Luke (Bear Shifter) (New World Shifters) (24 page)

A few minutes before we were supposed to land, the ding of the fasten seatbelt sign woke Lupe up.

The flight had been uneventful so far, but the longer it took to get back down on the ground the more I was worried that something terrible would happen before I could fall asleep beside Darius. I was well aware that the odds were against me. After all, I didn't even know where he physically was, and I wasn't really sure how to begin tracking him down.

“Before you say anything,” Lupe said, “get that shitty thought out of your head. And don’t lie to me about what you’re thinking, either, because I can see it written all over your face. I’m with you until the end on this, and that’s all there is to it. Get used to it.”

I smiled, despite how guilty I was for dragging her along on my wild ride. Despite my misgivings, I was glad that Lupe was here with me. I may be guilty about bringing her to Alaska with me, but if ever there was a time when two heads were going to be better than one, this was it.

“I'm sorry I fell sleep,” she told me. “I didn't mean to.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. Really. I'm glad you did, to be honest.”

“How long until we land?”

I shrugged. “Fifteen minutes or so, I think. I'm not certain, but it can’t be much longer than that.” I wanted to look outside of the plane. By either some sick twist of fate or a humorless airline employee’s effort not to discriminate, I’d been assigned a window seat when we checked in.

Even though I’d offered to swap with Lupe half a dozen times she refused to accept it. I spent the entire time standing in the queue while the TSA tried to decide which of us was a terrorist trying to tell Lupe that a window seat was wasted on me. It was pointless to fly to one of the most beautiful places in the world and put a blind person in that spot, but she just kept shushing me, jokingly saying that if she really wanted to see the outside world, she’d hang out with someone other than me.

I shifted in my seat, eager for the plane to land. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Almost 8 PM. The light is weird up here though, though it could be anytime from dusk to dawn, if you ask me. It's snowing, it looks like. As we get lower, the moonlight picks out the little details down there, which makes everything feel brighter than it is. It’s strange.”

I smiled, pleased that her first impression of Alaska was a good one. “It sounds lovely.”

“It is.” Lupe sighed breathlessly. “Do you think we should stay somewhere tonight? Find a hotel or something?”

“We probably should…”

“But you’d rather hit the ground running, right? Let’s see the how long it takes us to rent a car,” she told me. “Then we can plan our next move after that.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.” I felt the plane begin its descent, and only a moment or two later the rumble through the floor as it lowered its landing gear.

There was movement to my side as Lupe leaned past me and peered out the window. “Well, that’s something new. I'm so used to flying into LAX with its endless circles and holding patterns, that I forgot that an airport like this may simply line you up with the runway and let you land. We’ll probably be on the ground in a couple minutes, and I don't think it’ll take long to taxi to our spot after that.”

I smiled. Saving time was a good thing, and I was glad we could do it. More and more I had a feeling that we were going to need every second that we had up here if we were going to find out where Darius was before it was too late.

Sure enough, the hubbub in the airplane continued as people woke or began to pull down their overhead bags despite the insistence of the stewardesses to leave them where they were for now. The plane tilted as it angled its wings for the final approach, and the next thing I heard was a soft bump of rubber against asphalt as we came back down to solid ground. The captain welcomed us to Alaska, then swung the plane around and brought it to a halt.

The wind howled outside, screaming along the hull. I heard what sounded like hail bang away at the glass, and I couldn’t help but flinch away.

“Yeah,” Lupe told me, “there’s a pretty big storm going on out there. I didn’t want to say anything, just in case it freaked you out or something.”

I frowned and reached out to push my palm against the glass. It thrummed with the impact of thousands of shards of ice thrown by the gale blowing outside. “Does anyone look worried?”

I felt her shrug. “I’d say the plane’s full of tourists, which means they don’t know what to think. Anyway, here we go,” Lupe said, and I heard her stand up and get our bags down. We were near the front of the plane, where people who required assistance got to sit, and I heard the soft kiss of the airlocked doors being opened followed soon after by a pleasant voice inviting us to enjoy our stay in ‘The Land of the Midnight Sun’.

