Chapter 32
Finding a specific plane on an active runway turns out to be a real scavenger hunt when the airport is the size of a small city and apparently no one told ground control that there was just a bloodbath involving fried rice in Terminal F.
Jets are still taxiing like everything is fine, like today’s crisis is a delayed latte instead of multiple bodies and a motorcycle gang with artillery.
I gun the Harley anyway.
The tires squeal, the tail slides and I nearly lose control. Huh, not bad.
This bike is definitely not stock. Seems baldy did some upgrades that may come in handy for our escape. Hopefully this bike is faster than the gang coming for us.
The motorcycle club comes in hot behind us, engines snarling, spreading out like they’ve done this before, which is not surprising.
I weave us through service lanes and fuel trucks, eyes scanning tails and numbers, counting under my breath until I spot it.
There. The Emirates bird, already rolling, plane number stamped clean and pretty on the tail like it isn’t about to become my problem.
Gunshots crack behind us, sharp and angry, and I lean hard into the turn, swinging the bike around a plane being pushed back by a tractor just as something heavy whistles past my ear.
The stupid braids of this annoying wig flicking in my face as I move.
“Holy shit,” Alejandro yells from the sidecar, bracing himself. “They’ve got some pretty big firepower!”
Something detonates behind us, close enough that I feel it in my teeth. The tractor driver dives clear just in time before the blast hits, fire blooming outward as the vehicle explodes into a spectacular mess of metal and flame.
“Do they have a fucking cannon?” I shout.
“Pretty much,” he yells back.
He twists in the sidecar and fires, controlled and calm despite the chaos, and I catch a glimpse of one of the bikes lying flat as it skids across the tarmac in a spray of sparks. The rider doesn’t move.
The unmanned plane keeps rolling, unguided now, until glass shatters and metal screams as it plows straight into the terminal windows.
The sound is catastrophic. Shouting erupts instantly, and like ants to sugar, assassins swarm the breach, smashing out the remaining glass with chairs and trash cans, clawing their way out of the building to get their piece of the bounty.
One gets shoved too hard and lands wrong, leg snapping with a sound I feel rather than hear.
I don’t spare them another glance.
The terminal can eat itself alive for all I care.
I only need one thing and it’s to get on that fucking plane.
Runways blur together when you’re moving this fast, white lines and blinking lights streaking past as I push the Harley harder. The Emirates plane is still ahead of us, lumbering and massive, beginning its slow, arrogant turn like it has all the time in the world.
We do not. And I need to figure out how the fuck we’re getting on it.
Behind us, the motorcycle club fans out, engines howling, the sound vibrating up my spine. They’re good. Aggressive. Sloppy in that confident way that comes from numbers and testosterone. I weave anyway, cutting sharp around ground vehicles and painted markers, trusting instinct more than sight.
Alejandro shifts in the sidecar, all six-foot-six of him wedged into a space meant for maybe a golden retriever and a dream.
“This is undignified,” he shouts over the wind.
“You look adorable,” I call back. “Really sells the exile sniper vibe.”
Gunfire snaps past us. One round pings off metal close enough that I feel it through the handlebars.
I jerk the bike sideways and clip a rider who got too close, my saddlebag slamming into his front tire.
He goes down hard, bike flipping end over end before skidding across the runway in a shower of sparks.
Alejandro twists around, braced awkwardly, and fires with maddening calm. One biker drops. Then another. Precision work, even from a sidecar, which honestly feels unfair.
I think, fleetingly, about my original plan. About slipping away. About leaving him behind so I could get ahead of this, think, breathe, survive.
Yeah. That’s not happening.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to get onto this plane with a six-foot-plus assassin and a sidecar’s worth of baggage, but I know one thing for sure. I’m not leaving him on the tarmac.
A bike surges up alongside us, too close, the rider grinning like this is the highlight of his week. He lunges and grabs the edge of the sidecar, hauling himself halfway in.
Great.
Now we’re doing this.
Alejandro snarls something in Spanish and they grapple, all elbows and knees and absolutely zero grace. The sidecar wobbles. I keep us straight by sheer spite.
“Can you not?” I yell. “I’m driving!”
“I’m trying,” Alejandro grunts, shoving the man’s face away as a fist swings wildly between them.
The biker lands a punch. Alejandro answers with two, then three, efficient and brutal.
“Incoming.” I warn, as casual as if warning we’re about to run a red light.
