A splash of liquid drops on my hand.
Drip.
Another splash.
It’s the middle of the night, and everyone is quiet.
I glance upward, squinting in the dim light of the airplane. Another drop of water falls from the overhead compartment and lands on the woman in front of me. She’s asleep but fidgets.
It’s amazing how so many little drops can add up to a giant puddle in my crotch. I look like I peed my pants. I would move or stand up, but I can’t. Lacee’s asleep. Her head rests against my shoulder with her arm looped through mine, and it’s kind of nice.
She looks beautiful—soft, simple—like the type of woman you’d want to curl up next to on a couch and watchIt’s a Wonderful Lifewith. I’ve never even seen that movie or curled up on a couch next to a woman. My life is complicated. I don’tdonormal things. I scale the sides of buildings, jump out of airplanes, and take on fake identities. I kill people who threaten the security of our country. I’ve always tried to convince myself that my dangerous lifestyle was really living. That it didn’t matter if I missed out on the small stuff in life. I was the lucky one that got to do thebigstuff.
Maybe that’s the reason why Lacee intrigues me. She does small stuff that makes me feel normal, even if it’s just for a moment.
But it doesn’t matter how nice and normal Lacee feels. I have a job to do, and it just got a thousand times more complicated. I never would’ve thought that in the forty-five minutes from when I left Lacee at the bottom of the mall escalator to when I arrived at her apartment to canvass the place, that she would’ve mailed the computer chip across the country. It’s on its way to Leavenworth via the United States Postal Service. It’s in a safe place where no one else knows where to look for it, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling anxious about not having it in my possession.
Another drop of liquid falls from the overhead compartment and lands on the woman in front of me. This time the moisture wakes her. She mutters something as she looks up. Her anger increases when she realizes how drenched she is.
She turns to the person next to her, but he’s asleep. She twists around in her seat, making eye contact with me. “Where is the water coming from? Are you wet?”
“It’s coming from the overhead compartment.” I point up.
“My clothes and my seat…they’re all wet!” The woman pushes her call button in a huff, standing. She turns her reading light on just as the flight attendant appears.
“Can I help you?” he whispers.
“It’s wet! Everything is wet!” She’s practically shouting. People around us stir awake.
Not Lacee.
Apparently, she’s a heavy sleeper—good to know. That or the music in her AirPods is turned way up.
Suddenly the entire compartment above us is being unloaded. Bags of luggage are scattered down the aisle, and another flight attendant joins in on the fun, holding a flashlight up.
Passengers start complaining that their bags are wet.
“My computer!” one man groans.
Another woman holds up a soaking coat.
The cabin lights flicker on, and everyone around us murmurs. Lacee pulls down her eye mask and takes out her speakers.
Her bleary eyes gaze up at me. “What’s going on?”
The lady in front of us overhears our conversation and interjects. “There’s a leak in the plane.”
“A leak?” Lacee’s head kicks back. “Are we going down?”
How is that her first thought? When has a leak ever equaled death?
“It’s a water bottle.” The first flight attendant holds up the culprit for everyone to see.
Lacee’s expression melts to flushed embarrassment.
It’sherwater bottle, the one that’s so big it could keep Goliath hydrated for a year.
“It’s not mine!” the woman in front of us chirps.
