He narrows his eyes. “One.”
I loop my arms around his neck and rise on my tiptoes to kiss him. I can’t stop myself from slipping him some tongue, and he groans against my mouth.
“Good night, Wren,” he says in a stern tone.
“Good night, Grayson,” I grumble.
Chapter 43
It feels strange to be flying a mission in the daylight. Every time I’ve flown with Gray, it’s been late at night shrouded by darkness. Today, it’s morning, and we’re in the hybrid—Gray and Evlynne in the cockpit, and me in the jump seat, nervously tapping my foot against the floor even though Gray assured me that nobody is going to shoot us out of the sky. Supposedly, we’re invisible, but I feel way too exposed with the sunlight pouring through the window. Still, I’m certainly not going to complain about being chosen for this mission. This is what I begged for.
“How do you know it’s working?” I ask him. “The radar jammer?”
“Because my radar is down, too,” he says without turning around.
Great. Even in the daylight, we’re still flying blind.
Evlynne checks their instruments, calling out numbers that I think are airspeed and altitude. They’re using some kind of manual mode that isn’t affected by the jammer, so only our radar is affected.
“We’ll switch it back on when we near the drop zone,” he adds. “The jammer keeps us safe from the island’s detection system, but we need that radar for our nav to load. We can’t land in the wrong spot, or we’ll be facing down a Tierran army.”
I start tapping my fingers now. A fast drumbeat against my knee.“But if you turn the radar back on, won’t that mean they’ll be able to see us?”
“Not immediately,” Evlynne says, sounding bored. She’s never excited to speak to me, although she has been a tad less antagonistic since I saw her and Fisher in the valley. “It’ll take about five minutes for their radar system to reboot. So as long as we get on the ground during that five-minute window and then kill the plane’s transponder, they shouldn’t be able to detect us.”
I shift in my seat, my shoe knocking into the rifle case at my feet. Evlynne will be my spotter, which I don’t love, but Adrienne is today’s mission lead and she’s the one who picked the assignments.
“All right, drop zone should be over the next ridge,” Gray says, scanning the horizon line.
We’re in Dey Province, at the northern tip of the continent. My research last night revealed that this stretch of land is mostly jungle and hilly terrain. At this time of year, the climate is mostly dry, but apparently it’s been dry out of season, too. They only recently started getting rain again after a long bout of drought.
He turns to eye me. “You okay?”
“Always.”
His lips curve in a half smile, and he scratches the side of his jaw, directing my attention to the beard growth there.
“Are you growing facial hair?” I demand.
“Why, does it look sexy?”
“Very rugged,” I tell him. He does wear it well, with that defined jawline. I’m into the flight suit, too. Dark gray, accentuating his tall, muscular frame.
“How about wedon’tdo that?” Evlynne asks politely.
“Do what?” Gray asks as I admire how his strong fingers manipulate the controls. He’s in his element, exuding confidence.
“Flirt in front of me,” she mutters.
“That was like the most harmless amount of flirting. Don’t be a prude, Ev.” He adjusts the throttle. “All right. Turn it off.”
There’s a click, and then she says, “Jammer is…off. Five-minute countdown starts now.”
I fucking hate countdowns.
Gray begins our descent. It’s slow and controlled, the engines barely making a sound as the hybrid moves lower and lower toward a canopy of various shades of green. I tighten the straps of my pack.
“Two minutes,” Evlynne warns. “Get us down, Gray.”
