Royal (Terk’s Guardians #9)

Chapter 10

J anna swallowed hard and stared at Calum. “Where would we go?”

“That is one of the things we still have to figure out.” He put the jug of coffee and the bags onto the dining table, and then motioned to them. “First off, you need to eat.” And, with that, he turned and headed into the other room to check on Bruce. When Calum stepped back out again, he was frowning.

“How is Bruce?” Janna asked, eyeing him instantly.

“Suffering. We need to get him away from here, and he needs medical attention soon.”

“We’re in Poland,” she noted. “Can’t we get it for him here?”

Calum shook his head. “No, we’re still too close to the Russian border. If we’d gotten deeper into this country, maybe, but just enough people on both sides are likely to be watching the borders,” he explained. “We can’t take that chance.”

She nodded. “Fine. What are our choices then?”

“Terk has somebody coming over, so we’ll see what he has to say.” Calum motioned at the food again. “Eat something, and help yourself to the coffee. I will go get Rick up.”

At that, Rick called out from the other room, “I’m awake. I’ll be there in a minute.” When he stumbled out moments later, he looked as if he was ready to go.

Janna frowned, then asked, “Do you guys always fall out of bed, ready to move?”

“Pretty much, yes,” Calum replied. “When we’re on a job, we do. Anything less than that requires time we usually don’t have.” He studied her carefully. “Will it take much to pack you up?”

She snorted. “Pack what? I don’t even have a toothbrush.”

He smiled. “Nope. And that’s good in a way, so we don’t leave behind evidence of our passing through here. With any luck, we’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

“I thought we would stay for a bit, so these guys could heal,” she protested, looking at Royal in concern. “He’s a long way from being ready to run again.”

“We were, but I don’t like anything about this place,” Calum shared. “I woke up this morning, feeling that tug on my senses. That signal means we need to move.”

“In that case we do need to move,” Royal agreed easily. He looked over at her and smiled. “And I’m fine.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “You’re fine, like I’m fine,” she muttered.

“Are you not fine?” Rick asked, stopping to study her. “Because if you’ve got any problems, you need to tell us right now.”

“You mean any other problems?” she quipped.

He narrowed his gaze and nodded. “Yeah, any other problems. That works.”

“I’m fine,” she stated.

But Rick wasn’t content with that. He read her energy for a long moment, then finally gave her shrug, as if to say, Whatever . Then he sat down to eat some breakfast wraps. After the men had had two each, and she’d had one, at least six were left.

She looked over at Calum. “Did you mean to buy this much?”

“Yep, I sure did. I probably should have bought more to take with us. I don’t know when we’ll come across food again.”

She winced at that. “Right. It feels as if we’ve already been shorted a few meals.”

He laughed. “But remember that we could be forced out of here in five minutes.”

Without warning, the motel room door opened, and a man stepped in, closing the door behind him. She bolted over to where Royal sat. He pulled her closer, as he looked over the stranger, his gaze hard. Yet Rick and Calum appeared to be completely comfortable with the newcomer. They hadn’t even moved an inch, and that surprised her.

The man stepped forward and gave her a clipped nod. “I’m Riff.”

She frowned at him. “You’re part of Terk’s team, aren’t you?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, with half a smile. “And sometimes I’m just a pain in the ass.”

At that, Rick stated, “You’re always a pain in the ass, but you’re our pain in the ass.”

Riff snorted, then announced, “I’ve got wheels.”

Calum and Rick got up, quickly cleaned up everything that they could, then grabbed a cloth and wiped off the surfaces of everything. Calum nodded at her. “Go get anything that you’ve got in the other rooms.”

She headed to the bedroom and the bathroom, checking to see if anything was here. She put her dry underwear in her pocket and rejoined the men. “It’s clear.”

The men brushed past her and checked as well, and, within minutes, they were ready to go.

“What will we do about Bruce?” she asked. “He’s in rough shape.”

“That’s one of the reasons we’re moving as fast as we are now. His energy is sinking, and, if we have any hope of keeping that man alive, we need to get him more help.”

“Here in Poland?” she asked.

“No,” Riff stated. “I’ve got wheels, but then I’ve also got wings.”

