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“So where did you get this fine vehicle? Or did we just steal it?”
He glanced at me. “This is turning you on.”
“I did steal a plane once.” I walked my fingers up his arm. I intended to enjoy every single minute I had left with Sterling, be it eight months or eighty years.
“How the hell did you steal a plane? A real plane? Not a model plane? An actual plane.”
“Next-door neighbor believed all the local kids should be able to fly a crop duster in preparation for the end of days,” I said. “After you got your lessons, local tradition was to steal his plane and get it at least bouncing a few feet off the ground before he put buckshot in you.”
“Air piracy is a federal offense. Sadly, dear pirate, this is my fine truck.”
The truck had gotten the idea that it was supposed to go and picked up speed, heading down a narrow lane out of the airport, although the frame seemed to swim on top of the suspension. I fiddled with the AM dials, seeing if I could tune into the sound of Jupiter’s magnetic field.
Two narrow lanes of poorly maintained blacktop cut through tree-covered hills and bluffs dotted with frozen lakes and frosty rivers. The asphalt had been cracked and patched countless times, and crumbled at the edges of the road, and heaved and buckled, and sometimes it dropped off a sudden rock face that didn’t have any guardrails. Sunlight cut through the snowy trees and peeked around rocks draped in ice.
After miles of narrow, hilly roads we came to a four-way intersection on a relatively flat stretch of land. There was no stop sign, the intersection was defined by the ridges of plowed snow. The only evidence there’d ever been civilization present was a sad, snow-covered, rotted-out shack that leaned dangerously to one side. To the left rose a steep hillside high enough it blotted out the horizon, and to the right a turned-over wheelbarrow sporting a yellow reflector indicated the end of the road.
Sterling leaned on the steering wheel and peered up at the wintery sky. “Welcome to town. About a hundred square miles of nothing, population a hundred, give or take.”
“I love it.”
“Even my mother isn’t that much of a solitary creature.”
“Well, I mean, I can’t blame her for liking Palm Beach. Plantains.”
“I created a monster.”
“Tell me there are plantains in Seattle.”
“Nothing like Palm Beach. Seattle is going to mostly be about coffee, man buns, and flannel.”
“I could see you with a man bun.”
“I think you might still be feverish.”
At the base of the hill were two of the usual PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING signs stapled to posts and shoved crooked into the dirt. The road turned to hard-packed gravel and dirt, cut very wide, and this winded up about two hundred feet through nothing but trees. The first sign of any civilization were the two stone pillars with lanterns that randomly appeared out of the shadows.
The drive eventually changed to cobblestones, opening up onto a wide spread of land cleared of trees. I straightened in my seat at the massive house that perched on the edge of a rocky outcropping. It was stone, wood, and glass, three stories high, illuminated with lanterns. The hill itself continued onwards high enough to the west it would have cast an afternoon shadow over the estate within the hour, but to the north the hill sloped downwards, affording a view of the endless forest below.
The front door flung open and Jun burst out with a “You’re here!”
No, they were there.
Jun barreled down the brick steps. I squeaked, but he grabbed me in an obnoxiously tender tackle-hug, like he was hugging something Cye had made from spun sugar.
I reeled from the greeting, only to have another weight press on me from behind, smushing me into Jun’s bulk. Cye keened close to my ear.
“You look so thin!” Cye mourned. “You smell thin! You feel thin!”
“I could put you in my carry-on,” Jun agreed, releasing me while Cye pet my hair worriedly. “What do you weigh? They didn’t feed you. Sterling said they starved you. Has he been feeding you? I’ve been sending him meal plans!”
“He can’t cook,” Cye fretted, still petting me. “I should have flown down!”
“I’m fine now, I’m fine,” I assured them through the fussing. “I thought you’d all have left—”
“No!” Cye barked, shocking Jun and I into stunned silence. A few birds squawked in the trees. Cye’s gaze darted around nervously, he giggled under his breath, then said again, more calmly, “No.”
“This is way above a little pack’s paygrade.” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Sterling had flown back to Manhattan for a day to give them the full story. Not just the tidbits where FrostFur turned me into an early holiday roast. Everything. All of it. He’d shown them the video.
