Page 15 of Song Bird Hearts

Gilden snorts out laughter and grins over at Knox. “You got a knife in your boot,cher, or just in your smile?”

Knox tugs open the plane’s door. “You lookin’ for someone to keep you safe, or just someone to fight you?” he asks me with a scowl. “Get the fuck in if it’s the first option.”

“He always this pleasant?” I ask sarcastically.

“This is him on a good day,la grande flamme!” Gilden laughs. “I think he likes you.”

“Doesn’t seem like it. But I guess I can be hard to handle,” I grumble, reaching down to help Kevin into the plane. It’s taller than he’s used to.

Gilden helps and then offers me a hand up into it behind the pig. “If you were easy to handle, then you wouldn’t need us.”

When he gestures for me to take the front passenger seat, I blink at him in surprise. “You don’t wanna sit in front?”

“I think it’s more entertaining to watch your interactions with the big guy. You giants gotta stick together,” he teases. “Also, it’s necessary for the weight distribution.”

He puts a headset on my head and I adjust it. “So why can’t we take a larger plane?”

“This is a larger plane,” Knox replies. “These things come as two seaters.”

“The nasty people you’re runnin’ from will have their hands in the regular airlines and any sort of regular travel,” Gilden explains. “These things don’t have to be tracked. We don’t have a manifest, and other than listening when air traffic control tells us to stay out of the area, we don’t have to let anyone else know where we are. Untraceable.”

“And this thing can make it all the way to Wyoming?” I ask, afraid of the answer.

“As the bird flies, yes,” Knox says. “About six hours, but we’ll make it.”

“Six hours?” I repeat. “That long?”

“This ain’t a 747,” Knox grunts. “It’s what we got. The quicker we get you somewhere to hole up, the faster you’ll be safe. So just sit back and try not to freak out on me.”

“We’re cleared,” Gilden says after checking his phone. “Let’s get in the air.”

I pull the small seatbelt on and grip my thighs as Knox maneuvers the plane out of the hanger and onto a long stretch of concrete that clearly doubles as the runway and the driveway all in one.

“You wanna take off?” Knox asks, his voice weird in the headset.

I look over at him with wide eyes. “Why the fuck would I wanna do that?”

He shrugs. “Just asking.”

And then he speeds up and we’re flying down the runway. He pulls back on the controls and we lift into the air. The entirety of it feels like the plane is going to rattle apart, so I sit with my back tense and my teeth grit. This isn’t what I had in mind when I called Hank, but the guys are right. I can’t just walk into an airport, not if the Foundation has their hands in everything.

Things level out a little once we’re in the air and I’m able to relax just a little. “So. . .” I say, glancing over at Knox and over my shoulder at Gilden. Kevin seems happy to sleep on the seat next to him. “What do I do when we get to Wyoming?”

Knox shrugs. “Not my concern. Our job is to keep you safe until told otherwise.”

I scowl at him. “You know, you’re a real asshole.”

He doesn’t respond to my insult. Instead, he glances over past me and goes, “you might wanna latch your door.”

My heart stops. “What do you mean?”

“Your door isn’t latched. It’s just sitting closed.”

“And you waited until we were in the air to tell me?” I shriek, reaching over and trying to force the latch down. I’m not gonna lie and say I’m not two seconds away from a full-blown panic attack.

“You had your seatbelt on,” Knox shrugs. Like it’s okay the door was just fucking open while we’re ten thousand feet above the ground.

The door finally latches and I breathe a sigh of relief. But the almost panic attack wears me out, plus I haven’t slept since the morning of the award ceremony. How long have I been awake now? Two days? Shit. I hadn’t even realized. I’ve just been running on adrenaline.

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