Nonplussed, she stared at him as he walked into the other room, scooped up Bruce as if he weighed absolutely nothing, and stepped to the front door. The other men grabbed the leftover food and were immediately at her side, nudging her out. She took one last look around and followed them down the steps to the vehicle.

She whispered to Calum, “Does Riff really work for you?”

“ With us,” he clarified. “Remember that we operate as a team. We’re not so much about bosses.”

She laughed. “And yet Terk…”

“Terk’s a man unto himself,” Calum noted, with half a smile. “He’s also a loyal friend and has saved my life more than a few times. So, if Terk says, Jump , we don’t waste a moment asking, How high? We just jump.”

“And that has saved you all these years?”

“Absolutely,” he stated. “Our instincts are like that. We know who we can trust because we’ve been together for a long time.”

She studied Riff, who even now placed Bruce in the back seat of a large Suburban. “And you trust him?”

“Yes, I do. Besides,” Calum added, as he gave her a grin, “we’re out of other options at the moment.”

She winced and nodded. “ Great , that’s not exactly how I want to make decisions in life.”

“And yet you have, and you do,” Calum pointed out. “Instincts let you get close to Royal, so don’t discard them now.”

*

Royal put all the personal information Janna had given him in the back of his mind, as they drove carefully through the city that was slowly waking up to a new day. When they came to an airstrip, he almost felt himself relax. But he also knew that this hand-off would likely be one of the most dangerous so far. He got out and walked around to help Janna, but she was already out and looking to help him. He smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Right,” she muttered. She joined the others headed for the plane and asked, “Who’s flying?”

“I am,” replied Riff.

She stopped and stared at him.

He gave her a smile. “Yeah, so, if you don’t trust me, don’t get on.”

She snorted at that, looking back at the others. “He’s really easy to get along with, isn’t he?”

“Nope, he sure isn’t,” Calum stated, with a smile, while he carried Bruce this time. “But Riff’s about all we’ve got at the moment, so best to play nice.”

“ Great ,” she muttered. “How is it his résumé hit the hire pile?”

Calum burst out laughing. “Maybe you’ll find out firsthand on this ride, but I sure hope not.”

She winced at that. “Good point. I probably don’t want to see Riff in action, do I?”

“No, you sure don’t. However, when we’re in trouble, he’s the guy we want on our side for sure.”

She sighed at that. “Fine, but this isn’t easy. He makes Rick seem like the welcome wagon.”

“Nothing is easy about this situation,” Rick declared. “And it wasn’t easy for us to work with you either, by the way. Still, Riff is part of our team, and, if you don’t like it, find your own way home, sister.” And, with that declaration, he opened the plane door and stepped aside, so Calum could carry Bruce in.

As she stepped into the plane, she looked around, surprised to find that it was quite nice. Her surprise was noted by the others, as she settled into her seat and buckled up, happy that Royal sat down beside her.

He gave her a gentle smile and said, “It’s all good.”

“Says you,” she muttered. “It would be easier if I had some idea what was going on.”

When everybody was inside and buckled up, Rick and Calum headed to the front of the plane. She looked over at Royal and asked, “So, they all three sit up there?”

Royal shook his head. “They’re probably making plans, or maybe Riff is briefing them.”

She winced. “So, we’re not on their team, are we?”

“At some point in time, you just have to trust the ones you started out with,” Royal stated, shaking his head. “We don’t really have a whole lot of choice. As much as I don’t know these men, I do know that they are part of Terk’s team, and I’m happy to have them with us. So I’m good with that.”

“I’m good too,” she added. “I just want to get the hell out of here a whole lot faster, rather than be sitting ducks.” She shifted in her seat, looking out the window at the airstrip below them. She saw no sign of anybody, but that unease just wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Are you feeling insecure about something?” Royal asked her curiously.

“Just everything,” she replied. “It’s been a long haul to get to this point, and I don’t want anything to go wrong in the meantime.”

“You and me both,” Royal said, with a smile. “Yet we still have a long way to go.”

“And we haven’t taken to the air yet.”

But the words were no sooner out of her mouth, when Rick joined them and sat down beside Bruce, placing a hand on his neck to check that he was okay. The fact that Bruce appeared to be comatose worried her, and yet she wondered if that wasn’t the better place for him to be. “I presume your people are keeping him in that state?” she asked Rick.

He nodded. “It’s easier for travel purposes.”

