Chapter 5
When Leena got back to her room she reached for the doughnut box, broke off half of the ridiculous dick-shaped pastry, and ate it.
She did not care how it looked.
The room stayed silent except for the low hum of the air conditioner and the occasional sound of a car passing outside.
When she had eaten enough she wiped her hands, closed both boxes, and sat for another few minutes simply looking at nothing in particular.
The flight back to Sacramento left at six in the morning. That knowledge sat at the edge of her mind without urgency yet. There was still time.
Eventually she pushed herself up and began the slow work of packing.
Clothes went back into the suitcase in no particular order.
The tarot deck in its cloth was placed carefully near the top where it would be easy to reach.
Charger, toiletries, the few small things she had taken out earlier all found their places again.
She moved at an unhurried pace, pausing now and then to rest or simply stand still in the middle of the small room.
Outside, the Capitol area and the streets she had rolled through earlier had already settled deeper into the night.
Inside room 119 she continued packing for the early flight, the leftover half of the doughnut on the table for whenever she might want it later.
The night was winding down. Sacramento waited on the other end of the morning.
Leena sat in a quiet corner of the terminal with a paper cup of coffee warming her hands.
The airport around her moved in the low, steady rhythm of early morning travel.
A few passengers dragged rolling bags past. Announcements echoed from distant gates.
The sky beyond the high windows was still more dark than light.
She had checked in without trouble and made her way to the gate with time to spare.
The suitcase sat beside her chair.
The tarot deck remained tucked safely inside it.
She lifted the cup and took a slow sip of the coffee. It was average at best, the kind of brew that existed only to serve a purpose before a flight, but it was hot and that was enough.
She watched the people around her without much interest.
A man in a wrinkled shirt scrolled through his phone.
A woman near the window kept checking the boarding time on the screen.
Leena remained still, the cup resting against her palm between sips.
The long night in Austin already felt a step removed, as if it belonged to a slightly different version of the hours.
The Capitol grounds.
The acorns. The silly donut
All of it sat quietly in the background while the terminal continued its early morning business around her.
She took another sip and let her gaze drift toward the windows again.
Sacramento waited on the other end of the flight. The chair, the familiar streets, the ordinary shape of her days.
There was no urgency in the thought.
Only the simple fact of the journey ahead.
She sat with the coffee and the low noise of the airport, unhurried, while the time before boarding slowly burned down.
Two hours later the gate area finally stirred into motion.
The boarding announcement came over the speakers in the usual flat tone, and people began gathering their things with the familiar mix of patience and mild impatience.
Leena waited until the call for her group, then rolled forward and made her way down the jet bridge.
The plane’s cabin felt narrower than she liked.
She found her seat, stowed what needed stowing, and worked through the small practical steps of getting settled.
The seatbelt came last.
She pulled it across and fastened it with deliberate care, checking twice that it sat secure.
The click of the buckle sounded louder than it should have in the close space of the cabin.
She hated planes.
Absolutely hated them.
The feeling settled over her the moment she was strapped in and the door at the front of the cabin sealed shut.
It was not dramatic.
It was simply a deep, steady dislike that never improved with familiarity.
The recycled air.
The confined rows.
The knowledge that once the wheels left the ground there was nowhere else to go until the machine decided to come down again.
She kept her hands still in her lap and fixed her attention on the seat back in front of her while the rest of the passengers finished boarding.
Around her people stowed bags and adjusted vents and made quiet conversation.
A flight attendant moved down the aisle checking seatbelts and overhead bins.
Leena stayed exactly as she was, belt fastened, posture controlled, the old familiar tension sitting low in her chest.
The coffee from earlier had long since worn off.
There was nothing left to do but wait through the pushback and the long taxi and the eventual lift into the air.
She drew a slow breath and let it out the same way. Sacramento was on the other end of this.
That fact remained steady even while the rest of her resisted the sealed metal tube that would carry her there.
The engines would start soon.
Until then she sat strapped in place, enduring the part of travel she had never learned to like.
The plane had been in the air long enough for the initial climb to settle when the first stretch of turbulence hit.
