We left before dawn the following morning, with Sam driving us. He could make anything he touched invisible, which was awesome, but also terrifying when the other cars couldn’t see us. He only used it from the manor into town, where we could get lost into the crowd, but it was not an experience I wanted to repeat.
We drove into a secluded entrance of the Logan International Airport, with passports bearing other people’s names. Sam took me in his arms and said, “I’ll see you soon,” before I watched him drive away, praying to God he was right.
I had most of my stuff in my backpack, except for Cassie’s gloves and Annabelle’s dagger, which Gabriel was holding on to while I went through the security line. We were away from prying eyes with no one but airport employees around us, but that also meant it would be very hard to get anything past them.
“When you guys said you were making arrangements, I thought you found another crop duster in a nearby field, not that we were flying on a private plane,” I told Embry while returning my tiny bag of liquids into my backpack.
“Those aren’t designed for transatlantic flights, and we’re on a time crunch,” he reminded me. It wasn’t like there was anything that said we had to perform Kiara’s Cure under the upcoming crescent moon, but since it was the only supermoon this year, we figured it couldn’t hurt to aim for sooner rather than later. “But we’re not on a private plane, this is just to avoid the crowded airport and board in anonymity.”
“But it’s a passenger plane?” I verified.
“You’ll have a seat,” he teased. Given previous modes of transportation, I wasn’t reassured.
I looked back to Gabriel, to see how he was getting through with all the weapons we were bringing, but after a few words with the security guys, he handed them something I couldn’t see. I tried to read the expression on the guard’s face, but he brought Gabriel to a partitioned area.
“Did Gabriel just get arrested?” I asked Embry in a whisper, as a man in a suit went into the room as well. I was expecting him to buzz at the metal detector because of the shrapnel in his shoulder. He told me it was a hassle because he didn’t have the scars that should go with that kind of wound, but Embry digging the tracker out of him should provide enough plausibility to let him through this time. He never mentioned anyone detaining him for it.
“I don’t think so,” Embry wasn’t concerned.
“He just tried to bribe a security guard,” I pointed out.
“When?” He looked back as if the moment would play out again for him.
“He opened his jacket and handed them something I couldn’t see… how did you guys get us in here?”
“He just showed them his badge,” Embry reassured me, but it didn’t help.
“He thought he could get the dagger through with a fake cop badge?” I whispered, not wanting the government to overhear me if Keisha was right and they bugged airports with microphones. That might explain being brought into a different room. I knew Gabriel had been a soldier in lots of wars, and he did a short stint in a restaurant, but neither of those should allow him to board a plane with weapons.
“His badge is FBI, and it’s real,” Embry said like it wasn’t a huge deal.
“And what, you’re CIA?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he teased before they let Gabriel out of the isolation area, shaking hands with the man in a suit who went in after them.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“We’re good,” he assured me.
They brought us to the plane on one of those trolley things and we boarded from a door in the back. There were two seats in that row for us, and another one in the last row, with the flight attendants.
“See you on the other side,” Embry, who got on first, told me before making his way to the single seat, leaving me with Gabriel.
He put his seatbelt on, placed his arms on the armrests and settled in for the flight. I put my seatbelt on, and was going to sit there quietly, but I wasn’t good at keeping my curiosity to myself.
“You’re FBI?” I turned to ask him in a whisper.
“A long time ago,” he said loosely, looking around to make sure no one was listening to us. All the other passengers were following the safety briefing. “I’ve done lots of things,” he reminded me.
“Was this during my lifetime?” I couldn’t picture him wearing a suit with the earpiece, going to an office every day. Then again, it might explain some of his reluctance for talking and sharing. “Or did the guard just not look at the date?”
“Recently enough that I still have friends there who don’t mind supplying the occasional badge for me. They’ll also vouch for me whenever I get into one of these situations. They know I’m not about to bring a plane down, and they’re used to not asking questions, so they’ll cover for me with a fake op or justifying my need for personal protection,” he said like it wasn’t a big deal.
“You must have been really good at it,” I shrugged, putting my backpack under the seat as the flight attendant came over. I doubted high-ranking FBI officials had that many people they would lie like that for.
“It became something different from what I signed up for, but the guys who joined with me… even though I would never go back, I would do anything for them,” he shared.
“You’ll have to tell me about them some time. Or we can have them over for dinner once all of this is settled. You can share war stories and I can learn your deep, dark secrets…” I teased.
“You are my deep, dark secret,” he looked at me with the intensity that made me weak in the knees, then smiled like he was just teasing me.
“What else have you done?” I asked, steering away from his comment, even though I wanted more than anything to push him while he couldn’t get away.
“Lots of things,” he said dismissively, but I was looking at him expectantly, so he went on. “When I was young, Patrick got sick, so a physician came and made him better. I thought he was God and made it my goal to become a physician, so I could help people like he had. I worked long, hard hours as a laborer to afford medical school, and convinced our local physician to teach me everything he knew in the meantime. Then I died and lost everything, then we were raising Margaret… we were slightly overprotective, so she was my sole priority,” he explained why having a child would prevent him from pursuing his career. “When she got married and didn’t need me anymore…”
“That’s when you went to war for the first time, right?” I asked because he was trying to explain that after Margaret died, he didn’t see the point anymore, so he stopped caring and spent his time trying to die.
