High Flyght – Chapter 2

“Six days of watching this place, and I feel like I know where every blade of grass is.” Jinzo hugs his knees to his chest as we sit on the hill in the waning daylight and wait for our opening. “If only the bank had given you permission to enter the land whenever you felt like it. Then at least my butt wouldn’t be sore from sitting on rocks for days.”

I sigh. “The bank only let me come back the one time. They seem to be awfully strict about it, probably because they don’t trust me.”

He smiles at me. “Probably.”

I tuck myself up next to him and rest my head on his shoulder.

It’s been a good week for us. Between late-night sexual encounters and meals together alone or with the rest of the crew, I have grown to enjoy his company. He’s direct, funny, and sweet. He knows when to stand up for something and when to back down. He gets along well with Skylar, Lia, and Carlos. And seeing his interactions with my parents, I’m pleased with my choice.

The only problem?

His ex. Cressida Briar-Stevenson, heir to the wealth of Avenal. I swear to all the gods, if she contacts me again, I will scream and smash something. The woman is desperate to get Jinzo back, even though he has refused her time after time. We’ve both been ignoring her since we returned to Ossun. Ai is now filtering all my calls, but sometimes a message slips through, and then her beautiful face is in front of me telling me what a skank I am for stealing her man.

Get over it, woman!

It’s only a matter of time before she shows up on my ship, and I’m going to have to ask Lia to take care of her. I’m not much of a fist-fighter.

“So…” Jinzo draws out the word into a sigh. “When can we expect Ken?”

His shoulder tenses under my head, so I pull away to look at him.

He rests his chin on his knees. “I just want to be ready. I’ve had you all to myself, so I want to make sure I’m not stepping on toes.”

This is a new echelon of feelings for me. The ache in my chest is faint but persistent. He doesn’t want to step on toes, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, anyone I care about.

“I’m sure we’ll work it out.” I replace my head on his shoulder, and he relaxes. “Just remember that this is all new to me, and I’m bound to screw things up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, tilting his head to mine. “This should be the last thing on your list of worries.”

He starts and sits forward, and my heartbeat rushes.

“It’s time.” He points out at the road about two hundred meters away.

A security car crawls up the property on the road’s shoulder, light beams stretching away into the land beyond the low fence. My land. My land. A team of low-flying drones buzz in and out of the perimeter fence, taking video and looking for any strange activity. With the sun set, their lights can’t be missed.

“They’re thorough,” Jinzo whispers. “Every time I’ve been here, they’ve randomized the search pattern. But they won’t return for about an hour.” He stands up and offers a hand to help me up. I slip my cold fingers into his, and he pulls me close to lay his lips on my neck under my ear.

We both hum with the connection, as brief as it is. I didn’t realize I had missed these little loving gestures until I had them back in my life.

He pulls away with a smile. “Let’s go.”

We sprint down the hill and hide in the trees at the road’s edge until a car passes and the way is clear.

I have the map that Sonia Kopack gave me in my pocket, but I memorized the way days ago.

“Willow tree,” I direct, angling to the right and ducking under the wire fence. Jinzo’s strides are long, and his backpack rattles with the collapsible shovels and water bottles bouncing around inside.

We both duck under the yellowing leaves of the willow tree.

“Which way is the town?” Jinzo looks left and right, and I turn around to orient myself.

“That way.” I point off into the distance and press my back into the tree. “Ten meters in this direction.”

Jinzo pulls out his datapad, and we walk away from the tree together, watching the meters tick up from Point A to B.

“Do you see the rock?” I ask, looking around our feet. I’m loathe to turn on a flashlight and lose my night vision.

We both turn around a few times, searching the ground. The dry grass crunches under my boots, and the breeze rustles the fields of wheat only a stone’s throw away.

“It’s here,” Jinzo calls out. “We only missed it by a meter.”

He drops to his knees and rips the dead grass from around a large stone, almost a boulder, sticking out of the ground.

“Yes.” I jump for joy. “The directions said the rock would point the way, about five paces from the mark.” I sigh. “What does that even mean?”

“Look, Vivian.” It’s hard to see in the dark, but Jinzo’s hand sweeps up an indentation in the rock that peaks in an arrow shape. He stands, backs up to the arrow mark, and takes five deliberate paces. “Yeah. This is it.” He drops to his knees and pulls off the backpack. “There’s a spot here that’s a little different. Less plant growth.”

“How much time do we have?” I drop to the ground next to him and grab a shovel.

“Plenty. That only took ten minutes.”

Digging is a lot harder than I thought it would be. We’re on land that’s not farmed, and the soil is rocky and stiff from rains and frosts.

Jinzo grunts as he flings some soil to the side. “Why did your brother have to bury it?”

I slam my shovel into the soil. “Because he’s an asshole. I never would have looked here if it hadn’t been for Sonia.”

“Whatever it is,” he says, dropping another shovel of soil to the side, “it better be good.”

“If it’s his dirty underwear, I’m going to kill him.”

My shovel hits something hollow and metallic, and I pause, my heart beating way up in my throat. Jinzo works around whatever I hit and clears away the dirt.

“Here. Help me out.”

He hangs halfway into the hole, so I drop in next to him and wedge my fingers around the box. It’s just like the one Dad gave me with the seeds in it, and that coincidence heats my whole body to blinding levels.

I never asked Dad if Tomu knows about the seeds. What if he’s always known about the seeds?

Oh shit. My stomach lurches as we get the box onto the ground.

Jinzo pulls his datapad from his pocket. “We have twenty minutes to cover this up and get out of here.”

