“I can present them,” Luther says, stepping for the door. But the official deftly cuts in his path.
“Competitors only, I’m afraid,” he says. “To maintain integrity of the results.”
Luther’s jaw tightens. The official doesn’t so much as blink.
“The forms?” he asks.
Luther hands them over. The man smiles.
“I will process these. Just a moment.”
I stand, silent and a bit awkward, next to Luther as we wait. Through the glass, I watch Kingston on the exam table, sweater and shirtsleeve rolled up and arm extended as a masked male nurse in pale blue scrubs slides a needle in the crook of his arm.
Shuddering, I look away.
Ihateblood.
When I open my eyes again, Kingston’s speaking with the nurse, frowning. He shakes his head. The nurse seems to repeat whatever he’d just said. Kingston shakes his head again, slowly. The nurse notes something on a clipboard.
Luther is following my gaze, I realize. He sidles to the door as Kingston comes out.
“Everything all right?” he says. “Was there some kind of problem?”
Kingston’s nostrils flare, but he nods, rolling down his sleeve. “Fine.”
A few more minutes and documents are returned, gear bags are located, and we are shuttled away over the tarmac as the sun sinks into violet.
The last plane is smallest and loudest.
Little hatch-steps up. Just six seats. Chartered, private, but no one’s basking in it—either they’re all used to it or they’re all focused on something else. Outside the windows is nothing.
And then we’re descending. The air heaves us, rolls the cabin left and then lets it fall right, as my stomach drops away inside me. I clutch the thick arm of my seat and feel the warmth of someone’s hand on mine—Callahan’s.
“I don’t like flying,” he murmurs. Eyes closed.
I ease my thumb over the edge of his hand, stroke it there.
“You should have said something,” I whisper back.
“I am. This is me saying something.”
His hand stays tense. The plane heaves again. I lean into him, see his jaw tight and his eyelids twitching.
“Sive vivimus, sive morimur, Domini sumus,” I whisper. “You know what one?”
“Sive vivimus, sive morimur, Domini sumus,” he repeats. Eyes still closed.
“Whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
“Right.” I put my other hand on top of his. “Sometimes…sometimes that makes me feel better. To think.”
He opens his eyes then, looks at me. Really looks at me.
"Gwenna," he says quietly. "When we land..."
"I know." My throat tightens.
Across from us, Kingston shifts in his seat. His reading light clicks on, illuminating his face—stern, focused. He's been listening.
