by Shaye Marlow
Only when I was naked did George emerge from the shadows, quiet for a big man, his black eye glittering. He circled the table, looking down at me, making me sweat.
Suddenly, I wished I was glib like Rory, so I could maybe talk my way out of this.
George’s smile was large—almost as big as the knife he pulled from his belt. “Know what this is for?”
The length of steel shone cruelly in the overhead light. The blade wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small. It had a single distinguishing feature: a sharp hook built into the spine. It was a hunting knife, designed specifically for skinning and gutting. That little hook? Meant for opening up an abdominal cavity without nicking the intestines. But was I gonna say all that? Fuck, no.
George chuckled. “I see that you do.” He lowered the blade, scraping it lightly down my side. “I’ve always wondered,” he said, “what a cured human skin would be like. Would it be tough enough to make a belt? Or soft and supple, perfect for a pair of ladies’ gloves?”
Apparently, Frances’s dad was not quite right in the head.
He turned the knife, hovering the tip of that hook right above my pubic bone. Holding my gaze, still smiling that awful smile, he pressed it against my skin.
The door crashed open. “Stop! For God’s sake, stop it!” It was Frances, emerging from the shadows much as her father had. Unlike her father, her face was etched with emotion.
George scoffed. “You always were a soft touch.”
“You are a sick man,” she said. “Stop it. Let him go.” She looked at me. “I changed my mind. I’ll teach you.”
George returned his attention to his knife.
The sound of a gun cocking was very loud in the little room. “Let. Him. Go.”
My chosen flight instructor was magnificent. She was saving my ass, might even like me, and she’d said ‘yes’! I felt giddy.
“You were fine with this just a little while ago,” George said. “You dropped him into the river.”
“That’s one thing,” she said, the gun never wavering. “Disembowelment is another.”
“You won’t pull that trigger,” George said.
I winced as he applied pressure with the knife.
The gunshot made my ears ring. George jerked back, his eyes wide as he looked down at his arm. His knife clattered to the floor. “You shot me.”
“Unstrap him,” she said, directing the order at the men hovering at the edges of the room.
They didn’t know what to do, I could see it in their faces. But she had a gun, and when she swung it on them, they hustled to obey. I sat up, rubbing circulation back into my hands.
“Grab her,” George said.
Frances produced another gun. The men didn’t move.
“Give him your clothes,” Frances said to one of them. “Now!”
With Frances roaring at me in that tone, I would have done anything she asked. The guy she was addressing did.
He threw me his shirt. “Frances,” he said. “Honey…”
I assumed this had to be Joss or Ted or Henry. Suddenly, I wanted to hurt him.
“Shut up, Ted. Pants, too.”
I shrugged into the shirt. After his pants hit me in the chest, I pulled them up my legs.
“You’re just like your mother,” George said.
“Shut up,” Frances said. “Shoes.”
Somebody produced my boots, and I jammed my feet into them.
Frances beckoned to me with one of her guns. She pushed me behind her, then was backing out of the room. “Go,” Frances said. “Go, go.” She chased me up the stairs, and we hustled out into the night.
The dogs came rushing at me, snarling.
Frances stepped in front of them. “No,” she said. The word was filled with command and heavy with threat.
They faltered. Their bodies shifted back, ears swiveled.
She pointed. “Go.”
They went.
Damn. Impressed, I hurried into the woods with a dual-wielding Frances following after.
“Where’s that Jeep?” she asked.
“Ahead.”
“You need to get out of here. Now.”
“I need to get outta here?” I asked, swinging around. “What about you?”
“I need to get my shit. Clothes and things. Can’t fly the plane till daylight, anyway.”
“But…” I sputtered. “You just shot your dad!”
“Meh. It was just a flesh wound.”
I reached for her. “I can’t let you—”
Aaaand, there came the guns. “Get in your Jeep,” she said. “Drive on home.”
“But—”
“I’ll see you in the morning.” She’d turned, was walking back toward the house. “Go!” she called over her shoulder. “Before the dogs change their minds.”
Chapter Six
FRANCES
Zack came out of his cabin wearing saggy pants and a Tapout shirt. Squinting into the morning sun, he twisted the bill of his hat sideways, and then swaggered over to where I’d parked my plane.
As I set aside my headset, I considered telling him he looked like a douche. A handsome douche, but still.
“You okay?” he asked as I climbed out.
I turned to find him bent under my wing. His gaze was on me, skimming downward in a way that made awareness prickle in its wake. “Eyes are up here,” I said, admiring his. Why, those baby-blues were pretty enough to steal. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“Your dad…”
“I’m fine.” I turned and wrestled out a heavy, cloth-wrapped bundle. “The rifles my dad confiscated,” I explained, handing them to him.
He murmured his thanks, then took the suitcase I pulled out next. I grabbed a smaller one, carefully lifted the box from my passenger seat, and followed him to the house.
“Your room,” he said, swinging the door open.
Cautiously, I stepped from spiky, spongy astroturf to hard, polished wood. My assessment started on the right, with the charming nightstand. The head- and footboards matched, and the comforter that stretched between them sported a cheerful poppy motif.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I set down my bag, taking it in. The far wall had not one, but two layers of curtains, also floral, with the inner sheer fluttering in the breeze. And, coming around to the left…
“You left the sex swing.” It dangled like the carcass of a giant spider in the corner.
