Page 22 of Hell In A Handbasket
I lay one hand on her belly and take her wrist with the other so I can feel her pulse. “Are you having contractions?”
“No.”
“Felt the baby move in the last hour?”
She tears her hand free of mine and uses the armrests to push to her feet. “Yes. The baby is literally moving right now. I’m not in labor, and I’m not having contractions. I’m eight months pregnant with a giant freakin baby, and it’s summer.” She waddles toward the vending machine tucked into the dark corner of the smallest airport I’ve ever seen in my life, and pressing the buttons—pressing them again—then again—she glances back with puppy dog eyes. “I want juice, but I forgot I need money.”
“I’ve got it.” Cato walks her way, pulling his wallet from his back pocket and slinging his arm over her shoulders when he’s close enough. Because he can. Because he’s obsessed with loving her.
They’re family, after all.
“Let her have the juice,” I decide. “Let her have whatever the hell she wants while that baby drains her of everything she has. Is she drinking enough water?”
Felix jams his hands into his pockets and settles onto the backs of his heels. Relaxing, perhaps for the first time today. “Yeah. She’s been drinking and peeing a lot. She ate on the plane and slept all night last night. You think she’s okay?”
“If she says she’s okay, I’m inclined to believe her.” I look at Micah. “What do you know about all this bullshit?”
“Christabelle? She said she’s not in pain.”
“No. Sophia!” I gesture around the mostly empty room. “I don’t see her. She said she’d have a driver pick us up once we arrived. But she’s not?—”
Da-do-do-doo-doo! Da-do-do-doo-doo!
A massive bus rolls to a stop outside the terminal in the taxi lane, gleaming black and silver exterior, glittering chrome wheels, tinted black windows, and a space-ship elegance that screamsthis cost a lot of money.
“No way is that our ride.” Fletch grips his phone in one hand and strides to the airport’s front doors. This is nothing like the kind we find in New York or even Copeland. Here, we have to open the doors ourselves, and there’s just one desk for check-ins. No luggage carousel, just a little golf cart zipping around outside, and the other passengers lining up to collect their things. It’s a farce of an airport. It’s a LEGO-style airport, where surely this is all game-play and not real life.
Fletch steps outside just as the bus door slides open—spaceship smooth—and Sophia moves down the three stairs and waves us closer.
“Seriously?” Christabelle wanders back with her juice in hand and perfect hair despite the heat. Perfect brows, too. She’s one of those people who always looks good, even when they have a human-sized pest sucking the life from them. “She said she was getting our ride. I didn’t expect it to be a bus, though.”
“Without it, we’d need five cars and a convoy,” Micah counters. “A bus is smart… if you ignore how fucking conspicuous it makes us.”
“Five cars?” Tim rumbles. Then he looks around our grouping, counting heads. “Sophia makes ten of us. That’s two cars.”
“She brought a whole army. I bet that bus has air-conditioning.” Christabelle takes Cato’s hand and lets him walk her toward the doors. Outside. Then, all the way to the bus.
“What army?” I look from Micah to Felix. To Tim. And then to Archer. “Who did she bring?”
“Fuck’s sake.” Felix takes off like a shot, snatching his suit jacket from the seat Christabellewassitting on, and dashes out the doors. “Darling! You’ve gotta wait for the rest of us.”
“Why do I feel like we’ve landed in a fucking trap?” Archer grabs our bag again, then my arm, and starting toward the doors, he brings us through and slows to stare at Sophia. “Explain yourself, Asa. Because you told us this was just a case, but you toldhim,” he points at Felix, “we’re in danger. Which is it?”
“Why can’t it be both? Life is inherently dangerous, no?”
Tim’s lips peel back into a feral sneer. “Cut the shit, Solomon. What the fuck are you doing?”
She shrugs. “I needed a ride, and I didn’t want to drive all the way here.”
“So you lied to us?” Micah shoves to the front of our grouping, slowing only when the muscled, tatted monster Soph married exits the bus and gently wraps his palm around the front of her neck.
Possession. Protection. He’s not taking charge yet, but he will if he has to.
“All this so you could hitch a ride and transport illegal shit across the country?”
“Not illegal shit. Supplies. But the rest of it?” Her lips curl into a smug grin. “Yeah. That was a lie. I knew Felix would jump if I hinted that his bro-thangs were in danger.”
“But you didn’t fuckinghint!” Felix snaps. “You said, point blank, they needed help. You said they were stepping into a war, and their lives were at stake.”
