Chapter 11
Quill
“Ask your fucking brother’s sister’s acquaintance to find me the nearest airport!” I roar. “With a direct airplane to Astley!”
“Okay. Okay, okay, okay.” I can actually hear Josh sweat as he clicks on some buttons. “Hold on, man. I’m turning on my iPad, so I can call you and text my acquaintance at the same time.”
“I don’t fucking care what you do,” I groan. “As long as you fucking do it.”
I’m aware that the sentence doesn’t make sense, but my head hurts too much and my body is too panicky for me to try to form rational sentences. Josh seems to get the general gist, though, as his breathing grows ragged.
“The plane leaves at seven,” I say. “That’s the only thing I’ve found out.”
“And that’s plenty,” says Josh. “Great job.”
Can the little shit hear me having a mental breakdown in real time or something? Why the hell is he talking to me like I’m seven and I just got a C on my first spelling test?
“Unless it’s not a normally-scheduled flight,” he adds. “Unless it’s specially programmed for Devil. In that case, the hour tells us nothing..”
“Of course it’s a private flight,” I practically sob. “They wouldn’t send a contract back on a commercial flight.”
“A contract?”
“Never fucking mind.” I don’t even know how I can begin to tell Josh about the absolute criminal clusterfuck that is Devil.
“If the flight is at seven,” calculates Josh, “that means they’re less than an hour away, because it’s six now. Unless the flight was planned a while ago and—”
“No.” I shake my head, both because that’s not how Devil flights work, and because if they have time to wait around, then that means the subcontractor will have time to…
No. Impossible. I try to force myself not to think of Piper’s desperate message, but I can’t prevent the words from penetrating my skull.
They’re going to rape and kill me at Devil Tower.
But that means not all hope is lost. If I get to her before they get her to the tower, she’ll be okay. She won’t be hurt.
I have no choice but to take the words at face value, otherwise I know I’ll go insane. I just know it.
“The flight would have been planned when the subcontractors got to Piper,” I say. “Look for an airport less than an hour away.”
“Found one!” says Josh about twenty seconds later. “Well, my acquaintance did. Hold on, I’ll send you the address.”
It pings on Piper’s phone, and I groan. Fucking great. I’m going in the wrong direction. I swerve around dangerously, then go full-speed down the opposite side of the highway.
“Take it easy, man,” says Josh. “You have thirty minutes to get there.”
I stare at the clock on my dashboard, which reads exactly six thirty.
“I can’t cut it too close. I have to get there earlier. Wait, how do you know—”
“My acquaintance is watching you on the highway camera.”
I roll my eyes, which quickly turns into a swear when I hear police sirens behind me.
“FUCK!”
“Fuck,” hisses Josh at the same time.
“Should I make a run for it?”
“Just get it over with. Be polite. Then get the hell out of there.”
I curse inwardly as I roll down the window, wondering which of the dozens of infractions I’ve committed today they’ve noticed.
“License and registration, please.”
It takes everything I have to remain calm as I hand the papers to the traffic cop.
I wonder if he’s seen me swerve around on the highway, or drive the wrong way for a few feet, or not respect the speed limit, or all of the above.
It feels like he’s staring at the papers forever.
Fuck this. Take my money. Take all my money. Just let me go.
“Did you know you’re driving with a broken tail light?” he asks at last.
Are you fucking serious?
“Uh, no,” I answer.
“Well, get it fixed. I’ll let you off with a warning this time. Have a good one.”
He leaves, and I wait, seething, for the cop car behind me to drive off. Then I press my foot to the gas pedal.
“How many minutes did I lose, Josh?” I ask, my voice hollow.
“Not more than ten,” he answers, trying to sound reassuring. “You still have plenty of time.”
Twenty minutes left, and I’m fifteen minutes away.
I’m sweating bullets right now. Even if I get to the airport in time, I have to get to the plane, convince the pilot not to leave, and—it all just feels impossible.
