“Dreaming?” Jared asked with an amused smile.
“I think I was riding a bike to Germany,” I mumbled, leaning against his shoulder.
Sinking back into oblivion, my breaths grew even. It didn’t take long to let the airplane noise fade into the background.
The lights were dim in the fuselage. My eyes were blurry, and with the poor light, it was hard to focus. Jared had left his seat. I wondered how long we had been en route, and looked behind me to the restrooms.
“Jared?” I call ed back.
Nothing.
I stumbled to the back of the plane, and knocked on the lavatory door. When he didn’t answer, I opened it.
Empty.
My eyes strained to see in the darkness, but I could vaguely make out the top of Jared’s head. He was back in his seat, patiently waiting for me.
“Thirty-thousand feet in the air with nowhere to hide and you stil keep me guessing,” I said, fal ing into my chair.
But it wasn’t Jared. Sitting next to me was Gabe Ryel.
I recoiled, the arm rest digging into my back as I leaned away from him. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s been a while, Nina.”
“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” I said, perturbed. Knowing Gabe was behind my sleepless nights and the reason why Jared could no longer be within two blocks while I slept mustered up suppressed resentment, resulting in a bit more guts than I usual y had.
“Talk Jared into turning back, Nina. We don’t have time for this.”
“Time for what? Why do you insist on being so theatrical? Just tel me what we need to do and we’l do it.”
Gabe didn’t react. “Turn back, Nina.”
His eyes were black again. It made me more than just uncomfortable. His ice-blue eyes replaced by glass bal s in his sockets was downright disturbing.
“No. Claire needs us.”
Gabe didn’t react to my insolence. He simply looked down at his intertwined fingers sitting atop his lap. He wore an expensive suit, the same I remembered when seeing him shadow my father, but his fingers were dirty and worn, as if he’d been digging in soil.
“Find the book.”
“How? Jared has talked to Eli, Samuel…no one wil tel us anything!”
“This fight is not Jared's. It's yours.”
“Great. More riddles,” I said, crossing my arms. My muscles relaxed, thinking about the situation at hand. I looked to Gabe. Even with his shark eyes, he was stil someone from my childhood that I loved. “Is Claire going to die?”
The plane hit turbulence, and a bit of bouncing evolved into what felt like a several-hundred-foot drop. As I gripped the arm rest, Gabe turned to me once again.
“Listen.”
“I can’t listen if there’s nothing to hear!”
“Listen,” he repeated.
The plane fel again, causing the overhead storage bins to vomit various items, and the already dim lights flickered violently until they surrendered, and the fuselage turned dark.
I jerked awake, and Jared sat where Gabe had been. The lights were on, and the floors were clear of debris.
“It’s you,” I said, relieved.
“Yes,” he said with a confused smile, “who did you think it would be?”
After a short pause, I shook my head. “No one. Just forgot where I was for a second.”
Jared nodded, and then rested his hand on my knee. “We’l be there in two hours.”
He spent the remainder of our flight on his cel phone. He made arrangements for a car to pick us up at the airport, and for a friend, Colonel Jason Brand to meet us at Landstuhl with visitor identification.
Upon arrival, the pace accelerated. The second the plane came to a stop, Jared had the few things we brought with us in hand, and he held out my jacket.
“It’s chil y,” he said, helping me twist into the sleeves.
Descending the stairs of the plane, it was clear why Jared had to make so many phone call s. Pilots walked to and from their jets, crew chiefs were parking and marshel ing out jets, while others were busy with flight inspections. Jet engines screamed as they prepared for takeoff.
We had landed at Ramstein air base. Jared’s connections spanned farther than I had imagined.
We rushed off the tarmac to the waiting car. The driver was a stranger to me. He spoke fluent German to Jared, so I was unsure if he was just a local or someone Jared had met before. He looked about Jared’s age. Light blonde hair peeked from his dark green bal cap, but his eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses.
“Warum gehen Sie nach Landstuhl?” the driver said.
“Claire’s Taleh ist verletzt worden,” Jared said.