“Still plannin’ on using it,” he said.
I snorted before turning finally to the left-hand wall.
“The furniture was the hardest part,” he said. “I called and asked Suzy to move it for us—she has a barge—but she said no, called me some dirty names, asked me to put Rory on, called him some dirty names, and hung up. So we thought about just hauling the stuff in our boat, but that dresser really didn’t seem like it’d fit, not without breaking it. I wound up begging my sister’s boyfriend—he has a helicopter—and we managed to get it shipped out, along with some groceries.”
I continued to stare at the wall.
“You like the tulips?” he asked, hovering anxiously in the doorway.
I shook my head. “Like them?” I stepped closer, and the swirling oranges and reds and greens seemed to surround me. “I love them.”
He broke into a huge grin, graduating from handsome to knockout in the space of a heartbeat. I became suddenly very aware of the bed behind me, and the width of his shoulders blocking the doorway.
“Who…?”
“I painted it,” he said. “Modeled after that picture on your wall.”
Well, hell. He was a thug, and an artist. That painting said he was thoughtful, had patience, good hand-eye coordination, attention to detail… I bit my lip.
The tulips were eight feet tall, the upper half of the wall glorious blooms, the lower half lush, verdant leaves. From the bed, I’d wake up to that view every morning. Amazing.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, avoiding his gaze. Why, you ask? Because at
the moment, those eyes of his would’ve functioned like tractor beams.
Reminded of my own flowers, I set my box on the bed, opened it, and pulled one out. I placed the plant on the windowsill and quickly checked for damage.
“What’d you bring?” Zack asked, peering over my shoulder.
“My African violets,” I answered, sidling around him to retrieve the next. “I grew these from leaves Dotty gave me. They’re a gateway drug, you know.”
“Gateway drug?” He was tall and solid, and radiating warmth as I brushed by him again.
“To flowers, and plants in general. They get you hooked, and then…” I glanced at the wall he’d painted.
But, enough about flowers. I needed to get out of this bedroom before I did something that wasn’t in the contract.
“You drink anything today?” I asked.
“Water. Coffee.”
“Alcohol?”
“Nah.”
“Wanna get started, then? Do you,” I said, when he just stared at me, “want to fly?”
He suddenly looked so excited, I couldn’t help but smile. I had him throw my suitcase up on the bed, then followed him back out to the plane.
“This,” I said, gesturing to my airplane, “is a Cessna 180. It’s a single-engine aircraft with a constant-speed propeller, and a tailwheel, as you can see. Students usually get their tailwheel endorsement after learning to fly, but you can get both at the same time.”
His gaze drifted from my eyes to my mouth. They touched on my hands as I gestured, and then past, to my chest.
I turned around, denying him the view. “First, we’ll learn how to do a pre-flight check. This is something you’ll do before every flight. Starting at the front,” I said, walking around the airplane, “you look at your prop, your landing light…” I was trying to keep my thoughts to myself, I really was, but as he came up next to me wearing that awful getup, I burst out laughing.
I waved a hand at him. “What the hell are you wearing? Please tell me that’s not your usual.”
Zack looked down at himself. “Lucy threw my clothes into the river.”
“All of them?”
“Pretty much. All we have left is what was at the bottom of Rory’s closet. He wears a size larger at the waist, and the bottom of his closet was basically his discard pile. Even he refused to wear this shit.”
“And the hat?” It was black, with those three green claw-marks down the front. It wasn’t the color, or that he was a walking advertisement for Monster energy drinks that I objected to. No, it was the fact that the bill was swiveled off to one side.
“It’s bright out today,” he said. “I have sensitive eyes.”
“Well, you look like a douche. It’s distracting.”
Zack swiped the hat off his head and squinted at me. “Better?”
I nodded, then showed him how to check the oil. “And always, always make sure that lid’s on good and tight afterward.” I stepped to the left. “Next we have landing gear. Make sure your tire looks full, and there’s no obvious leakage from your brakes. And, coming back up, check out the leading edge of your wing. Very important. Inspect it for ice, dents, any sort of damage. It, along with the wing behind, forms an airfoil, which produces lift—”
“Airfoil?”
“Yeah. You remember from ground school: Air hits the wing, and curves over it, creating pockets of turbulence and low pressure on the top side, which…” Was it just me, or was the look on Zack’s face blanker than usual? “You took ground school, didn’t you?”
His eyes shifted, and I knew.
“Oh god,” I groaned. “You haven’t.”
“Is that a problem?”
I thought about my response. All Certified Flight Instructors were qualified to teach ground school, but that didn’t stop it from being a pain in the nutsack. I had really, really been hoping—assumed, actually—that he’d already done the classroom portion.
“I’m paying you twenty thousand dollars,” Zack reminded me.
I smiled brightly. “You’re right. I can teach you.”
He nodded, and spit.
Which wouldn’t have been too terrible-bad, except a bit of it spattered on my tire. Between those shiny spots on my rubber, and the implication that he owned me for a month, I was becoming upset.