“Is it good for Bruce though?” she muttered.

“None of this is good for him, but getting him home again is the priority, and that’s a whole different story. He needs to remain unconscious for a little bit more.”

“What about papers?” she asked. “We don’t have anything for him, do we?” At that, she turned and looked at Royal. “What about you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have a passport or ID either,” he muttered. “That’s just the way life is at the moment.”

“Sure.” She sighed, sat back, and closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing exercises. When the plane lifted off moments later, she finally felt some of her tension easing back. She opened her eyes and smiled. “Good, I was really afraid we wouldn’t make it up.”

“Why is that?” Rick asked, looking at her.

She shrugged. “Just that feeling of something going wrong.”

His gaze narrowed on her. “It would be much better if you would say things like that before we lift off.”

Surprised, she frowned. “But I didn’t have any reason for it, nothing to back it up. I didn’t have any tangible reason to feel that way, and it’s not as if you’ll listen to me if I just say something feels wrong.”

“You might be wrong about that. Besides, this is what we do, and our feelings and our instincts are very important.”

“I didn’t know what to say. I looked around and wondered if we were being followed.”

“Did you see anything?” Rick asked.

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

He seemed to relax a little bit more at that. “If you get any more of those feelings, let me know immediately, okay? Please .”

Feeling as if she’d done something wrong, she nodded and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “If somebody is out there, we’ll deal with it,” he stated, his tone crisp. “But I don’t want you to keep us in the dark about what you’re feeling ever again. What we need to do is get someplace where Bruce can get care, and we sure don’t need anybody delaying us.”

She wouldn’t argue with that. As she watched the ground disappear below them, she asked, “Where are we heading to, by the way?”

“We’re hoping to make it back to England,” Rick shared, “but we won’t do it in one fell swoop.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “That’s too bad.”

“Yep, it sure is. We’ll stop in Holland at a private airport and refuel. If all is well, we should make it to England in one trip from there.”

She didn’t say anything more but nodded.

“You might as well get some sleep,” Rick suggested. “I don’t know what the rest of the day will bring.”

“Fine,” she said. With that tidbit of information, she sank back, closed her eyes, and tried to rest, but it was hard. She shifted uneasily several times, and, when she opened her eyes again, Rick stared at her intently. She glared right back at him. “Now what’s the matter?”

“ You . You can’t calm down.”

“No, I can’t. Why is that?”

“In your world, when you say something feels wrong , how does that relate to your ability to calm down?”

She blinked several times. “I don’t know,” she admitted cautiously. “It’s not exactly something I’m accustomed to discussing or even recognizing.”

“Close your eyes and give it some serious thought,” Rick replied. “And this would be a really good time to consider more about your affinity with metal things.”

“Oh.” She blinked, as she looked around at the plane. The metal plane. “It’s not something that I ever really did much with, but I can tell when I’m near them and whether it’s energy I can use or not.”

“Which is also bizarre.”

“Yes, you guys told me that earlier,” she noted, with a sigh. “Supposedly that energy is way harder to utilize, and it should be much easier for me to use Mother Nature’s energy than something metallic or mechanical. I can’t tell you anything more than I already have,” she stated in exasperation. “I get that you want me to figure out if something is wrong out there. I can tell you that I feel as if absolutely something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is. Honestly, it could be at the other end, when we land.”

At that, his eyebrows shot up. “If you are picking up something along that line, you definitely need to tell us beforehand.”

“If I knew what I was picking up, then I would. So far, it’s nothing more than… a case of nerves.”

Nodding, Rick didn’t say anything for a moment. “Just keep it in mind though, okay?”

Not sure what else she was supposed to do with that information, she nodded and sat back.

Rick added, “We’ll be hours in the air, so go ahead and rest.”

“I would, except you keep staring at me like that,” she muttered, glaring at him.

His lips quirked. “I’m checking out your energy, not so much to see if you’re lying, but to see if anything else is going on there.”

“Checking out my energy?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “Why don’t you check out Bruce’s?”

“I already have, and Bruce doesn’t have anything to hide.”

She stared at him, feeling her heart shrink inside a little bit. “Neither do I. And believe me when I say, I don’t trust you any more than you trust me. I don’t have any reason to trust anybody in this world,” she snapped, glaring at him. “And certainly not arrogant males.”