The driver’s eyebrows pul ed in. He was a friend. Jared mentioning Claire’s Taleh could even mean that he was a Hybrid, and by the features I could see, he was.
“Gutes Glück zu Ihnen, Freund,” he said, shaking his head.
“Danke,” Jared frowned. He leaned toward me, then. “He was asking why we’re here. I told him, and he wished us luck,” he whispered against my cheek.
Nodding, I hugged Jared’s arm to me. Landstuhl was just three miles from the West Gate of the base. The soldier guarding the gate seemed to know the driver, and after checking out his identification, let us through quickly.
An officer in a blue decorated dress uniform waited at the front entrance of the hospital.
“Colonel,” Jared said, shaking his hand. He was definitely not a hybrid, with his dark hair and eyes. “Nina, this is Colonel Jason Brand,” he said.
I shook his hand. “Thank you,” I said.
“Not at al . Claire’s pretty famous around here. We’ve al trained with her at some point,” Jason said with a smal grin. “Jared, we’ve got good news coming from the surgeon,” he said as we fol owed him inside. His voice was firm and no-nonsense. It reminded me of the way my father spoke. “Claire is in the waiting room on the third floor. They know you’re coming.”
Jared nodded. He kept me by his side as we walked to the elevator. The space was quiet, and despite Jason’s positive comment earlier, Jared was on-edge. He rubbed his thumb compulsively against the top of my hand as he held it a bit too tight in his.
“What can I do,” I asked, touching his arm with my free hand.
One corner of Jared's mouth turned up in an appreciative half-smile. “You're here with me. That's al I need.”
The door opened to a bustling hal way. The wal s were devoid of anything but white paint, and the hal s were ful of equipment and people.
Medical personnel attended to the wounded wearing either utility attire or green scrubs. Soldiers past by in wheelchairs, accompanied by their attentive wives or mothers. A few were trying on their new prosthesis and learning to walk again.
My stomach instantly felt sick, wondering what was waiting for us in Ryan’s room.
Jared pushed through a set of double doors and stopped. Claire, tiny and alone, stood at the end of the hal . She was looking down an adjacent hal , but the second she felt Jared’s presence, she slowly turned to face him. His stoic disposition deteriorated as he looked into the eyes of his little sister, and a smal sound escaped from his throat.
Claire ran down the hal at ful speed, and crashed into Jared, wrapping her arms around him. She had run so hard, and hit him with such force, it made a clapping sound that echoed through the hal s as if a door had slammed. Even with Claire’s incredible strength, Jared didn’t budge. He lifted her off the floor, taking her into his long arms and squeezed her tightly.
“You didn’t have to come, stupid!” she said. Her voice was muffled against Jared’s shoulder. When she pul ed back to look at him, tears blurred her round, ice-blue eyes. “But, I’m glad you came.”
She reached for me, and hooked her arm around my neck, adding me to their embrace. We stood there in silence for a long while, knowing once we let go, reality would set in.
Time was not on our side, and too quickly the reunion was over. We walked to the waiting room, dazed and emotional y exhausted. Jared sat beside me on the sofa, and Claire took a chair adjacent to us.
Jared cleared his throat. “I’m going to apologize in advance, Claire. This is hard for me.”
“Déjà vu?” she said in understanding.
“Something like that,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb.
“You mean me,” I said softly.
Jared didn’t meet my eyes; he simply nodded as he stared at the floor. I had tried to imagine many times what he went through while waiting to hear whether I would live or die after the shoot out in the restaurant.
“I remember,” Claire said with a far-off look in her eyes. “Mom was there. Bex was stuck in Dubai with Amir.” She spoke low and slow, looking to Jared with weary eyes. “You sat on that horrible, fake leather chair until you couldn’t stand it, and then you paced the length of the room until we couldn’t stand it. It was harder to watch than when Daddy slipped away. Then Samuel came, and Eli….”
“They were there?” I asked, surprised.
Jared nodded. “They appeared after I call ed for Gabriel. I begged him to take me the second...I didn’t want to know what it would feel like when you were gone.”
“Would it be painful?” I asked, touching his arm.