“Thanks, we certainly will,” Lupe told her, helping me to my feet before dragging my bag out of my arms and into hers. “Give me that. I told you I didn't pack anything, so I’ve got nothing to carry. There's no reason for me to have my hands empty and for you to have yours full, Grace.”

I wasn't going to argue. Without my cane, I was going to need to use one of my hands to feel the back of the chairs down the row, and so I looped the other around Lupe's elbow so that she could guide me out.

As soon as I stepped out of the plane and onto the little tunnel thing they stretched out from the airport, it hit me. I’d been afraid to leave my house, and here I was… I hadn’t just left the house. I’d left the city. I’d left the state. And now, I was leaving all of that behind as well.

Stepping into the airplane felt like landing on the moon. I was shaking with a heady mixture of adrenaline and anticipation, and my mind was spinning like a top. I was scared too, though I didn't even know what to be most afraid of: the risk that I’d be stranded in Alaska without finding Darius, or the chance that I’d find him and still be unable to help.

My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips. “Do you think we should call a taxi, or is there a rental car place attached to the airport?”

With my hand on Lupe's elbow, it was easy to feel her shrug. “I don't really know. I put my phone in your luggage like an idiot. Do you think you could use yours to find out?”

I quickly reached into my pocket and turned my phone back on. They still made you shut your electronics down when you flew, which to most people was a source of constant annoyance but to me didn't usually make a difference one way or the other.

As soon as it connected to the network, it buzzed in my hand and announced to the world that I had a text message. That's the thing about being blind and using technology; you don't get any privacy. Everything you own either screams at you or narrates a text message to you in the loudest, most comically computer voice imaginable.

“Hey Grace,” my phone chirped, loud and clear, “Rachel here. Had to run from the cabin. About to put Darius on a plane with a doctor. He'll be at Anchorage Hospital. Ask for Sasha, she knows the deal. Wish us luck!”

“Well,” Lupe said, and I could hear the embarrassed smile for me in her voice, “I guess that answers that.”

“I suppose it does,” I said happily. Darius had been on the way to a hospital! Even better, we knew which one, and we had a name to chase. As breadcrumbs went, this was a big one.

Since neither one of us had any checked luggage, it was fairly easy to get out of the arrival area. Maybe I was jetlagged already, but it seemed later than it really was. I was used to the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, and coming to this airport with its lack of footsteps and chatter and blaring, only half intelligible announcements about white zones and unattended packages was disconcerting to say the least.

We passed a series of doors that opened automatically, one by one. An icy wind and harsh, almost gritty snow blew in at us. I felt the cold flakes stick to my face before begrudgingly melting on my cheeks, and I noticed with more than a little trepidation that the gusts were stronger with each door we went by.

“Looks like it's getting pretty nasty out there out there,” Lupe told me, not without some trepidation.

“Do you think we’ll be okay to make it to the hospital?”

I felt her glance over, and I pictured her looking through the windows. “Well, there's snow on the ground, but I suppose that’s no surprise. We
are
in Alaska, after all.”

“How much snow?”

“I guess that depends on where you look. I can't really see the road from here, but it looks like it's anywhere between knee and waist high everywhere else. So, a lot?”

“Are we snowed in?” I asked, hearing my voice crack with worry. It felt like nature was conspiring to keep me from Darius, now that I finally knew where he was.

“No way. I'll just make sure we rent something with four-wheel drive and we’ll be fine. Relax, okay?”

We passed another set of automatic doors, and as these whisked open the wind they let in was almost enough to push me off my feet. Lupe staggered as well, and her earlier confidence was clearly shaken. “I'll get you there,” she told me. “I promise.”

“Thank you for everything. I know you might not want to be here, but I really am grateful.”

“I'm happy to help, you know that. At least you should… And what's that shit about whether I want to be here or not? I thought I told you to get that out of your head. I'm right where I need to be, helping a friend get to a friend.”

“If you say so. I sure as hell don’t think I could do it without you though.”

“Damn straight,” she said, the words brightened by the smile I could hear on her face.

“And I see a rental car place up ahead,” Lupe whispered in my ear. “Things are coming together Grace, I can feel it.”