His lips twitched yet again. “Maybe not, but you’ve come a long way in terms of your friend beside you, so we arrogant males can’t be all bad.”

She flushed at that. “There’s still time to see your bad side.”

“Maybe so,” Rick agreed cheerfully.

He said that almost too cheerfully.

“Yet I’m much more inclined to believe you when I see some temper flaring. You’re a little too contained for my liking.” And, with that, he settled into his seat again.

She frowned at him. Too contained? What the hell did that mean? She was anything but contained. Something was seriously wrong if he thought she looked too complacent, too contained. Still, it was his problem, not hers, and yet she had learned to trust him to some degree.

She had trusted men in her life in many ways and had been badly burned. She had trusted in Royal, and yet that particular trust hadn’t been broken. She couldn’t blame him for anything that had happened, and what had been created between them had truly been a gift for her, so that her pregnancy on her own was not even an issue. Maybe she didn’t have that many trust issues after all. It would just take some time, which was what Royal had pointed out.

Trying to shove it all the way into the back of her brain, she closed her eyes and relaxed, even falling asleep for a bit. She jostled awake at one point, and, looking around, she touched the hull of the plane. She closed her eyes, instinctively sending and receiving calming energy. When she opened them again, Rick was staring at her.

He nudged his chin toward her hand, touching the plane. “Problems?”

She frowned and dropped her hand.

“If there is,” he noted, “it would help if we knew.”

“I don’t have any advanced warnings,” she explained tiredly. “I mean, putting my hand on the hull of the plane was just an instinctual move, a natural move, so I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“Oh no, feel free to do it,” he said. “As long as you’re keeping me alive, I’m good.” And, with that, he closed his eyes again.

She frowned. “What is your problem with me anyway?”

He opened them and faced her. “ Trust . An awful lot is going on in your world. A lot of blame, a lot of anger and anguish,” he shared. “I can see all that. I can see it churning around through your system.”

“I’m sure things are churning around in everyone’s system, yours included.”

“Sure, but yours are unresolved, and that makes you more unstable than the others. It would have been better if you had dealt with some of that crap before you came on this mission,” he explained. “I can see a lot of it is tied to your need to help Royal. Now that you have done that, maybe it’ll be easier for me to see what’s really behind all this.”

She stared at him in astonishment. “Wow, you see all that?”

“Yeah, all that ,” he confirmed. “We all have abilities, and we all see things. And because we’re all so very different, our skills and abilities are different as well. Some of us can see things easily. Some of us see things that aren’t easy to see at all,” he murmured. “Some of us get a flood of information without even trying. Others work very hard to get the tiniest thing. However, as long as my friends and family are working to keep you safe, I want to ensure you’re working to keep us safe as well.”

“I am,” she stated in astonishment. “I can’t believe after all this that you would even doubt that.”

“But knowing that trust is a big issue for you, I worry about projection. So I’m checking every step of the way to confirm you are who you say you are on the inside.” And, with that, he closed his eyes, once again ignoring her.

She let her breath out in a noisy gust, wanting to smack him for his words that were so jarring, yet potentially accurate.

As if on cue he opened his eyes and added, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“What? You read minds now too?”

“Yeah, though it doesn’t take a mind reader to know you probably very much want to slug me,” he shared, with a chuckle, his lips twitching. “I still wouldn’t take it kindly.” And again he shut his eyes.

She looked over at Royal to see his eyes open and his lips twitching as well. She glared at him. “You too?”

“Not at all,” he replied gently, “but he doesn’t know you the way I do.”

She rolled her eyes at that. “Not sure you know me that well either.”

“Maybe, but I’m planning on getting to know you a whole lot more,” he teased.

That made her face flush. She squeezed his hand, then slumped in her seat. “It’s frustrating being around people who know things about you that you don’t want them to know.”

“But you already told them, pretty much.”

She nodded. “Yes. Not that I necessarily wanted to, but…”

“So, the problem is, you feel vulnerable now because people know things about you, and you’re feeling as if they’ll judge you for it, which they won’t. So, really the bottom line is that you need to just relax and let life happen. It doesn’t always have to be traumatizing, and it need not be a competition either. We’re heading toward a fun and happy place, so maybe you should just relax and let it be.”

