I started counting to eight like you said and then I was outside lying in the grass, looking at the sky with…”
“With what?”
She stole a glance at Asher.
“Withhim?” he spat with a scowl.
“Keep your voice down,” she whispered with wide eyes. “I think so.” Honestly, she hoped so. Her memory was a little fuzzy.
“Hailey—” He jerked his backpack out of her hands.
“What?” she demanded, but the only response she got was an angry glare and noisy breathing. Fin threw the backpack zipper closed with enough force to tear the fabric. Out of a separate compartment, he pulled a pair of goggles then strapped himself into his jump seat.
Hailey followed.
“What’s that for?” she asked as he donned his eye protection.
Fin let out an edgy laugh. “You’ll see.”
As Hailey fumbled with her harness, the floor opened under her, and she slipped out of her seat and out of the Luftzeug, swinging her arms at Fin, who made a frantic grab for her and missed.
Before she could scream, she was falling through the sky, plummeting to Earth, and the ground was coming up fast.
Chapter seventeen
Whipped
“It may be he shall take my hand, And lead me into his dark land.” - Alan Seeger, I Have a Rendezvous with Death
Down Hailey fell for several seconds until a painful jolt stopped her descent at about 3 feet above the ground, where she hovered briefly with very wide eyes before landing with a giant splash in a cold, marshy puddle.
She sat shivering in that puddle, which came up to her waist, holding onto her face with trembling hands, saying over and over, “Am-I-dead-am-I-dead-am-I-dead…”
“No.” A soothing voice rang through her panic.
Slowly, she uncovered her eyes to find an outstretched hand. The hand was connected to an arm and that arm belonged tohim. Staring up at his purple eyes, she steadied her breathing and tried to think of something dignified to say. Were it not for those purple eyes, he might pass for a regular grad student, looking slightly standoffish and oozing authority. His outstretched hand seemed more like an order than an invitation, and Hailey took it with a quivering.
“Didn’t I spill a drink on you?” she said. It just came flying out.
He smiled as he helped her stand her wobbly legs on the spongy ground.
She was shaking all over—mostly from fright, but also from the chill. Frigid, marshy Alaskan bog water soaked her from the chest down. Asher took her other hand in his, but when she lost her balance, he snaked an arm around her waistand pulled her close. An incredible, gorgeous heat radiated from him, which hurried her chills away.
“I’m really sorry about that drink—whoa,” she said as her legs tried to crumple again, but he caught her and hugged her closer. “I wanted to apologize properly, but when I came out of the ladies’ room, you’d already gone.” There. She’d been waiting months to get that off her conscience.
Asher simply held her by the waist with one hand, caressed her hand with the other and gazed adoringly into her eyes.
