BOBBING ON WHIPLASH desert winds, Dr. Adalyn Quinn’s helicopter dropped and paused, dropped and paused, descending in the aeronautical equivalent of two steps forward, one step back, each jostle adding another crack to her already brittle nerves.
Digging her nails into her seat base, she pitched forward, stiff and straining against the seat belts across her hips and torso. The overly snug belts, while uncomfortable, felt illogically safer than wobbling about like week-old gelatin, as she had been.
Her older brother tried but had never quite understood the cold, black pit of fear that sank in her middle when she even thought of travel, so there was no way for him to comprehend the abyss that had been trying to swallow her sanity during the long hours of this godforsaken journey. The one he’d tossed her into.
He’d thought himself helpful when he’d said, “Take those antianxiety medicines you never take, to help your trip.”
Because remaining calm while dying a fiery death? So much better than feeling acute terror without pharmacological filters. Sure, she could concede that point. But having her wits artificially addled when she’d probably need them to escape burning, twisted wreckage—supposing she lived that long? Less brilliant.
The idea that one of the vehicles wouldn’t crash was the thought that sounded like fantasy. Naturally, her airborne catastrophe would happen on this last leg of her trip, worlds away from lace balconies and her safe, quiet life.
Her stomach curdled as they fell another few feet. She just had to hold on a little while longer.
The pilot’s voice crackled in her headphones, alerting her to their landing at the former airport site for the Kingdom of Merirach. As if she couldn’t feel it. As if every shift of the wind didn’t brutalize her mind with images of crashes and broken, twisted bodies. After nearly twenty-four hours of this self-inflicted mental torture it would be easy to think she’d become numbed to it, but that primal fear still had the ability to tighten her body until her shoulders stretched stiffly, like old boot leather. She wouldn’t have been surprised if at any second her skin cracked and her collarbone snapped in half.
Broken.
Twisted.
Body.
They touched down with a jolt, bounced twice and settled. She immediately began fumbling with the latches on her belts, trying to get free. To get out of the flying death trap. To get to him.
Adalyn had a rule about putting her life or well-being into someone else’s hands. A simple rule really … don’t do it! But right now it comforted her to think that the distance between her and safety could be measured in feet. He’d be waiting for her.
Jamison’s best friend.
The one she’d never met because she didn’t travel, but to whom Jamison had sent her.
He’d be there, and he’d take her to a nearby hotel where she could eat the protein bars she’d brought for sustenance, drink water purified by her special tablets and sit in the dark with the earplugs she’d brought to create the illusion of solitude.
She could rest. Sleep. Sleep was what she needed. Sleep and alone time somewhere without wheels attached. If she had all that, it might lower her blood pressure enough that she couldn’t see her clothing move from the force of each beat of her heart …
“Door,” she said, dragging the headphones off and hanging them from the armrest on her seat. And then again, “Door.”
Why were they moving so slowly?
She needed out.
Tomorrow she would officially see her patient, work on diagnosing and outlining a treatment plan, then go the heck home.
End of adventure.
The only thing she had going for her now was the darkened interior of the helicopter. No one could see her expression. She didn’t have to work so hard to keep it all hidden as she had on the other planes and vehicles. The last thing she wanted was to put her issues on display and have someone label her hysterical—one of the most offensive words she’d ever learned and had heard daily in the months after the crash.
Outside the chopper, in the not-too-far distance, a ring of headlights provided the only light source, aside from the blinking things on the helicopter controls. Even she—the Queen of Never Ever Traveling—knew what an airport looked like at night. Runways. Dual bands of lights. A big building with lots of people inside. Lots of light.
Here there was only darkness and the cars. One more dangerous vehicle for her to climb into before she reached her assignment.
It really wasn’t any wonder that someone living in a country so recently torn apart by civil war would have sleep difficulties, but she was here anyway.
Seconds later, the door slid open and a blast of cold air surprised her lungs, sending her into a coughing fit. But with the help of her black-suited entourage, she still scrambled from the helicopter. Once her feet hit solid ground she hunched forward and ran toward the cars, clueless as to whether or not the men followed.
Only when she reached the cars, far outside the reach of the rotating blades of death, did she straighten and look back. Two of her escorts—men in suits who’d met her at the airport of the neighboring kingdom—had made the run with her and the rest now gathered her embarrassing amount of luggage and followed.
Should she tip them? Was that expected? Insulting? Her travel book had said nothing about how to treat the servants of a royal house.
The man who had been her translator reached her side and herded her toward one of several identical sport utility vehicles with darkened windows. Though he was careful not to touch her, he wrenched open the back door of the vehicle and gestured to her with such force that she climbed in.
Unlike when he’d retrieved her, the man didn’t even attempt English this time. With so little sleep and such a terrible grasp of the language, Adalyn couldn’t even tell where the words started and stopped in whatever he’d said. He could’ve even said one of the couple of hundred words she’d managed to learn, and she wouldn’t have known it.
How much farther would they have to go?
Once she stopped moving, her body caught up with her lungs—recognizing the cold finally—and she folded her arms across her chest and rubbed them to try to increase their warmth.
“You should’ve worn a jacket.”
The low male voice broke through the sound of her pounding heart and shivering breaths, the first indication she wasn’t alone in the car. She turned and as her eyes adjusted to the low lighting after the blinding headlights she could make out a traditionally robed figure not two feet away in the seat beside her.
“I thought I was coming to a hot place. I was told that it was chilly at night, but I thought that just meant I needed long sleeves, not a parka.”
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