“Maybe when we get you back to normal,” she conceded, looking at him. “Yet every time I see you and Bruce, I see just what a shitty world we live in.”

“That may be, but every time I look at you and Bruce and Calum and Rick and Riff,” Royal pointed out, “I realize just how many good things are in this life. For every negative, for every bad thing that happens, I can always find something good to focus on instead.”

She sighed. “Right? I just need to do that, don’t I?”

“For that to happen,” he said, “you’ll probably need to let go of the guilt and the grief. Honestly, I’m not sure we ever let go of grief.… I think that you’ll probably always carry it with you, but you’ll do it in such a way that we’ll honor that small life that was in our world for too short a time. We must learn to live with all of it though, the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

The fact that he was using the word we made the tears come to her eyes, as she stared out of the plane. “The guilt,” she began, “is crippling. Only so much I can do with that, and yet it’s never enough. You wake up one morning, and it’s all over,” she whispered, her voice breaking again. “And once again you try to do everything you can, but you feel helpless, useless, as if absolutely nothing and nobody is out there for you. So, whatever. If they judge me for it, they judge me for it.”

Eyes still closed, Rick replied, “Nobody’s judging you for anything. My only concern is whether you’re a danger to us or those around us on this trip.” He sat up and faced her. “Don’t read more into my assessment than you need to. I’m just doing my job.”

She almost laughed at that but realized he was serious. She nodded. “Thanks for that.”

“Nobody has the right to judge you for anything,” Rick explained. “Don’t let them. You’ve been hurt multiple times, but you do have the option of letting that go at any point in time, choosing to live in the present and into the future. You did that when you came to us to help Royal. Don’t waste this second opportunity.” With that, he closed his eyes again and sank back into whatever stupor he’d come from.

She was still staring at him, trying to figure out how that would work, when Royal squeezed her fingers and said, “He’s right, you know?”

“I know he is,” she agreed. “I just didn’t want to deal with it.” Then she gave him a cheeky grin. “However, it is very true that I don’t want to ruin this second chance with you.”

“Good,” Royal declared. “I wasn’t planning on giving you the option anyway.”

Startled, she asked him, “Really?”

“I told you that we needed to spend some time together, and I meant it.” He raised his hand, as if taking an oath. “Believe me that I mean it. I’ll also talk to Terk about working with him after this.”

At that, Rick opened his eyes. “He’ll probably be quite happy to take you on, and we do need more men on the team,” he noted, “though you’re a long way away from healed up and ready to work.”

“Got it.” Royal nodded. “I’ll heal up, and probably pretty fast, I would think.”

“With or without help?” Rick asked, a note of humor in his tone. “We’ve become accustomed to that healing assistance, but I’m not sure you have.”

“No, I haven’t, but I’m more than happy to join in on that train. To know that amount of healing is available out there”—he shook his head—“that’s huge.”

Hearing his words, Janna realized just how much they owed Terk and his team, even Rick, who had seemed so incredibly unfriendly to her. Yet she wasn’t sure it was about her as much as the circumstances, which he had explained. She gently rubbed the metal surface of the plane’s hull, not even realizing what she was doing, until both men studied her again. She flushed and dropped her hand.

“By all means,” Rick said, “if you want to connect to it, do it. I’ve just never seen anybody connect to metal.”

“No, and neither have I. I really… never had a chance to exercise my gift,” she shared. “The only time I’ve ever really utilized it was when I was in a car accident.”

“What happened?” Rick asked.

She shrugged. “Let’s just say the accident didn’t happen.”

At that, they both blinked, and Rick sat straight up. “You do realize that you’ll need to provide more of an explanation than that.”

“Do I?” she asked, shaking her head. “Maybe later.”

“Or not,” Rick countered. “If you could potentially stop this plane from crashing, all of us want to know about that.”

She winced. “How the hell would I do that?” she asked in horror. “Even if I did, it would mean that I’d had prior practice in order to know how to do that, and I’ve never had a plane incident.”

“Yet you had a car incident…”

She shrugged. “But no accident occurred. When I told it to move out of the way of oncoming vehicles that were getting in a big pile up, somehow I ended up on the other side of a fence.”

They just stared at her.

She shrugged. “The thing is, I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, so I’m not sure what I could do. I just know that, back then, I could do something, and I did it, but I don’t know what or how. Now I’m sitting here, wondering if I should be doing something because my hand keeps wanting to touch this damn bird we’re flying in,” she shared, “and I don’t know what the problem is.”

