I stalk back to my seat, slamming myself into it and looking out the window. There are tears in my eyes. My body is shaking with the force of my horror, my anger.
Four more hours.
How can I sit on this fucking plane for four more hours without punching something?
‘Here.’ I glance over to find Blake with something in his palm.
‘What is it?’
‘Kind of like Xanax. Take two and then sleep.’
‘I don’t want drugs!’ I snarl.
‘You need to sleep. Just do it.’ He thrusts them at me, and I take them, albeit reluctantly.
‘We’re no good to her if we’re all exhausted. What if we need to break her out of that fucking place?’
I grit my teeth, knowing he’s right, and take the pills, swallowing them down. I close my eyes, thinking there’s no way I’ll be able to rest…
But the next thing I know, my ears are killing me, and the captain’s muffled voice comes over the loudspeaker to say we’re beginning our descent into London.
We put our seatbelts on, and for the next half an hour my ears scream at me and throb in my skull.
The descent itself is pretty smooth, I guess, though I see Blake clutching his seat more than once when the airplane banks in the wind. We touch down with a thud and the wheels screech.
The captain and co-pilot come out of the cockpit, nodding to us and wishing us a pleasant stay in London as Sheryl opens the door.
‘There should be a car for us,’ Shade says. ‘Close to the plane.’ He looks out one of the windows. ‘Looks like it’s already here. Good.’
We grab our stuff and disembark down the steps on wheels that have been brought to the plane. The air is cold and damp. It’s cloudy and drizzling.
‘Welcome to England,’ I mutter. ‘How long until we get to The Heath?’
‘I don’t know,’ Shade replies. ‘We need to get to the town nearest the clinic. It’s called Thistlebury. Up north somewhere.’
‘How long ’til we get there?’ Blake asks, coming up behind us with his bag.
‘I just asked that,’ I say.
‘And I don’t know,’ Shade answers again with a long breath out. ‘Ask the driver.’
Blake pushes past us and goes over to the back of the black car where the driver has opened the trunk for our bags. He throws it in and exchanges a few words, coming back a moment later.
‘Three hours, he thinks. Too damn long,’ Blake mutters from behind me as we slide into the back seat.
He slams the door hard and proceeds to stare out of the tinted window with a scowl on his face.
He’s not wrong, but it’s not like we can break her out today. We need to do recon, make sure she’s actually there.
Shade takes his phone out and turns it on. He frowns at the screen.
‘I have a missed call. I don’t recognize the number.’ He taps it. ‘There’s a voicemail.’
He puts it to his ear.
‘It’s Daisy. Fuck.’
Blake practically rips the phone out of Shade’s hand, pressing it to his own ear.
