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“That’s easier said than done.”
“Take the fucking pill.”
He handed me a bottle of water and I swallowed the small blue capsule. “Just one?” I asked. “Last time I took three.”
“That explains a lot. Are you ready to board?”
His manner was polite, but no-nonsense. He was going to make me get on the plane. My heart thudded faster as we walked down the jet way. None of the people around us knew we’d almost died in a plane crash earlier this week.
Well, we hadn’t almost died. Devin had handled things, and that’s probably the only reason I was able to put one foot in front of the other in the midst of my terror—because he was holding my hand.
When we reached the end of the jet way, he led me onto the plane. No introductions to the captain or co-pilot this time, no smiling flight attendants who were aware I was afraid. This wasn’t my special charter flight from Europe, but a hop across the ocean for wealthy New Yorkers who vacationed in the Azores.
We sat in coach, over the wings, in the row with the emergency door. Devin told me that was the safest place to be on a plane, but that was probably made-up. I was too tired to argue. The sedative was having an effect.
“Wow,” I said, settling into my middle seat. “I feel weird. Spacy.”
Devin sat by the window. “You haven’t slept in a while, and you just took a sedative. Don’t fight it, Ella. Close your eyes.”
I did, but then some hiss started up in the cabin, and they popped open again.
“Pressurization,” he said. “Totally normal.”
His eyes looked red, because we both lacked sleep, but his expression was also unusually strained. “Are you afraid too?” I blurted out, too tired to be delicate about it.
“I’m a pilot,” he replied, like I was ridiculous. “Flying doesn’t scare me. I’m more worried about you.”
“Don’t worry about me. And don’t like me,” I said, because he was looking at me like he liked me. I had to force the words out, because the sedative made it hard to talk.
“You’re being a little loud, Ella.”
“I don’t care. I might die in this plane crash anyway.”
He looked around when some heads turned. “Can you lower your voice, please? Close your eyes.”
“Don’t want to close my eyes.” I remembered this feeling from the last time I took the sedatives. Anger, annoyance, the need to tell someone off.
“Talk to me about your research,” he said, his voice calming and quiet. “Teach me everything you know. That way if I survive this flight and you don’t, I can carry on your work.”
I shifted closer to him. “There’s a lot to tell.”
“Then you’d better get started.”
“The basis of my work is…” I took a deep breath. “I study space and time. Time moves both ways. Isn’t that interesting? Time is relative and flexible. Or, it’s more accurate to say, the line between past and future is an illusion. When we talk about how large the universe is, we’re naming numbers because of our human needs for constructs, but right now, on the edges of another galaxy, it’s a thousand years agoright now.”
“Or a thousand years in the future?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I scratched my temple, finding it difficult to talk about my work when I really wanted to pass out from fear and exhaustion. “If time moves both ways, some people believe we can go back in time. That if we can solve the mysteries of the universe…” I rubbed my lips. “My dad wants to go back in time, to tell my mom…” I held up a finger. “Tell her not to drink… Not to drink…or not to drive home… You know, I never drink. Ineverdrink.”
“Shh.” He cut me off with sibilant noise, but I’d already forgotten what I was saying. “Would you like some water?” he asked.
I looked over to discover a smiling flight attendant offering some bottled water. I pointed to the air again, and managed to take it. Devin had to open it for me.
“Why don’t you tell me more about that club?” I said as he screwed off the cap. “You know…the one…”
“This might not be the place to talk about it.” He grimaced. “Especially when you’re speaking so loudly.”
Fine. I’d think about it instead. I’d been thinking about it a lot, ever since he revealed its name.The Gallery.It sounded so sexy, so cosmopolitan. Devin told me it was in a converted clock tower, on top of one of the highest residential buildings in Manhattan. He’d described the dark, multi-level dungeon until the imagery was fixed in my mind. There were rules at The Gallery, rules I couldn’t remember right now, except for one that excited me: subs in The Gallery didn’t get safe words.