“If there’s a problem, let us know ahead of time, please,” Rick repeated. “I’m really not up for a crash landing.”

She stared at him and winced. “Yeah, neither am I.”

“Good.” Rick nodded. “In that case I’m going back to sleep.”

“How can you possibly sleep?” she asked, staring at him. “You open your eyes every five minutes.”

“You’ve heard that phrase about sleeping with one eye open? Well, it’s the same idea,” he stated, with a smirk. “Don’t let it bother you. I’ll take whatever time I get, especially when you’re keeping an eye on everything else going on.”

“ Sure ,” she muttered. “You say that, but…” She let her words drift off with a shrug.

Rick studied her for a moment and then closed his eyes and headed back into whatever dreamland state he was accustomed to going into.

She looked over at Royal to see him fading off as well. Dumbfounded, she shook her head. “Wow, is it just me?”

“Nope, not just you,” Calum called out from the cabin, as he slowly walked toward her.

She frowned. “Shouldn’t you be flying the plane?”

“Nope, not me. Riff has it all handled for now, and I just wanted to check in and see how you guys were getting on.”

“Rick’s sleeping with his eyes open, so I don’t know how that works,” she muttered. “The other two have been drifting in and out.”

“I’m here,” Royal said, his eyes closed. “Just trying to get as much rest as possible.”

Rick joined in and said, “Calum, since you’re with us now, you need to have a serious talk with her about metal energy. She keeps touching the bird.”

She glared at Rick. “See? He never really sleeps at all. And, Jesus, Rick, did you have to make it sound so weird and wrong?”

He opened his eyes and replied with a distinct note of amusement in his tone, “I wasn’t even going to bring that aspect of it up, but, hey, if you want to go in that direction, we certainly could.”

She snorted and looked over at Calum. “Your friend here has a problem, well, a number of problems, which I’m sure you already know about, since it’s painfully evident to me, and I barely even know him.”

Calum smiled gently. “A lot of people would suggest that everybody has a number of problems, and I would agree that all of us do—including you, I might add.”

She sighed. “Yes. Finally someone had the courage to just say it out loud. It’s about time. Thank you.”

Chuckling, Calum looked around at the others, then shook his head. “Okay, so back to the point brought up by my helpful but not always tactful colleague. So, why do you keep touching the metal?”

“I don’t even know,” she cried out. “I told you before I seem to have an affinity for metals.”

“Right.”

“I can’t really explain it and have nothing to back this up, but honestly, I am a little worried,” she shared, feeling embarrassed and frustrated, knowing her thoughts wouldn’t likely go over well.

“She thinks the plane will crash,” Rick chimed in, eyes closed, clearly enjoying the moment.

At that, Calum looked at her wide-eyed, and she shrugged. “Damn it, Rick. Why do you have to be such a jerk when it comes to me? Why don’t you go to sleep for a few minutes, so the adults in the room can have a conversation?” Turning her attention back to Calum, she took a deep breath. “It’s not that I think it’ll crash,” she explained, “but I keep touching it and trying to…” She groaned. “Now here is where you’ll really think I’m nuts.”

“Try me.”

“It’s just…” She sighed. “When I put my hand on the hull, I’m just telling it that everything’s okay, that it can just keep functioning as it is, and that nothing bad will happen to it.”

“You’re giving the plane life?” Calum asked.

She opened her eyes wider. “It’s energy, I guess,” she replied in confusion. “All energy is life, right?” At that, she couldn’t help but return the stares coming her way from both Rick and Calum, as they studied her. “Am I wrong?” she asked. “I mean, it just seemed like that was the truth.”

“The truth is, in many cases, a different perception for other people,” Calum replied. “If that’s the truth for you, then we’re happy to go with it.”

She snorted. “Now it sounds as if you’re just placating me.”

He grinned. “No, I’m not, but, while we’re in the air, and there could be a problem with this bird, you just keep touching it and telling it that all is good,” Calum instructed, a grin on his face and a smile in his tone. “Not a one of us will argue or will put up a fight if we land safely. Then again, if we don’t”—he turned to face her—“a few people might be asking if there was more you could have done.”

She glared at him. “That’s not fair either.”