Jared breathed a heavy sigh. “My father described it as weakness, growing so debilitating that eventual y every system in our bodies stop.” He looked into my eyes. “We literal y need our Taleh’s to breathe.”
Claire watched us for a moment before speaking. “I had to restrain Jared several times. He couldn’t stand the thought of you lying on a table without him, letting strangers—humans—try to save you. He wanted to force his way into the O.R. I’d never seen him so unreasonable.” Claire’s icy eyes melted when she looked at her brother. “Seeing Jared feel so helpless and desperate—Mom waiting to hear if she would lose you and her son—the col ective pain in that room wil be burned into my memory forever. Just like yesterday wil .”
I grabbed her hand. “And I’m okay. Just like Ryan wil be.”
Claire wore what used to be a white tank top, now more of a grey-brown, and khaki utility pants with heavy, lace-up boots. A blood-stained hijab sat bunched up in the chair next to her. Her moist eyes and smeared mascara had mixed with the desert sand, but only around her eyes.
“Did Ryan recognize you?” I asked.
Claire shook her head. “I should have pul ed us out earlier. He looked up at me, but he was pretty out of it. And with the hijab…he could only see my eyes.”
Jared placed his hand on ours. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re both alive.”
“Ryan's company was conducting a raid to extract two contractors that had been missing for a few days. I made a lot of mistakes today, Jared.
They were ambushed. I should have seen it coming. I should have heard the snipers get into position, but my mind was ful of complaints and resentment.” She stared at the floor, deep in thought. “They always raid at night. Everything was off, and I missed it.”
Jared grabbed Claire's jaw in his hands. “You know better than to beat yourself up about this. What were you tel ing me in the waiting room in Providence? He’s alive, Claire. No one else could have gotten him here with a chance.”
She pul ed away from him, and looked out the window. In her mind, she was stil on that street corner, watching the extermination of Ryan's company in real time. “It was like Shock and Awe out there—one explosion after another,” she snapped her eyes shut. The memory replayed in her mind. “I could hear him, but I couldn’t see,” her eyebrows pul ed in, “I couldn’t see.”
Her eyes popped open, and she immediately wiped away her tears. “My first glimpse of Ryan didn’t surprise me: He was sprinting from the debris cloud with Tommy on his back.” She smiled. “Of course it would be Tommy. Ryan's only saved his hide three times already.” Her smiled faded. “They were close. Closer than the others. Ryan felt responsible for him.”
Jared stood, and walked to the other side of the room. He rubbed the back of his neck; the worry and memories were clearly overwhelming him.
“That was when I decided to move in,”” Claire explained, “but a sniper clicked on his sights.” Claire laughed once. “The jerkface got one off after I severed his brain stem with one bul et, Jared. That shit only happens in the movies.”
“So Ryan was hit?” I prodded. My mind raced with where the story would end. I had no idea what injuries Ryan had sustained, and with the vivid detail of bombs and bul ets, I needed her to get to the point.
“Twice. A bul et ricocheted off a rock, and clipped his right lung; the other blew straight through his shoulder. It was fate. Both injuries are going to send him packing.”
Jared glanced at me, and then returned to his seat. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “That was when you evac’d?”
Claire sniffed. “He wouldn’t let Tommy go. I had to pry al ten of his fingers from the guy’s flak jacket.”
“Figures,” Jared grumbled.
“Ryan’s whole unit was wiped out in three seconds. He needed to save one of them. It didn’t matter that Tommy was dead ten meters from the explosions…Ryan was going to carry him home.”
Tears wel ed up in my eyes and overflowed. “Can we see him?”
Jared hugged me to his side. “He can’t know you were ever here. We can’t take that chance.”
Jared's reasoning made sense. Explaining Ryan’s memories of me at his bedside in Landstuhl would be too difficult to explain away to our friends at Brown.
Claire looked at her dirty hands. “I hauled him to an empty shack off the path, stayed the night until Morning Prayer, and then back-tracked East to my Jeep.”
Colonel Brand knocked on the door jamb. Jared and Claire immediately stood, and Jared pul ed me with him.