“We’ll get you flying again someday,” Gus said, reading her mind.
The drive was pitch black and quiet. Even the car they were in had its lights off. Gus sat beside her, and when he bundled up his coat on his lap, she laid her head on it. What was left of her anxiety melted away.
Some time later, he woke her. She blinked, trying to sort the images coming through the dark. Gordon had parked on the side of a road edged by trees. Ahead, a large field. Gus opened her door then wrapped his coat around her.
“Come on,” he said, supporting her every step. “We have to be quick. We’re not alone out here.”
A light blazed across the field then shut off just as quickly. Gus picked up his pace, forcing her to almost run to keep up with him. Then an engine started, catching at last, and Dash’s pulse took off. She knew the sound of a Mosquito, that twin engine, two-seater, night fighter she’d flown so many times. She stopped ten feet from the plane’s shiny nose, suddenly afraid.
“What do you think?” Gus asked.
He looked so proud, and she realized he was somehow responsible. She could only imagine everything he’d gone through, coming here for her.
Humiliation swept through her. “I don’t think I can fly it. I… The crash, it…”
Gus squeezed her hand. “It’s okay.” She was confused by the smile in his voice. Then she heard the canopy open. “We brought you a pilot.”
She peered into the darkness. Could it be one of the girls? That would be so nice. Violet would have come if he’d asked, and it would be good to see her again. Any of the girls, really. But no. From where she stood, she could see the profile belonged to a man.
“You said you wanted to go to Paris,” he said. “My mistake. I thought you meantafterthe war.”
All the air left Dash’s lungs. “Pete?”
He hopped off the wing and reached for her. “I missed you awfully,” he said, then he kissed her in a way that showed her he meant it. “What do you say we postpone Paris for a while?”
She turned to Gus. “You brought him here, didn’t you?”
“This flyboy reported you missing. Only seemed right that he get the grand finale.”
Pete kissed her again, and all the little pockets of emptiness in Dash’s heart filled with his warmth. Almost all, anyway.
“You’re not coming?”
Gus had moved away from the plane. “I’ll be back, but I have things to do here first.”
“Oh, please come with me.”
“I have to save the world,” he teased. “Besides, it’s only a two-seater. Listen, when you get back, do me a favour? Be kind to your sister. She needs you.”
“I don’t know how to find her. That’s been a big part of the problem all along.”
“I have a feeling she will find you,” he said. Gordon made a sharp motion from his spot behind them, and Gus tensed, on alert. “Time to go.”
“Let’s get you in the air before we have too much company,” Pete said, helping her onto the wing.
She’d worried the cockpit would be too much for her, but with Pete beside her, she wasn’t afraid at all. He buckled her in, taking special care with her bandaged arm, then he wrapped an extra blanket around her. She watched him start up the twin engines, thinking how perfect it was that she’d be flying with him.
Suddenly there was a metallicping!that she didn’t recognize, and Pete pushed in the throttle.
“Go!” Gus shouted, waving wildly at them. “Get her out of here!”
“What’s—”
Too late, she recognized them as gunshots. As the Mosquito roared across the field, she spotted a dozen or so black uniforms charging toward Gus and Gordon. The two returned fire, but they were vastly outnumbered. As the plane lifted from the earth, Dash saw Gus stagger backward.
“No!” she screamed, squirming in her seat. She had to get to him. “Gus! Go back, Pete! Go back!”
“Hang on, darling,” Pete said, banking hard so that he came back toward the airfield from the other direction.