I should just throw this box in a bag. But my fingers itch as they hover over it.

I have to know.

“Vivian,” Jinzo urges as he watches me flip open the box. “We should go.”

We both stop in our tracks.

“Oh no. Oh shit.” My whole body locks up in panic.

My eyes first catalog the money. One, two… ten bundles of 10,000 credits. 100,000 credits just sitting in a box, buried in a field. But I’m sick looking at the four clear containers, each holding seeds.

“Fuck. Tomu knows about the seeds.” I swallow a wail, and my knees shake. If he knows about the seeds, who else does? And what’s the connection to selling the farm?

“Look.” Jinzo pulls a datapad out from under the stacks of bills. He tries to power it on, but it doesn’t budge. “The battery must be dead.”

I snap out of my panic and find my deadly calm. Calm, cool, collected, I am. Grabbing the box, I upend all the contents into Jinzo’s backpack and throw the box back in the hole.

He raises his eyebrows at me.

“This is too valuable for him to just leave behind. Let’s bury the empty box. That way, when he comes back to find it, he’ll know I’ve been here.”

If only I could leave a note, but I don’t carry a pen and paper with me. Not many people do.

“Fifteen minutes,” Jinzo grunts as he shoves the dirt into the hole.

“I know.” My arms ache from digging, but we get the hole filled in fast, and Jinzo covers the spot with dead grass. “Good. It looks almost like we weren’t here.”

“Almost. If the patrols come across this, they may think an animal lives here. Animals sometimes live in the ground, right?”

I almost laugh at his naïveté about ecosystems and animals, but I know he grew up on a spaceship. Dirt, grass, and burrowing fuzzy creatures are not exactly his strength.

“Indeed they do,” I say, holding back my smile.

I follow him along the grounds until we’re closer to the road, but there’s a problem.

Light grows in the distance, not far away, maybe half a kilometer down the road.

“Shit,” I hiss as we take cover. “They’re too close. They’ll see us cross over if we do it here.”

Jinzo looks left and right. “This way. We run along the inside of the property about a kilometer. There’s a dip in the road where we can cross and won’t be seen. Even if they catch up to us.”

In about ten meters, I already hate life. A stitch grows in my side, and my heart is about to burst out of my chest and ask me why I’m so crazy. I hate running. I truly despise running to my very core.

The ground is uneven, and I step in a slight depression that knocks me enough to make my jaw flop and my teeth smash together.

Jinzo grabs my hand and runs at my side. “Come on. Just a little farther.”

I’m about to turn to him and let loose with a snide remark when the ground gives way under my feet, and I crash to the stony rubble. Flipping over, my legs swinging past my head as I tumble, I come to a halt against a giant rock.

“Vivian!” Jinzo swoops into my field of vision.

The world swims, and dirt coats the inside of my mouth.

“Can you move?” His fingers brush my cheeks and skirt down my body.

A groan bubbles up from my stomach. “I think I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

He’s staring down at my left leg, so I sit up to look. My pants are ripped below the left knee and a huge, bloody gash bisects my calf from my ankle to halfway up to my knee.

“Oh God.”

Nausea grabs my stomach and squeezes it. I’m not good with blood or injuries.

“Oh God. Oh God…” I repeat this over and over, wondering what to do now. All of our plans to run and cross the road evaporate from my head. I can only see my leg and blood.

“Up, Viv. If you can walk on it, we go.”

“What if I can’t?” Tears fill my eyes as he pulls me to my feet.

I tentatively put weight on both of my legs and burst into a relieved sob. Nothing else hurts.

“I can walk.” I let go of the tension in my shoulders. “I can walk.”

Jinzo looks past me to the road. “Let’s go. I’ll bandage you up on the other side.”

We limp along to the dip in the road we were aiming for and cross just before the patrol’s lights crest the hill.

Ducking behind a giant rock about ten meters in, I sink to the ground and moan over the state of my leg. Blood runs down over my shoes, and my head swims with panic.

“Ah, it’s only a scratch.” Jinzo dumps his backpack and pulls off his coat and sweater until he reaches his undershirt. “Let’s wrap it up now and then I’ll clean it out when we get back to the ship.”

He removes his undershirt and tears it so he can fashion it into a makeshift bandage.

“I’ve been saying we need a medic on the ship.” My teeth chatter. It’s cold out, and Jinzo’s not wearing anything from the waist up.

“We do, especially if we’re going to be on the float most of the time.” He wraps my leg tight.

The whine of the patrol approaches, and their lights brighten the surrounding sky. Jinzo throws his sweater back on and drapes his coat over me.

“Try to take shallow breaths. Our breath is fogging in this cold air. If they look this way, they’ll see us.”

The patrol, though, is concentrating on the other side of the road because they proceed past us, and a minute later, the area is quiet again with only the sound of night crickets to break our ragged breaths.

I glance down at my leg and cringe at the sight of blood seeping through Jinzo’s undershirt.

He turns and crouches over me, and holding my head in his hands, he looks me in the eyes. “You’re going to be fine. This is a scratch.”

“Mmm.” I nod my head, unable to form words.

“You’re as white as a cloud.” He pulls me up and puts his arm around my waist. “Let’s get back to the Amagi. I’ll clean this up, and we’ll put a nanobandage on it. I’m sure it’ll be fine in no time.”

Ugh, I don’t know. It’s quite a gash, and if I don’t elevate it soon, I’ll lose a lot more blood.

But I don’t say a word. Opening my mouth means I may vomit.

I stumble off into the night, resting on Jinzo, and hoping this clandestine operation was worth all the trouble.