Dylan lifted his head and leaned back, looking across the empty row and staring out the window. The plane was moving, and Dylan could see a small army of snow-plows clearing the runway next to them.
“Are you sure it was your mother you spoke to?”
Ryker’s voice was direct, like he was ripping off a Band-Aid. At first Dylan was confused what Ryker was insinuating, but then when he realized he was indignant.
He knew what his own mother sounded like.
“Yes.” Dylan was angry. He was worried sick for his dad, and now Ryker was going to suggest that this was some kind of scam? What the fuck. That didn’t make any sense. “Who else would it have been?”
“It could-”
“Why would a scammer buy me a last-minute ticket to Anchorage? What are you even talking about?”
Ryker took a deep breath, waiting until Dylan had stopped talking before he finally spoke.
“I’m not suggesting that it’s a scam, I’m worried that Steve’s dad is up to something. Can you please get off the plane and wait until we hear back from your mom before you leave?”
Dylan hung up. He put his phone in airplane mode and shoved it into the seat-pocket in front of him.
He was so angry he was shaking. What did Ryker think was going on? That Steve’s dad had somehow arranged for Dylan’s mom to lure him home on false pretenses so that he could… what? Kidnap him and keep him in Alaska?
It was ludicrous.
Dylan sat with clenched fists, seething, glaring out of the window as the plane finished taxiing to the runway.
As the aircraft started to accelerate, Dylan grabbed his phone and turned his mobile data back on. He waited for it to connect, staring at his message app and hoping that he’d get some news from his mom before he lost the signal.
The plane lifted up in the air, making Dylan’s stomach swoop. Ryker called him again, and then August, but Dylan declined both calls. A few minutes after takeoff, his phone lost the connection and Dylan slumped.
The flight didn’t have Wi-Fi, which meant that until they touched down in Anchorage, he would be in the dark.
It was a terrible feeling.
* * *
It took four hours to reach Anchorage. The second they started their descent, Dylan turned the airplane mode off on his phone and waited to get a connection.
When they were almost on the ground and he still didn’t have a signal, he toggled the airplane mode button and held his breath as he waited for his phone to connect.
They hit the ground, the plane shaking with the impact of landing, but still, Dylan didn’t get a connection. The no signal notification on his home screen taunted him, refusing to go away even when he turned his phone off and restarted it.
Feeling anxious, Dylan kept trying to get a signal as they taxied into the gate, and as the doors opened and people were allowed to disembark. As he was seated near the very back of the plane, Dylan was one of the last people off, by which time he was racing with impatience to get to the airport Wi-Fi.
He swung his backpack over his shoulder and walked up the aisle, trying not to crowd the old lady in front of him as he turned his Wi-Fi on and off, searching desperately for the free airport internet.
Dylan was so consumed with getting a connection to the internet that he didn’t notice the two men standing at the end of the jet bridge until he practically ran into them.
“Excuse me,” Dylan said, eyes on his phone as he tried to step around the obstacle that had suddenly appeared in front of him.
“Mr. Landry?”
Dylan looked up and then craned his neck to look up some more as he came face to chest with what could only be a couple of werewolves. They were both close to seven feet tall, built like stacks of bricks, with the kind of sharply defined bone structure that models would die for.
Two werewolves, in Alaska, and they both knew his name and were waiting for him.
“Yes?” Dylan said, wary. Maybe Ryker had told Steve what was going on, and then Steve had called someone to take him right to his dad?
Dylan could hope.