I hoped that she was right, but the tone of her breathy voice reminded me of what she’d said on the plane in her sleep.
Seven hills for seven sisters. It’s like it was meant to be
. What had she been trying to tell me? I was sure I’d heard of seven important hills before, and the phrase seven sisters meant something too, but try as I might I couldn’t remember what…

There wasn't a lot of time to dwell on that, since Lupe was already picking up her pace and hurrying up to the counter to get us some wheels. “Let's rent a car that’ll push through this blizzard and be on our way, huh?”

I shivered. “Blizzard?”

“Oh hush. You know I'm just being dramatic.”

Maybe she was and maybe she wasn’t, but as I stood there and eavesdropped on her conversation with the clerk at the rental car place, he used the word blizzard at least three times as he tried to dissuade us from renting anything. According to him, the storm was bad and getting ready to be a lot worse. “Two lovely young ladies like ourselves would be better off camping out in the airport and enjoying the free Wi-Fi. Better to stream some Netflix than to risk our necks on the roads.”

“Please,” I told him. “We desperately need to get to the hospital.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“It's urgent, but both of us are healthy. There’s someone there who may not have very long, though.”

“Well, if you insist on going, I’ve got a Land Cruiser that would get you there. It's got a winch and everything, in case you get stuck. Do you know how to use it?” he asked Lupe, and I heard the shuffle of papers as he pushed them across the counter.

“Nope,” she said cheerily. “Wouldn’t have a clue.”

“How about you?” he asked me.

I did my best to match the bright, chirpy tone of Lupe's voice. “You’re barking up the wrong tree over here, buddy. I'm fucking blind.”

There was a long, drawn out silence, and I couldn't help but break it with a giggle. I pictured the look on the poor guy's face, but then I heard Lupe sign the contract and grab the keys.

We were on our way. “Ready or not,” she said.

I finished the thought for her. “Here we come.”

“You bitch. He went as white as a ghost when you told him you were blind,” Lupe told me under her breath as we retreated outside into the teeth of the wind. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Really?”

“No way! I mean, he didn’t know how to react, but it was priceless. Even if the only cool thing I see this whole trip is the look on that guy’s face, it’ll be worth it.”

“I’m glad,” I said, but the storm stole my words and hurled them away. As the wind cut through me, I realized just how poorly prepared we were for the weather. In an instant, I was freezing. Whatever warmth that I’d managed to drag with me from the airport was gone, and the next moment my fingers and face were completely numb. If I could see, I was sure I’d be marveling at the frost of my breath right now.

I heard the chatter of Lupe's teeth, and felt her pull her arms close around herself. “Come on, I think the car’s over there. Neither one of us is dressed for this. We better hope that the damn thing starts, because if it breaks down halfway between here and wherever the hell the hospital is, we’ll probably both freeze to death.”

“We’ll get there,” I said, forcing optimism. “I didn't come all this way just turn into a useless popsicle on the side of the road.”

“Well, let's hope you're right.” Lupe tugged me along. I heard the jangle of the keys as she unlocked the car before helping me into it. It was pretty high up off the ground, and as I clambered inside I was glad to be inside a vehicle that felt like it could push through the storm that was growing around us. Ten seconds later I listened to Lupe open the door and get in behind the steering wheel before starting it up.

The engine roared to life, and when” she flicked some switches I said, God, I hope those are for the heaters.”

“They are. And there’s one here marked ejection seat,” she told me with a laugh, “so just be careful what you say to me from here on out.”

The
tick tick tick
of a blinker bounced around the car for a second, and then we were off. I heard the strange, crunching sound of snow beneath our tires and felt the traction give a little and then catch once more.

“It's got a GPS,” she told me, “and a button marked points of interest.” I heard her tap the screen a few times. “The hospital isn’t that far away. Let’s see if we can make it there, okay?”

“Please,” I said. “I know you're tired. I am too, but I don't want to wait. You can just drop me off if you want. I'll find hi, and stay the night. You can text me or call me in the morning after you've had a good night sleep in a hotel and we can meet up then.”

“How many years are you going to have to know me before realize that sort of shit won’t ever fly with me? I'll get you there, and I'll stay right by your side the whole time.”

I smiled. “You really are a pain in the ass, but I'm glad you're a pain in
my
ass.”

“That's-”

“Your job,” I finished for her. “I know. And after this, you’re due for both a raise and a promotion.”