“Devil airplanes have cameras in them,” I choke out as I drive at full speed toward the airport.
“Oh? But… I don’t know if my acquaintance can…”
“I know she can’t. No one can get inside those things.”
“So then, why…”
I don’t know why I’m confiding in Josh, only that if I keep my thoughts to myself, I’m going to drive myself mad.
“Subcontractors know that the worst thing you can do is fuck up a contract. If they’re bringing Piper to Devil Tower, that means that’s what the contract is.
They’re not supposed to do anything but bring her to Devil Tower, and they’re going to follow the rules. ”
“I see,” says Josh, sounding like he doesn’t see at all.
“No one can hurt her, in any way, until she gets to Devil Tower.”
“Oh.”
The words I’ve just spoken reassure me, but they seem to do the opposite to him. Maybe because he suddenly realizes everything that could happen to her.
Breathing hard, I at last head out onto the road that leads to the small airport. I pull up to the parking lot just as a small black plane cleaves the sky. I stare at my watch. I have five minutes.
I break into a sprint, reaching the main entrance with four minutes to spare.
“Hey!” I yell out, panting loudly. “I need to stop a flight! I need to fucking stop a flight!”
The woman at the main desk stares at me. “A flight, sir?”
“Yes.” I double over again, trying to shake off the migraine. “A seven a.m. flight. There’s a redheaded girl with glasses on it.”
“The… the passenger who was sleeping?” she questions.
They drugged her. Fuck.
“Yes… I guess,” I choke out. “I guess that’s her. Where is she, please?”
“She left about three minutes ago,” declares the woman. “It was requested that the flight be moved up.” She gestures to the black plane that’s now nothing but a black dot in the sky.
Fuck.
_
I drive for a full ten minutes before I think to call back Josh. Another minute to realize that the person I should actually be calling is Logan.
Not that I trust the asshole. But whatever his intentions are, they don’t, for whatever reason, involve killing Piper.
At least, not yet.
I may not be good at asking questions, but it wouldn’t make sense to go through all the trouble of getting her away from Devil Tower only to bring her right back.
It’s clear his plan really was to send her as far from Devil Tower as possible. Whether or not he intended to kill her after or not.
Now she’s heading right back at the hands of a subcontractor, and it must be at the order of another Devil. Not Logan.
For the moment, he’s my best shot at helping Piper. And I’m desperate enough to grovel at his feet if that’s what it takes to save her.
Biting down on my hesitation, I grab the burner phone from my backpocket. Not an easy thing to do when you’re driving at the same time down a busy highway.
I keep my eyes off the road just long enough to search for his contact. The phone rings only once before it picks up, and I realize he must have a throwaway phone for the sole purpose of getting a potential call from me.
Clearly he knows, before I’ve even opened my mouth, that I messed up.
“Are you fucking serious?” he asks without waiting for me to say a word. “Did you really manage to fuck this up? Fucking idiot. What did you do? I thought I could at least count on you for something simple like this. No?”
At any other time, if someone spoke to me like this, I’d beat the shit out of them. In fact, the only person who ever did was my dad, and shooting at the wall beside him got him to shut up pretty permanently around me.
Oh.
I suddenly make the connection between that and the way I shot at the wall inches away from Piper. I can barely manage to keep down the bile rising in my throat as my heart once more cripples at this new evidence of my cruelty.
Logan is still cursing me out, but none of his words are harsher than what I’m calling myself right now.
“So what happened?” he says finally as I continue driving at a reckless speed in the general direction of Astley. Though I know it’s useless. I’m nearly twenty hours away.
“She ran away while I was sleeping,” I admit.
“Ran away? Why the hell would she do that?”
“She… she hates me.”
It feels awful to get those words out. Even more awful because I know they’re true.
Logan hisses in annoyance.
“Alright. I don’t have time to listen to your silly lovebird antics. I’m guessing someone took her, right? Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Unless you’re so useless you can’t even hunt your girl down?”