He grabs the man by the vest, hauls him up, and for one ridiculous second they lock eyes.
“Tu madre es una perra,” *Alejandro says growls, and dumps him out.
The biker hits the runway and rolls, tumbling directly into the path of another plane already accelerating for takeoff. There is no dramatic impact. No heroic sacrifice. Just physics doing what physics does.
Bodies lose. Planes win.
The Emirates jet finishes its turn and lines up, engines whining higher, angrier. It’s about to go.
“Saint,” Alejandro says, urgency cutting through the sarcasm, “we are running out of runway.”
“I know,” I snap, gunning the engine harder. “I can see the plane.”
Another bike surges up on my left. I lean into it without hesitation, shoulder, and steel meeting in a violent shriek as I ram him sideways. He loses balance, curses lost to the wind, and disappears in a tumble of chrome and bad decisions.
Then I do something insane.
I cut across the runway.
Hard turn. Full lean. The Harley fishtails, tires screaming as I bring us around in a brutal arc until the plane is no longer ahead of us.
It’s behind us.
Lined up. Engines spooling. A wall of sound and intent.
Alejandro goes very still in the sidecar.
The Emirates jet roars louder, deeper, the kind of noise you feel in your bones. It’s about to take the runway, and when it does, it will not care that we exist. In thirty seconds, it will be moving at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, and we will be a rounding error.
I roll the throttle and launch us forward.
We’re on the takeoff runway now, racing away from the plane that is absolutely going to catch us.
Alejandro looks back once, then forward again. “Saint,” he says carefully, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal, “I would love to know what the plan is.”
“Get ready to jump.”
A look of disbelief makes his pause a beat.
“…I’m sorry?”
“Stand up. Stay low.”
The engines scream higher. The plane starts its run.
Alejandro swears, then does exactly what I tell him. He plants his feet in the sidecar, crouched, bracing himself with one hand, the other gripping the corner of his gun’s case fixed on his back. The wind is savage now, tearing at us, trying to rip him free.
I keep my hands steady on the bars, my body loose but controlled, eyes flicking between the runway and the monster behind us. The plane is coming in hot and heavy, nose down, unstoppable.
“You get one shot,” I shout over the roar. “Don’t miss.”
“Oh, Picarita,” He laughs, sharp and feral. “I never miss.”
I hold us steady as long as I can, then angle just enough to line him up.
“Now!”
Alejandro launches.
He clears the gap clean, slams into the landing gear housing, and locks on, body swinging violently, gun case banging against the housing before he finds purchase. The plane is still grounded, wheels pounding the runway, engines screaming as it eats distance.
He looks back at me, one arm already outstretched.
I gun the bike harder, chasing him, balancing on instinct alone as the Harley screams at its absolute limit. My eyes flick between him and the plane’s nose.
Not yet… not yet.
I rise, feet coming up onto the seat, body centered, patient, the bike steady beneath me despite the wind tearing at my clothes and the wig fixed to my head.
The runway is disappearing fast but I’ve got to hit this perfect.
Alejandro’s brown eyes are locked onto me with an intensity I’ve rarely seen, and he gives me one nod. He’s ready.
The nose lifts and that’s the moment. My body coils back, all muscles tense and I jump.
The plane surges upward as I launch, the ground falling away beneath me in a dizzying drop. Alejandro catches me mid-air, forearm to forearm, the impact ripping a grunt from both of us.
“Got you.”
The pressure is brutal now, wind screaming past, the aircraft climbing hard as I dangle beneath it, legs kicking uselessly.
Alejandro growls, face contorted with effort as he holds me, and I swing my free arm again and again until my fingers finally lock around his wrist with both hands.
He shifts, finds leverage, then lets go with one hand long enough to grab me properly. With a raw shout, he hauls me up as the landing gear begins to retract, massive machinery folding inward around us.
We scramble, half climbing, half dragging each other into the belly of the plane just as the doors close.
The noise drops to a muffled roar. The chaos is gone.
I toss my backpack and collapse onto my back. Arms spread, chest heaving, staring up at nothing, and alive in a way that feels almost offensive.
I laugh first. I can’t help it.
“That,” I say between breaths, “was fun.”
Alejandro, sitting back on his heels, hands on his thighs and panting just as heavy as I am, turns his head, wild disbelief pinching his face. “I’m never traveling with you again.”
* “Your mother is a bitch,”