Page 15 of Cruel Dreams

I scowl on my way to the truck. He opens the door for me and ignoring him, I climb in. I feel like a reprimanded little kid, and I angrily jerk my seatbelt. I latch it, and even the click sounds annoyed.

Settling behind the wheel, Zane sighs. “You don’t have to be like that.”

“I know.”

He starts the SUV, the one he likes to drive because the windows are tinted, and we need them as dark as possible. “There are sunglasses in the glove box. Will you put them on?”

Without saying anything, I comply, but only because the sun’s bright and it’s more comfortable wearing them than squinting. “Where are we going?”

“Mel said she bought the plane tickets.”

“Yeah, she did. My ID looks really good.”

“I know. I saw it.” He swallows, hard. “We’re going to the airport so you can get a feel for it. Mel doesn’t want you overwhelmed when you and Max are there.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

Seeing the city, and interacting in it, is surreal. Things have changed while staying the same. For example, the bus system. The routes they follow are all the same. The night I met Zane for dinner downtown, I didn’t have any trouble finding my way to the restaurant. The sounds were the same, the smell of diesel fuel and dirt, but the bus I rode was newer and I’d never seen the driver before. So, little things, the same, but different. Same enough to give me security in the world I missed for five years, but different enough I’m constantly thrown off balance.

“Mel did, and she doesn’t want you drawing attention to yourself if you’re acting nervous or twitchy.”

He doesn’t hold my hand as he drives and I miss his touch, but I don’t reach out to hold his hand, either.

Because of the separated captain’s seats, I can’t lean into him, and I concentrate on looking out the window, counting how things have changed and making note of the things that haven’t. I haven’t seen much of King’s Crossing since escaping Black Enterprises, and I’m grateful Mel suggesting this outing.

Zane patiently navigates the busy streets to the airport. Planes are taking off and landing in a choreographed dance to prevent them from colliding. Traffic is everywhere, and he parks in a huge parking lot labeled Departures.

“We can’t go through security, but there’s plenty to do and see,” he says, holding the truck’s door open.

I slip my sandals onto my feet, push the sunglasses to the top of my head, and let him lift me out and set me onto the baking pavement. He slams the door shut and I follow him across the enormous parking lot.

He ushers me inside first, and the air is a lot cooler. Curiously, I glance around. I’ve never been in the King’s Crossing airport before. There are signs directing travelers where they need to go and posters advertising vacation destinations, but it’s the stores that confuse me. I feel like we’re in a shopping mall instead of an airport. Bookstores, souvenir shops, kiosks that offer massages and eyebrow threading, and of course, a ton of places to eat and buy a coffee.

“All of this before security?” I ask. What would a person traveling need with all this stuff?

“There’s more after, to give people who are stuck on long layovers something to do. Come on, you can look around, get a feel for the place.”

We walk to a bookstore, and the current bestsellers are displayed on a counter near a wall of any magazine you could want to flip through.

Tentatively, I pick up a current number one romance novel by an author I like. It just came out, and I haven’t purchased it for Zarah. It’s hardcover, a luxury I’ve never been able to afford. It’s the last in a trilogy, and they’re all here, beckoning me to buy, sit down, and lose myself in a story where the characters’ problems are worse than mine.

“Do you want them?” Zane asks, watching me handle the book like it’s made of glass.

Airport prices are crazy, and if he buys me all three, it would cost over eighty dollars.

But, oh, how I want them.

“I shouldn’t,” I say, not wanting to say no.

“It’s okay.” He grabs the other two off the counter and yanks the first one from my greedy grasp. “Keep looking. Maybe find a magazine or two for Quinn. There might be something here that Zarah doesn’t have. She likes looking at clothes, too, right?”

“Yeah.”

I wander the bookstore and there’s more than books and magazines. Coffee mugs stamped with the King’s Crossing city logo, water bottles, key chains, t-shirts, and sweatshirts.

Whatever I stop to brush my fingers over, Zane adds to the pile, and when he peels a magnet shaped like Minnesota off a metal display, I learn to stop touching things. We don’t have a place to put a magnet.

“Done?” he asks, his arms full.

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