“We’ll just need to back up a bit.” Beckoning, I led him to a clear spot on the lawn. “Lift your arms. No, not zombie-style. Out to your sides. Okay, those are your wings. Now, do you feel the heaviness to them, the effort it’s taking to hold them up?”
Zack looked at either arm, and shrugged.
I stood for several seconds, waiting. “What about now? That feeling that your muscles are tired, and you want to drop them.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Flap them. Good. Now, do you agree they—keep flapping, dammit—go down easier than they go up?”
Zack shrugged again.
I growled a little. “Jump. Now, the force that brought you back to the ground: That’s called gra-vi-ty. When you’re in an airplane, gravity’s what we’re defying, and gravity’s what’ll try to kill you.”
“Should I be taking notes?” Zack asked, dead serious.
“No. Just listen. I want you to run, with your arms out.”
He did. Past me, and straight toward the river.
“No. Zack! Come back. Okay, instead, run a big circle around me so you can still hear what I’m saying.”
He executed a nice arc. He was going fast, and I thought about telling him to pace himself, but… nah.
“You feel the wind hitting you?” I asked, turning to track him.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“But you’re not flying, are you? You’re going really fast, and you’re still stuck firmly to the earth.”
Zack managed to shrug while running. Somehow, the action was infuriating.
“Now, I need you to make the sound of an airplane. Brrrrr,” I said, demonstrating.
He tried it out and settled on a deep and rumbly drone.
“Good,” I called. “That engine is your power. It turns your propeller—and each blade of your propeller is its own little airfoil—and it pulls you forward. If that engine goes out…”
Zack went silent and stopped.
“Right, except we still have momentum and gravity on our side, see? So if your engine dies, we can angle downward just enough to maintain speed, and glide to a landing. And that’s why you always want to be scoping out potential landing spots. Keep going,” I said.
The drone of his engine restarted, and he began to circle once more.
I smiled, watching him. It was kinda hard to fuck with him when he was so earnest. And his earnestness was kind of adorable… “The exterior of an airplane is aerodynamic,” I said. “Smooth and shaped like a bullet. Do you know why that is?”
Still running and droning, still not out of breath—his stamina was pretty dang impressive—he shook his head.
“It’s to reduce drag. To move through the air faster, with less effort. D’ya know what that means for you?”
Another head-shake.
“It means you should take off your shirt.”
Zack whipped it off, and stopped droning long enough to say, “Question.”
“Yes, go ahead.” I was turning with him, watching the light fall over his muscles. I’d seen a few sigh-worthy chests in my time, but nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to his. It was wide and rugged, with big, beautiful slabs of muscle under skin that was obviously no stranger to the sun. His blond chest hair glittered mesmerizingly between pecs I wanted to flatten my hands over, and dusted a trail down a rippling abdomen. Front and center rode a big, cackling Ghost Rider, while other words and images wrapped around both arms and cascaded down his back.
“If pilots fly better when they’re aerodynamic,” he said, “why are all the captains I’ve seen wearing shirts?”
“Uhhh. Because there’s a dress code?”
In my periphery, I noticed Rory st
anding at the corner of the cabin, a camera pointed at his brother.
“I need you to flap your arms again,” I said.
“Why?”
“A good pilot is a multitasker. He’s adjusting controls with both hands, controlling the rudder with his feet, and keeping the overly-friendly dog in the back from jumping into his lap, all while scanning the horizon in ten degree increments and keeping up a friendly conversation with his passenger.”
Looking grimly determined, Zack resumed flapping.
“Good. Good. Now skip. Let’s see some fancy footwork on those rudders. It’s a cloud of seagulls! Plunge and dodge!”
It took a few rounds to do it smoothly, but then Zack was buzzing and flapping and skipping and tilting like a pro, all with his shirt off. Rory had approached to get a closer shot.
“Excellent. I can tell you’re gonna be a great pilot. Are those arms feeling heavy yet?”
“Nope.”
“Then flap harder. A pilot needs to be in shape. If his plane goes down, he may need to carry his passengers from the plane, or hike to safety through a gorilla-infested jungle, scaling cliffs and braving stinging ants.”
“Ants?”
“That’s right. We might just have benign ants around here, but flight has opened up travel to other parts of the world, made it quick, convenient, and easy. So, you might be just flying along, maybe you lose track of time, and then bam, lions. Or African tribesman. Or hell, a samurai. You never know what might be waiting for you on the ground.
“So you’re flapping, and you’re moving fast,” I continued, “but you’re not flying. Do you know why?”
“No feathers,” Zack grunted.
“Yes, true, but also: no airfoil.”
I was about to take mercy on him and call it quits, and head somewhere where I could draw him a picture, when he spotted Rory. Zack abandoned his flight path and swooped toward his brother with a hawklike cry. Rory continued filming right up until Zack hit him. Rory squawked as Zack smashed him to the ground, then held his arms over his head, trying to keep the camera away.
I sighed, watching them squabble. “Okay, c’mon, you two, quit it. Zack, let’s get in the air.” When they continued to fight over the camera, I walked away.