“Someone took her,” I confirm, none of his words even scratching the surface of how much I hate myself right now. “Two people. Devil subcontractors.”
“Right.” There’s a long pause as I assume he’s deep in thought.
“She killed him, though,” I add.
“What?”
“One of the guys who took her. She slit his throat. So hard she nearly decapitated him.”
“Huh. Didn’t know she had it in her.”
Is it my imagination or does it sound like he’s proud of her?
“What is all this to you anyway?” I question, sudden suspicion roiling in the pit of my stomach. “Why do you care about Piper? Did you…”
“I can see why she ran away from you,” cuts in Logan. “Is jealousy the only thing you feel when it comes to her? Are you incapable of any other emotion? Then again, I’ve heard it said that you are a psychopath.”
I bite down on a retort, tears blurring my vision as I turn aimlessly onto another highway. It’s not like I can possibly arrive before the day after tomorrow, even if I drive without stopping.
Logan is right. The only thing I cared about when Piper told me how she was in the house, taking a shower, when her parents died, was that the soldier who had killed her was in the same house as her.
I never asked a single question about why Logan got involved.
Only now, when I suddenly suspect that there’s some history between them.
If he so much as touched her that way, I will kill him.
I hate myself for that impulse. I hate myself so damn much.
“Why do you care?” I ask again, my voice even, trying to bury any feeling of jealousy. I’m not questioning him because of that right now, I try to tell myself. I need to start asking questions if I want to find her again. And then keep her safe.
“This isn’t the time for that,” he growls.
“Fine. Why are her parents dead?”
There’s a pause at the other end of the line, and Logan says, “For the same reason that I care. For the same reason that she’s in danger. Got it? Now, stop fucking around and go to the address.”
“Wait, what?” I frown. “I’m going back to Devil Tower. Isn’t that where Piper’s being taken?”
Another slew of cursewords directed at me, and then Logan spits out, “Do you have a fucking death wish or something?”
I can’t honestly say I don’t, so I ignore the question. “I’m going where Piper is.”
“While I admire your bravery,” says Logan snidely, “I’ll handle it from here.”
“No, you fucking won’t. She’s mine, and—”
“And what the hell do you think you can do against the most powerful people in the state?”
“I can… I can…” I swallow the lump rising in my throat. “I can do whatever is necessary to save Piper. Starting with killing whoever wants her dead.”
“That would be Damien Wells,” lashes out Logan. “As in, my closest friend. Do you really think you can go against him? Do you really think I’d let you?”
A different kind of suspicion wraps itself around my brain. “Why are you doing all this, then? Why are you going against Damien, if you won’t let me?”
“I’m not going against him. That is, not really. I’m merely taking care of something… discretely. It certainly won’t be discreet if you come waltzing in and making this big fucking mess even messier. I won’t be able to save you, then.”
“I don’t want to be saved. I don’t need to be saved. I can handle myself.”
Logan snorts loudly. “Not against the most powerful person in the state, you can’t. Now, listen up carefully. I’m going to take care of this situation. If you try to get to Piper, I won’t be able to save her, and I definitely won’t be able to save you. Got it? Stay the fuck away from Devil Tower.”
With that, he hangs up, his threat feeling oddly familiar, because I once spoke those exact words to Piper, and she didn’t listen.
And I sure as fuck am not planning to listen to them either.
Dialing another number, I wait for the call to go through.
Josh picks up and his excited voice makes me second-guess having called him at all. But I’m not going to be able to do this alone. “Well? Did you find her?”
“No.”
“Oh,” he mutters in a deflated tone.
“But I know where they’re taking her. Devil Tower.”
“Devil Tower?” he echoes, gasping.
“Yeah. So get ready. I’m going to need your help, because we’re about to go to motherfucking war.”
With that, I grit my teeth, and continue down the highway in the direction of Astley.