“So, where to, boss?”
My phone buzzes and I check the reply email.
You’re always welcome at my gaff, old friend :)
The coordinates follow below. I show Santiago. He smiles and nods. “Ah, how exciting. I’ve never been before. Looks like I’ll be stocking up on whiskey!”
“Let’s get going,” I order.
We board the plane and the pilot gives Catalina one last quick look over before turning around. He practically skips to his flight deck. The happy fool—if I didn’t like him so much, I might have ripped his head off a long time ago. Thank god I didn’t, because he’s the only one who can get us to where we need to go.
“Wait,” Catalina speaks up, when Santiago has disappeared. I turn around and head to the cabin. “Where are we going?” She scurries behind me, but stops when we slip behind the cabin door. I can sense her shock, and I immediately know why. There are only four seats in the entire cabin of this huge jet—it’s otherwise stripped clean; definitely not the luxurious flight I’m sure she was probably expecting.
“Where are all the seats?” Catalina asks, naively. Her innocence is almost endearing. I could use a little innocence right now.
“We gut our planes to make more room for cargo,” I explain, sinking down into one of the seats.
“Do you always fly like this?”
“Never. This plane isn’t for transporting people, but my jet is at the airport, and that’s too close to the city.”
Catalina sits down next to me, choosing the closest seat. Her thigh rubs against mine and I take a deep breath. A million different thoughts race through my mind and I know if I can’t control them all soon, then everything is doomed.
“Are you okay?” I ask her once, trying to calm at least one of the thoughts overloading my brain.
Catalina’s curious eyes are suddenly filled with heaviness. She looks down at her feet. “I’m fine... at least, physically,” she whispers. I know what she means, but I doubt even that’s the truth. She’s got to be a least a little sore.
“Well, you’re going to have plenty of time to sleep. So, curl up and get some rest. I’ve got work to do.” I pull my phone back out, but I can sense that Catalina isn’t done with me yet. She ha
s more questions and I’m sure she needs a distraction just as badly as I do. The last thing I want, though, is to have to talk about us... about our kiss. There’s no time for that right now, not if I’m going to have a plan ready to go upon our arrival. “Sleep!” I mumble, trying to order her eyes closed.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
I sigh. Fine, but that’s her last question.
“Ireland.”
It’s raining when we touch down just outside of Dublin.
The endless prairie grass is a pale green and the sky is grey and drizzling, but it might as well be a wonderland to Catalina. I wonder if she’s ever been to Europe before?
“They’ve got bigger sheep here than we do back home,” she notes, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Our car slices through the rain towards our destination. Catalina was restless for the first few hours of our flight; it was clear that her mind was racing with a million unanswered questions, questions that she was desperate to get the answers too, if only to distract herself from the graveness of what we had just encountered, but she didn’t push, and eventually, the stress and the exhaustion of it all pushed her to sleep.
Me, I didn’t need sleep. I’m used to the death and the violence. After years of experience, I’m able to slip from one world to the next like a regular person changes clothes. The shootout instantly became a thing of the past the moment I decided on my future. We were going to Ireland, and the dead man in the alligator boots wasn’t coming with us.
What I’m not used to, however, is the way I’m starting to feel about Catalina. She slept beside me on the plane as I tried my best to push out the memory of our kiss. I needed to focus on work and work only. How am I going to find out who’s behind this insurrection? What favors will I need to call on?
Who kissed who first?
The warm tenderness in her kiss still lingers on my lips, no matter how hard I try to swat it away. It was a mistake to have kissed her—but was it even me who made the first move?
I think so. In that moment, I wanted to feel her touch, to brand her as mine... but she’s the one who pulled me back down on top of her. I was about to leave, and then she made sure that I didn’t...
“Where are we going now?” Catalina’s drowsy voice floats into my ears. I count the sheep outside. When’s the last time I got any sleep?
“To a friend’s place.”
“A Colombian?”