Leena’s fingers started moving almost at once.
She tapped her nails against her knee in a short, steady rhythm, the only outward sign of the tension running through her.
Each bump and sudden drop pulled the same thought through her mind with tiresome consistency.
Yep. This is the end.
She did not say it out loud.
She simply thought it, clear and certain, the way she always did when the aircraft shifted under her without warning.
The seatbelt held firm across her lap. The cabin lights stayed steady.
None of that stopped the familiar conviction from arriving right on schedule.
After a particularly sharp jolt she lifted her gaze and looked around the cabin.
A man across the aisle kept reading his phone as if nothing had happened.
Two seats forward a woman sipped from a plastic cup and turned a magazine page.
A child a few rows back laughed at something on a tablet.
No one else appeared to share her private certainty that the machine was about to come apart.
Well. They ain’t panicking.
The observation landed with its usual dry weight.
She returned her eyes to the seat back in front of her and kept tapping her nails against her knee while the turbulence continued in uneven waves.
The plane would either stay in the air or it would not.
Everyone else seemed content to treat the question as already settled.
Leena sat with the older, less optimistic version of the same facts and waited for the air to smooth out again.
About twenty minutes later the turbulence still had not fully settled when a flight attendant stopped beside her row with a small basket.
“Snack?” the woman asked in the bright, practiced tone that belonged to altitude and recycled air.
Leena looked at the offering.
Individual packets of pistachios sat neatly arranged among the other options.
She eyeballed them for a long moment, the same dry disbelief settling over her that often arrived in the middle of flights she already hated.
Nuts.
They cheerfully bring me nuts when the plane is doing acrobatics.
Sadistic fucks.
She did not say any of it aloud.
She simply accepted the small packet with a short nod of thanks and waited until the attendant moved on down the aisle.
The pistachios rested in her lap while the aircraft continued its uneven path through the air.
Another mild drop pulled at the cabin.
Her nails resumed their quiet tapping against her knee.
She turned the packet over once without opening it.
The cheerful presentation of something so ordinary in the middle of the plane’s restless movement struck her as almost deliberately absurd.
Everyone else seemed content to treat the snacks as a normal part of the journey.
Leena sat with the older conviction that the whole situation remained slightly unhinged, the pistachios included.
She left the packet unopened for now and fixed her attention forward again.
The seatbelt stayed fastened.
The turbulence kept arriving in irregular waves.
Somewhere ahead Sacramento waited on solid ground.
Until then she remained strapped in place, snack in her lap, enduring the particular combination of altitude, motion, and unwanted generosity that always seemed to arrive together.
The familiar ding finally sounded through the cabin.
Leena’s eyes opened a fraction wider at the sound.
A moment later the pilot’s voice came over the speakers, calm and practiced, informing them that they had begun the final descent into Sacramento.
The usual details followed.
Seatbelts remained fastened.
Tray tables up.
The weather on the ground was clear.
About effing time, she thought.
The relief did not arrive all at once.
It settled in slowly, the way it always did when the end of a flight finally announced itself.
She kept her hands still in her lap and watched the seat back in front of her while the aircraft began its gradual downward path.
The earlier turbulence had eased into a steadier motion, though the old dislike of being sealed inside the machine never fully left her.
It only loosened its grip a little now that the ground was no longer an abstract idea.
Around her the cabin shifted into the familiar end-of-flight rhythm.
People closed laptops and tucked away headphones.
A flight attendant moved down the aisle for a final check.
Outside the small windows the light had changed, the higher altitude brightness giving way to the softer tones of approach.
Leena did not lean over to look. She already knew what waited below.
The familiar layout of the Sacramento region.
The long, flat stretch of land that meant the journey was nearly finished.
She drew a slow breath and let it out the same way. The pistachios still sat unopened in her lap.
The seatbelt remained secure across her hips.
Every small bump on the way down still registered, but the private certainty that this was the end of everything had finally loosened its hold.
The plane was coming down on purpose now.
That made all the difference.
Sacramento was close.
Solid ground was close.