Nausea edges in; the fuselage moving around us affects me more than I expected. I find ways to keep my gaze focused out of the doors, trying to ease the motion sickness, but this cuts off my options too much, and Christine’s able to stay in one place.
Her scent filling the space doesn’t help either. There’s more of that sickly sweet coconut, and it reminds me too much of getting drunk on Malibu and Coke in college. The sea breeze seems unable to flow through the fuselage, leaving the interior hot and stuffy.
I power through until a partial run at full speed leaves me on the verge of throwing up.
As Christine resets, I lean out of the door. “Andy, think we can take ten?”
“Yeah, of course.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
MYLO
I hopdown and wave at a PA—a young, scrawny guy about Haley’s age—who stands nearby with a couple bottles of water.
“Thanks, you’re a mind-reader,” I say, taking on and pouring part of it out on my face. Fuck, that feels good. I’m more overheated than I realized.
“No worries,” he replies with a light Kiwi accent.
I take a careful sip, looking out over the ocean to try to get my inner ear to settle. The sea breeze cools the water on my face.
Christine leans out of the doorway. “What, bored? I thought you were having fun showing off.” Her casual tone isalmostconvincing.
“Not everything’s about you,” I say lightly, pouring more water down my shirt.
Andy steps over. “Doing okay?”
“Just got some motion sickness with the rig moving. I’ll take a Dramamine tomorrow; that works well for me. For now, I just need to cool off.”
Andy nods, then tips his chin toward the waves. “Ocean’s pretty cold right now.”
“Yeah, good idea.” Implied in his suggestion is the quiet reminder that we don’t have time for me to take a half hour walking off motion sickness. I strip my shirt off, releasing a puff of citrus. It helps clear my head, so I pretend to be drying off my face as I inhale my own scent, clearing my nose. I set my shirt on a nearby pop-up table, pile the vape on top, and then jog out into the ocean.
The water is frigid, and sinking into it is sweet relief. I take a few deep breaths, submerged to the neck. The heat doesn’t usually get to me this badly unless it’s a good forty degrees hotter, but it may well be inside that fuselage.
I duck my head underwater, scrubbing the sweat off my scalp and ignoring the resemblance to my weird dream.
It’s only a couple minutes before my muscles tense with the cold. I wade back to shore, pausing in ankle-deep water to squeeze as much as I can out of my basketball shorts. The damp quick-dry fabric should help keep me cool for a little while longer.
Alright. Feeling better. At least until I reach Andy and Christine. The wind shifts, hitting me with another wave of that sweet coconut scent. My mouth waters unpleasantly, and that overheated feeling rises again.
I tousle my damp hair, and the breeze picks up, changing direction to cool me off and bring me blessed fresh air. I take a hit from my vape and hope for the best.
“Ready to start working with the cameras?” Andy asks. Gears turn behind his eyes—trying to gauge how much more I have left in me. He’s finding a balance between diving deep on each step and getting through it all in one day.
“Yeah, the sooner we get to doing what we’ll do tomorrow, the better.”
“Agreed,” Christine says. “I’m not quite sure this is going to be what Lana’s looking for. Don’t you think Electra would be a little more proactive?”
“Does she have time to be?” I ask. “It’s her low point in the script. She needs to be on the back foot.”
Christine frowns. “That’s not how I was reading it…”
“Electra still wins,” I remind her. “You get to push me out of a plane at the end. Doesn’t get more triumphant than that. We’ll make sure you look like a hero.”
Christine’s jaw twitches.
