Chapter 28
Icome awake in a full-body jolt, convinced I’m about to die.
Like, actual death. Heart-explodes, soul-leaves-my-body, obituary-mentions-Irony death.
Because I open my eyes and Frank’s face is two inches from mine.
I used to think “scared to death” was dramatic. Turns out it’s a very reasonable medical condition when a cannibal hovers over you at dawn breathing like a haunted moose.
He jerks back. “You’re gonna miss your flight.”
“Yeah? And you almost made sure I never take another one.” I bark at him in an angry whisper. My pulse is doing cardio on its own. “You ever wake someone up like a normal human, or is jump-scaring people your spiritual calling?”
Frank squints. “Your dick is out.”
I sigh. “That kind of thing happens when you give someone a heart attack, Frank.”
Beside me, Saint shifts, her thigh brushing mine under the sheets. Last night flickers across my mind, and my mouth betrays me with a tiny, smug curve. God, she’s trouble.
Frank, because he has zero sense of privacy, lifts a plastic bag. “Your broker delivered the IDs and tickets.”
Then he pulls out something worse. A wig.
A long, braided wig.
“Also sent this.”
I stare at it.
Oh, she is going to hate that.
Gloriously, violently hate it.
Saint opens one eye, sees the braids, and lets out a noise that is ninety percent disbelief and ten percent plotting-a-murder.
“Don’t,” I warn her, already amused. “You know you have to wear it.”
“I would rather tell Tex he’s better than me.”
“He may still be around if you’d like me to find him,” I smirk.
She glares. I grin even more. Everything feels normal for half a breath.
Frank backs toward the door like he’s escaping a bomb about to detonate. “Get dressed. You need to leave in ten.”
Frank drives the kind of van people warn children about. Classic white. A dent the size of God’s fist in the sliding door. Random patches where the paint has given up on life. If vans had rap sheets, this one would be on parole.
The interior is no better. Takeout containers, water bottles, and what might be a petrified french fry skid back and forth every time Frank takes a turn.
There aren’t even real seats in the back, just a turned-over milk crate that creaks with my every shift.
My ass stopped having blood flow three blocks ago.
He pulls up to Departures and brakes like he’s docking a submarine.
He stops at the very beginning of the curb, the place normal people avoid because it pisses off airport security.
Naturally, Frank is obtuse and incredibly paranoid.
Glancing around, his beady eyes blinking fast behind his ultra-thick glasses.
“You first,” he says to Saint.
She meets my eyes. The braids transform her. She looks… average. Normal. Like any other traveler with a carry-on, a flight to catch, and absolutely no plans to commit felonies before lunch. It’s disorienting.
And, yeah. I hate it.
She hoists her bag, says nothing, and steps out.
The van door slams behind her, cutting the sound of rolling luggage and airport chatter into a neat, muffled clip.
I shift forward, climbing to the passenger seat, gun case on the floor between us. Frank rolls down his window and coasts toward the far end of the terminal.
When he finally stops, he turns to me. No speeches. No macho farewell.
Frank just nods like he’s sending me into mild inconvenience instead of potential death.
I take his hand, grip firm. “Thanks,” I tell him. “For everything.”
He nods again, eyes steady, then pulls away. That’s about as much sentiment as you’ll get from Frank. I watch him drive away only a second, wondering what he does with that van. But knowing his diet, it’s best not to give these things too much thought.
I sling the gun case at my side and set off toward the sliding doors, merging into the current of unapologetically stressed-out travelers.
Up next: security.
My personal favorite place to test how much anxiety a human body can hold before spontaneous combustion.
Saint is about fifteen people ahead of me in the security line, already chewing one piece of pink gum and unwrapping a second.
Great.
Fantastic.
Phenomenal.
She only double-gums when she expects a fight.
Saint has this sixth sense, like an internal barometer that measures incoming chaos. And the gum? It’s her meditation bead. Her rosary. The thing that centers her right before she unleashes absolute devastation with nothing more than a pocketknife and spite.
The line moves at a decent clip for airport security, but not fast enough to keep my skin from crawling. I know how to blend in. I’ve spent the last two years of exile doing exactly that, becoming wallpaper everywhere I go. But this is different.
Because it’s not just me on this mission.
And blending in becomes a goddamn performance when your brain won’t stop calculating every threat she might walk into.
I force myself into the mindset of a normal traveler. Irritated. Sleep-deprived. Mildly homicidal toward airline baggage fees.
Not someone scanning for a Guild of assassins crouched behind a stranger’s carry-on.
Saint reaches the front. Her fake ID scans clean. She breezes through like she hasn’t murdered a few hundred people.
She moves to the conveyor belts, dropping items into the bins with bored efficiency.
I peel off to a different guard several booths down, then a different scanner entirely.
I’m not worried about the carry-ons. Our tech’s good enough that the scanners see whatever we want them to see. Cute little TSA-compliant silhouettes. Probably socks and a travel-sized shampoo bottle in Saint’s backpack. Nothing fun.
Same goes for the body scanners. Every operative has a chip that keeps the machines blissfully ignorant. The scanner won’t notice the gun tucked against my spine or the two knives Saint keeps in her ankle sheaths like jewelry.
Shoes off. Belt off. Gun case in a tray.
I step through, arms lifted.
The scanner clears me without a hiccup.
Now the case.
Always the case.
There’s always some risk—a rogue guard doing their job too enthusiastically, a random inspection I can’t talk my way out of. Even with the illusion tech disguising the contents, the case still needs to pass human hands.
Right now, the monitor sees a violin. The tech in the case will make sure the scanner gives it a green light. Not sent away for a random inspection.
The case rolls toward me.
I slip into my shoes, shove loose items back into my pockets, and reach for the handle—
A TSA agent steps into my personal space like he’s leading national security.
“Excuse me, sir,” he says. “I’ll need to open the case.”
My stomach drops into my ass.
And that wiggle of gum-chewing intuition Saint had?
Yeah.
I think it’s about to pay out.
The TSA agent gestures at the case like he’s asking permission to touch a newborn.
I press the release latch.
Not the real one—the secondary button that triggers the holograph.
I crack it, looking inside to make sure the perfect 3D illusion is cast: black velvet lining, a delicate violin nestled in its curves, an ornate bow beside it. It even reflects the overhead lights on the sheen of the wood.
The agent whistles. “Beautiful piece.”
Then he reaches.
I snap my hand out. “Ah ah. Please don’t touch.”
I widen my eyes just enough to look like a panicked musician, not a man hiding the kind of weapon that dissolves governments.
“The wood is very delicate,” I explain. “Oils from fingers, temperature shifts… it’s temperamental.”
I start closing the case, slow and reverent. “You understand.”
The agent backs off immediately, hands raised. “I do. I played for ten years.”
Of course he did.
We make the kind of small talk that edges right up against my gag reflex—what brand he used, how he misses it, how airport hours ruined practice time—but it smooths the moment. Staying calm and avoiding becoming memorable.
After a glance at my watch, he gets the point. And with the case strap over my shoulder, the weight settled between my shoulder blades, I walk away without being shot or detained.
A win.
I spot Saint in the tunnel that leads to the high-speed terminal shuttles. She’s propped against the wall like she owns the corridor, arms crossed, wig still on, her jaw working a giant pink bubble like she’s trying to intimidate it into submission.
She looks like a stranger.
A pissed-off, wig-wearing stranger with bubblegum confidence.
“Took you long enough,” she says.
I shake my head, brushing past her. She pushes off the wall and falls into step beside me.
“You look good in the wig,” I tell her. “You should keep it.”
Her bubble pops in a violent snap.
“Fuck you.”