Page 58 of Fought and Freed

They were all getting up at seven-thirty. The drive to the airport would take about forty-five minutes, and their flight was scheduled to leave at ten thirty.

Jace stretched and stood. “I hate to say this, but we need to finish packing and get some sleep.”

“He’s right. Thank you all for my gifts. They’re great.” She kissed each of them before she headed upstairs.

Maddy spent the rest of the night packing everything she would need for their trip. She wasn’t sure if she could sleep because she was so excited.

15

MADDY

When they left the house the next morning, they discovered that Lucca went a little crazy and arranged for a limo to pick them up.

On the way to the airport, they stopped for Torr, and the guys waited in the limo while Maddy went to get her friend and meet her parents to reassure them that Torr would be sharing a hotel room with another woman.

They were friendly people, and Maddy could tell they cared about their daughter, which was something Maddy had always wanted for herself.

With Torr’s luggage in hand, they said goodbye to her parents, loaded into the limo, and headed off to the airport.

When the limo dropped them off, Cody grabbed Maddy’s hand. “Don’t let go of me. I don’t want to lose you.”

Maddy had only seen airports in a few movies, and this one was completely different from what she expected. It looked more like the mall Torr took her to yesterday. There were three floors with a vast blue dome in the middle of the roof. She couldn’t see what the other two floors held, but the bottom had gift shops and restaurants.

She looked up at Cody. “Are you sure we’re at the airport and not a mall?”

He chuckled. “I’m sure.”

After stopping at a counter to check in and drop off their bags, they walked for a bit, then got into a long line.

“What is this?” she questioned.

“TSA checkpoint.” Cody pointed toward the front, where people were passing through white metal boxes. “We’ll need to take off our shoes and go through a metal detector. They’ll also x-ray all of our carry-ons.”

Her eyebrows popped up at the shoe part. She might have been too young to remember nine-eleven, but in the years since, she’d learned all about it. Since then, they had increased security, but she still didn’t understand the taking off of shoes.

When she asked, Cody explained. “There was a guy who put a bomb in one of his shoes. It never went off, but they now make everyone take their shoes off to check them.”

Where did people come up with that shit?

When they eventually boarded the airplane, Lucca had, of course, booked them for First-Class seats.

Torr grabbed her hand and found their seats.

Skylar and Jace sat in front of them, with Ryder and Cody across the aisle.

Torr rambled non-stop about how excited she was and how she couldn’t wait to see Lucca, but Maddy was a bundle of nerves. She was trying to be a good friend and listen, but she wished she’d sat with one of the guys so they could calm her down.

She hoped she wasn’t one of those people who got airsick.

Torr finally quieted when the steward came on the speaker system and explained where the exits were in case they crashed, while a lady in a flight attendant uniform stood at the front and pointed.

Yeah, that was something Maddy wanted to know, but she also didn’t want to think about crashing.

He also explained about seatbelts and oxygen masks, and the plane slowly moved toward the runway.

“We’re next in line to take off,” the pilot said. “It looks like we’re in for a smooth ride to California.”

As the engines roared, Maddy grabbed the chair’s arms. The plane picked up speed, her stomach dropped, and then they were in the sky.

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