“Sorry, dumb question.” God, this guy makes me nervous. “I didn’t realize you were a pilot.”
“Not officially or anything,” he mutters. “None of the mission leads would ever work with me.”
“Oh.” I feel a twinge of sympathy for him.
“But I enjoy it. Sometimes I get special permission from Kallister to take an aircraft out. If it’s not in use or whatever.”
For a moment, I’m silenced by hesitation, until I can no longer fight my curiosity. “I heard a rumor that you incited someone by accident.”
His expression turns to stone, but I’ve already opened this door. Might as well keep going.
“Your girlfriend…Zoe, right?”
He keeps staring.
“She fell off the Ledge?”
That gets me a quick nod.
“And you were arguing when it happened? That happened to me once,” I confess. “With my uncle. I was furious with him for dragging me out of a party with my friends, so I shouted for him to turn the truck around and accidentally incited him. We were nearly crushed to death.” A shaky breath slips out of my throat. “It scares me.”
“What does?” His voice is gruff.
“Having this power that I can’t control. Knowing that my emotions might trigger me to incite someone to do something dangerous. Something that hurts them or, worse, kills them.”
“Then learn to control it.”
“Is that possible? To fully control it?”
Before he can answer, my device beeps. I pull it out to find a message from Gray.
Fancy a flight?
Chapter 20
I find him in the departure hangar standing by the gray helicopter he always fondly refers to as his bird. He’s dressed casually in khakis, a white T-shirt, and brown boots. The look suits him.
His green eyes brighten as I stride toward him. “Hey. I have a couple hours free, so I’m taking the bird up. Thought you might like to join me.”
“Going anywhere in particular?”
He shrugs. “Just the sky.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I was going to take Xavier to the range and introduce him to Zak.”
“The range’ll be there when you get back. The sunshine won’t.”
“Good point.” Although I feel bad abandoning Xavier again, the offer is too tempting to pass up.
A minute later, we’re sitting in the cockpit. He hands me a headset before flicking on some flight controls, and the rotors start hissing in the cavernous space. Even though I’ve seen it once before, it still jars me when the mountain seems to open up for us. Looking completely at ease in the pilot’s seat, Gray flies us out of the hangar, his long fingers on the yoke, handsome profile set in a line of concentration.
Everything sounds so much louder from the cockpit. The whir ofthe rotors, the wind whining past us, the vibration of the engine humming through my body. We’re wearing headsets so we can talk to each other, which only serves as a reminder that he can’t communicate telepathically. It’s rare for a Mod to lack such a basic ability. Most Mods can do telepathy and nothing else, like Cross.
I peer out the windshield at the valley below us, a patchwork of grass, trees, and roofs of various structures that are too small to make out from the air.
“You okay?” His voice fills my ear over the purring of the rotor blades.
“I’m good.”