“The Seven Year’s War,” he agreed.
“Were you a medic?” I asked, knowing he taught Terrence how to do that job during the Second World War.
“Not officially. The first time I enlisted, I didn’t really care where they put me. When I inevitably died, I couldn’t just go back to my unit as if nothing happened, so I kept finding new ones. If someone got injured, I used what I knew to help them. Some units made me their medic, but I wasn’t recognized for it.”
“Have you practiced since I met you? More than just stitching up friends?”
“I’ve always dabbled in it. Every few decades I go back to med school…”
“Is that necessary?” I cut him off. “Couldn’t you just forge a new diploma, or edit the year on yours?”
“It was. When I started practicing, the United States didn’t even have official medical schools. I went to Harvard when it opened and loved it. Graduated top of my class,” he had a proud smile that made me smile too.
“A Harvard education wasn’t good enough for you?” He basically lived my Ivy League dream. I was supposed to be at Harvard enjoying my first year of pre-med. We had bigger concerns at the moment, but a part of me needed to mourn the life I should have been living.
“It was incredible, but medicine is a field that is constantly improving and expanding. I usually wait a lifetime, then register as the son or the grandson of my previous self. Fraternities allow for legacies, so….”
“You were in a fraternity?” I raised my eyebrows. There were so many things I was learning about him, some of them completely unexpected.
“My roommate brought me in when I first attended, and it truly is a brotherhood that lasts forever. I would use the fact that I was a legacy to get recruited, but once initiation was over, there were higher levels of alumni who knew about me. Some of them were equally Gifted, which made things a lot easier for me.”
“Are there support groups for Gifteds?” I imagined secret societies made up of people like him.
“More like friend groups,” he considered it. “Embry established a group in Italy that he goes back to every few years. I have the fraternity whenever I go back to school, or who reach out sometimes for favors, but they’re not exclusively like us. Sometimes we just run into people who wake up after dying, or who talk about the Great War like they were there… we make friends.”
“Did you warn your friends I was coming to Harvard?” I realized what his fraternity ties implied.
“I was thrilled when you got in. Had things not gone… upside down, they would have invited you to join our sister sorority. I personally thought you were better than that, but they felt it would be incredibly rude not to ask.”
“I can’t picture you as a preppy frat boy,” I shook my head at the idea.
“I wasn’t. I was in a fraternity, but I made sure I was a legacy, or there is no way I would get an invitation.”
“Did Embry ever go to school with you? He’s always had weird jobs whenever I ask.”
“He’s been a soldier, a barista, a few years of law school, but I don’t think he finished…”
“His painting is just a hobby, like your drawing?”
“How do you know about my drawing?” he asked.
“I always suspected it, but this was the proof,” I showed him the moonstone necklace he gave me for my birthday, with an image of Sam, Deanna and Clara that he scratched into the stone.
“I dabble,” he dismissed his artistic side. “We both have properties and investments from so long ago that we don’t need income, but we get bored sometimes. He likes to try new things, like ice cream shops and dog walking. I never know what he’ll be doing,” he smiled.
“What was your most recent job?”
“I’ve been working events more than job recently.”
“Like concerts and festivals?” It didn’t seem likely.
“No,” he smiled at me and shook his head. “I got called in to work the Oklahoma City Bombing by an old FBI friend, then I volunteered as a doctor after 9/11…” he explained what he meant, and how he knew about the fertilizer bombs I made at the plantation.
“You help people,” I summed it up.
“I try to,” he agreed.
“What will you do when all of this is over?” I asked. For me, the likelihood was that it would never be over. I would either die because we lost, or because of the curse. For him, he had a deadline of ten years before he could do whatever he wanted for a few decades.
“Keep checking in on you, make sure you’re okay and you get your happily ever after,” he raised his shoulders like it was the same thing as always, but his eyes lingered on me before he looked out the window as we took off.
“What if everything goes right and we defeat him, and you guys get to live normal lives… don’t you think you would want a break? To not worry about protecting someone else, but live your own life for a change?”
“I would definitely enjoy a stress-free vacation once we defeat Henry,” he agreed, not really believing that was likely. “But no matter what happens, or where I am, you can always count on me. I will forever be there for you.” We locked eyes and I could feel my cheeks burning before the seatbelt signs went off.
“Okay,” I breathed, letting the moment linger a bit longer before looking at the screen in front of me. “Want to watch a movie?” I asked.
“Sure,” he cleared his throat and adjusted his position before we settled in to watch an in-flight movie. It was a comedy that neither of us got into with all the other things on our minds, but it was nice to just sit there and pretend we weren’t on our way to find things to help break a curse that would kill me if we didn’t reverse it, and stop the Big Bag who wanted to rip my heart out.