“Nothing’s fair in life, not at all,” Calum stated, with that cheerfulness again. “But, if you can do something to help us land safely, please do.” And, with that, he headed up to the cabin again to check in with Riff.

She looked over, but Rick had his eyes closed, and so did Royal. Looking around, she realized that they were right. Of all the things that any of them could be doing right now, getting some rest was probably the best choice. Besides keeping an eye on the plane—however that worked—sleep was definitely the best thing for her. With that decided, she was more than happy to crash herself.

*

Royal woke yet again in the plane, shifting in his seat as he worked to get the kinks out of his back. He was tired and sore, and the trip was taking way longer than his body could handle. If he could lie down, it would help a lot. Food, coffee, anything at all would help a lot too, but everybody else was in a light slumber. Royal got up and used the bathroom, then slowly made his way back to his seat.

As he sat down, Calum poked his head around from the cabin of the airplane. “Are you doing okay?”

Royal nodded. “Yeah, I’ll make it. Any idea how much longer we’ll be in the air?”

“We’ll be touching down here pretty quick, but only to fuel up. Then we’ll be up in the air again and on our way home.”

Royal nodded. “Thank you,… for all you guys have done.”

Calum nodded and didn’t say anything beyond that.

For Royal, this had been a strange introduction to Terk and his team, but, hey, Royal and Bruce were both alive, and that was way the hell more than Royal had expected.

When the light came on to put on their seatbelts, he heard Riff’s voice come over the intercom.

“Heads up, guys. We’ll be starting our descent soon and should be on the ground in about twenty minutes,” he announced. “So, everybody buckle in, and hopefully this will be a smooth glide down.”

As soon as they got closer to the runway, Royal gently nudged Janna. She opened her eyes and blinked at him owlishly. He smiled, completely overwhelmed with love as he looked at this woman he had walked away from and had regretted it ever since. “Hey, just a warning that we’ll be landing.”

Quickly she scrambled to orient herself, shifting to look out the window and smiling in delight. “Now that,” she said, looking pleased, “is a really nice thing to hear. I was afraid this trip would be very long.”

“It was,” Royal declared, with a laugh, “but you slept pretty well.”

“Did I?” She checked around and shrugged. “I don’t even know what time it is.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Rick replied, from across the aisle. “And great news. So far, the plane has held.”

She flushed at his teasing comment but instinctively touched the hull, then smiled.

“How is it?” Rick asked.

“How’s what?” she challenged.

“The plane, is it happy?” Rick asked.

She shrugged. “It’s not unhappy, at least at the moment.”

“Good to know,” Rick replied. “We won’t be down for long, but you’ll at least get to walk around a bit to loosen up your legs, and then we’re taking off again.”

“The sooner, the better, as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “Will the government have paperwork ready for us when we hit England?”

“That’s the hope, though it doesn’t mean things will go quite so smoothly as that,” Rick noted. “However, once we’ve landed, they’ll have a hard time kicking us back out again.”

“Most of us shouldn’t be too hard to sort out,” Janna said, “but I don’t know about Bruce.”

“Bruce is in rough shape. If nothing else, he should be granted emergency asylum from persecution,” Rick stated.

Janna snorted. “Yet you and I both know it’s not nearly as simple as that, not when dealing with governments.”

“No, it sure isn’t,” Rick agreed, “but we have people working on it.”

“Is Terk helping?” Janna asked.

“Of course. I get that you probably don’t really understand the scope of what we do,” Rick suggested, “but we always come from the heart and try our best to do what is right. That is precisely why we have our own company now, so we aren’t forced to deal with governments and their versions of navigating between right and wrong.”

She smiled at that. “I’m not sure governments have the ability or even the desire to do that credibly,” she stated. “The nature of the beast is something very different from that, and their goals and objectives are too often influenced by power and politics.”

“I can’t disagree with that assessment, but we’re working hard to change the perception of the industry,” Rick shared. “You could always come aboard and help us, you know?”

“What would I do?” she asked. “I don’t have anywhere near the skills you guys do. I’m not even in the same league.”

“I’m not so sure.” Rick laughed. “I’ve never seen anybody reassure a plane before, certainly not to check that it was happy.”

She frowned, unsure whether he was joking or not, and then shrugged because it didn’t matter. She had told him how she had worked with vehicles and had certainly found cars for them when they needed them. So this plane was just another aspect. A few minutes later, when the plane touched down, she got up and stretched, then walked out onto the tarmac as everybody exited, leaving Bruce on board while they quickly fueled up.

There was some paperwork to be dealt with, which Calum and Rick took off to take care of, even as Riff walked around the tarmac, talking on the phone, frowning the whole time. When he came over to her, she couldn’t help but ask, “Problems?”

He shrugged. “I hope not. You tell me.” He looked at her quizzically for a moment. “Interesting energy.”

She stared at him. “What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. I’ve never seen anything like yours before.”

“Are you talking about my energy or my face?”

“Nope, seen the face before,” he stated. “I was shown a picture so I could find you. It’s not nearly as bad as you’re afraid it is.” Riff’s phone rang again, and he answered it, stepping away for some privacy.

“So you say,” she muttered, wondering if it was true and worrying that she might need other people to make that assessment for her. With a groan, she was likely on the verge of losing it on several fronts. So, she walked closer to where Royal was standing and stretching. She came up behind him. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” he said, turning to her and opening his arms. She stepped in, and he just held her close.

“I don’t know why,” she murmured, “but it feels like a homecoming every time you do that.”

“That’s because we belong together,” he declared. “It just took some foolishness to make us realize it. I’m so glad that it did.”

“I realized it before,” she muttered, “but I was too damn stupid to do anything about it.”

He tapped her lips. “Enough of that.”

She nodded. “You’re right. It absolutely is enough, and I promise I’m working on it.”

He stared at her silently.

She shrugged. “Everybody keeps telling me that my face doesn’t matter, so I think it’s time to let some things go. Like when I told you that Sam’s presence made a huge difference?… It really did, but I don’t think I updated my history in the way that I should have.”

“Hey, that’s something all of us need to do. Don’t take it personally. After all, we are all humans and bound to make mistakes from time to time.”

She smiled. “I want to ensure I don’t repeat those same mistakes.”

“I’m all for that,” he agreed, with a smile. He pointed at Calum and Rick, walking toward them. “Now we’ll head back up in the plane and hopefully get to England just fine.”

When two black vehicles entered the airport at a high speed, she looked over and groaned. “Now we’ve got trouble.”

Royal called over to Riff. Frowning, he got off the phone and walked closer.

“Anybody know who they are?” Riff asked everyone, as they joined together.

“Nope, I don’t,” she said, as she edged toward the plane. “However, we need to leave.”

“We never got Bruce off, so you head on up and get in,” Riff suggested. “We’ll handle this.”

“Yeah, just as long as handling this means you guys getting us all the hell out of there. Like now.”

Riff eyed her. “You feel trouble?”

“Yeah,” she said, “but I’m not exactly impartial.”

“Get back on board,” Riff ordered, as he waited for the vehicles to get closer.

Janna and Royal both got in, leaving Rick, Calum, and Riff on the tarmac. She watched as several arguments ensued outside, and she was afraid it had to do with paperwork, which would be more of a problem than anybody realized. When a series of phone calls were made, she looked at Royal. “It’s not looking good.”

Royal nodded. “I have a few skills that might help, but I’m pretty weak.”

“I don’t know what you can do in a case like this,” she said, looking at him. “Yet, if you have any tricks up your sleeve, it would probably be a good time to try them.”

He looked at her and asked, “You got energy to spare?”

“For you, always,” she said and held out her hand.

He took it and walked them to the open door of the plane. Nobody out there on the tarmac seemed to even notice that Royal and Janna were here. When he squeezed her hand, she watched energy zing out toward the two new arrivals. Surprised, she watched as their demeanor completely changed. All of a sudden, calls ended, and phones were put away, then laughter came. Waving their hands, the men suddenly got back into their vehicles and started to back up.

Royal whispered, “I can’t hang on to this much longer. Can you get the others back inside the plane?”

She called to the men urgently, and they boarded the plane. “Guys, we need to get out of here fast. Royal did something to change their minds or to change something anyway,” she explained, “but he’s all in and about to collapse.”

Just as she said that, Royal dropped, caught by Calum on the way down, breaking Royal’s link with Janna. Riff and Rick bolted to the cabin of the plane, started the engine, and they took off.